Chapter 19 #2
Between my reaction after the kitchen fight to the countless times I’d leaned on Harthon to save me or guide me through his world, to my fear from a silly dream—was it not obvious?
“Fear. Weakness. Dependence. I’m out of my depths and haven’t handled it.
” Admitting this was a weakness within itself, but I was too worn down to hold it in any longer.
“Before you told me how I felt. Are you now trying to tell me what I think?”
“Am I wrong?”
“I’ve seen resilience, strength, and an independence so stubborn it sometimes drives me mad.
So, yes, you’re wrong.” My lips parted on a breath, but he continued, trapping my gaze with an unwavering sincerity that echoed in every word.
“This was never your world, Etarla. It was nothing you ever planned for or expected, and you’re certainly not here by choice.
You’ve handled it in a way that few ever could, and that’s because of who you are at your core. For that, I’m grateful.”
Each earnest word chipped at the disappointment and doubt that’d been an ever-present undercurrent ever since this all began.
Whether I’d acknowledged it or not, it had always been there, weighing me down and weakening the confidence I’d once had in spades.
My eyes became warm as my throat tightened, tears of relief, of exhaustion threatening to spill over and negate all of what Harthon just said.
With the way he watched me, there would be no hiding them.
“It was the same nightmare I always have, but Koerlyn appeared,” I blurted, desperately seeking a distraction to stem the flow of water. “I guess it’s more of a memory than a dream, and I’ve had it so many times it doesn’t bother me anymore. But this time was different.”
“What usually happens in the memory?” he asked, curling his arm into a pillow and resting his head on it.
I supposed my arms would make for comfortable pillows, too, if they had such big muscles.
I drew in air, unsure of when it’d become okay for me to reveal this part of my past to the man before me. I’d only ever told Merelda of the haunting memory. Granted, she was the only person I was close to.
Harthon was silent as I hesitated, inviting my thoughts but not forcing them forward.
It was encouragement enough. I could trust him with this.
“When I was young, very young, my parents were killed. Raiders came to our village and slaughtered everyone, then burned our homes to the ground. I obviously survived.”
He grew still, lips compressing into a hard line as he waited for me to continue.
“I remember being inside our home. My parents were frantic. They tried to leave, but there was no escape, so they shoved me into an empty chest to hide me. I heard them die, and I opened the chest a crack to see the man who did it. That’s all I remember, and I dream of it regularly,” I said simply.
When Harthon spoke, his voice was as rugged as the ground beneath us. “Can you describe the man?”
“I only saw his back. He was big, his skin was tan, and he was naked above the waist. There was a strange scar on his back. It looked like a big spiral,” I answered, the murderer’s image clear as day in my mind.
Harthon’s face was too shadowed to see what flickered in his eyes, but I thought I saw a muscle in his jaw pop with tension. After a quiet moment, he said, “The person that you want to return home to is the person who raised you.”
There was no point in denying it, not now. From the moment I attempted to escape, Harthon had realized that there was someone important to me back home. He’d done nothing then. I knew with certainty that Harthon would not harm her to coerce me.
“I consider her my mother,” I said quietly.
“Then we should bring her to Fifth.”
Surprise ricocheted. Had I been wrong? Harthon was determined to enter Centralis, but he wouldn’t hurt a kind old woman to get there. Unless he would—
“For her protection,” he finished.
“Absolutely not.” My immediate reaction came out before I could think on it. Drag her so far away from home? We couldn’t do to her what was already done to me.
“Koerlyn has soldiers wandering Second. He’ll use her as leverage over you, over me,” he explained patiently.
As if I didn’t know that. “That’s exactly why I was trying to go home to her,” was my heated reply. The second I finished speaking, I wished I could swallow my words back down.
Before now, Harthon had likely assumed that I wanted to leave because I missed home and didn’t want to be involved in his quest. Both were truths, but they were weak motivators, not strong enough to keep me persistent in my efforts to return home.
Now, like a fool, I’d admitted that concern for Merelda’s life was my main driver.
He would know that this kind of motivation wasn’t one to fade.
He would know that, unless I fulfilled my use soon, I would be running away to care for Merelda and keep her safe.
He would never drop his guard. He might even stop training me. If I ran without the ability to protect myself and Merelda, we would likely die.
Dammit.
“There is nowhere you can hide with her that will keep you safe,” he said, his voice turning hard with firm conviction.
“From you?”
His nostrils flared. “Me finding you first would equate to saving you. If Koerlyn found you, he wouldn’t hesitate to inflict unimaginable pain on you and use this woman to meet his ends. But you already know that.”
“No one would find us.”
Harthon lifted to his elbow again and shifted toward me, the tension emanating from him nearly suffocating in its presence.
I refused to cower, even as he lowered his face toward mine.
“You are not out of your depths now, but if you flee, you will be. Neither of us would stop until we found you. For me, you are the only key to saving people, to upending this fucked up order and making things right. You are what’s going to save our world.
For Koerlyn, you are the only key to domination and control.
We would both pour all our resources into seeking you out, Etarla, no matter how long it took.
I hope that I would be faster than Koerlyn, but that’s not a guarantee. ”
Despair rose at the blatant truth he set out before me. “Don’t worry. Koerlyn wouldn’t set his hands on me, because if he found me first, I’d make it impossible for him to use me.”
His eyes widened at my implication. “And what about this caretaker you love so much? Would you kill her too?” he challenged.
“If I’m gone, he won’t need to hurt her.”
“Koerlyn doesn’t need to hurt anyone. He does it for sport. Or did you not realize that when you were his prisoner for days?”
How dare he.
Anger rolled into fury, and I shoved my face closer to his, my nails digging into my palms. “I assure you, what Koerlyn does for sport will forever be imprinted in my mind.”
His lips curled on a snarl. “Then don’t pretend that the possibility of Koerlyn finding you—of you having to kill yourself to escape him—is remotely acceptable. It’s not.”
“Because if I’m dead, you can’t get into the Domus.”
Without warning, he lurched forward, twisting me onto my back and holding my hands to the ground with a growl of frustration.
“Because I don’t want you to fucking die, Etarla.
This isn’t about the Domus. It’s about your life.
Do you not get that?” His chest bumped mine as he breathed hard, his nose nearly touching mine as shadowed irises darted between mine.
I was too shocked by his words and actions to struggle against him. I was only here because of what the magvis did to me. How could I be anything beyond that? “It’s about the Domus too, though,” I whispered.
Harthon exhaled, dropping his forehead to mine as he clenched his eyes shut.
When he lifted his head and spoke, his voice had slightly calmed, almost sounding tired, though his grip remained on my wrists.
“Like I said, you can help me save this world, Etarla. But whether or not you lead me into the Domus, I’ll protect you. ”
I shook my head, not understanding. “Why?”
“Because I’ve decided it,” was his simple response, as if it sufficiently answered the heavy one-worded question.
It didn’t. Not at all. One hundred half-formed questions swirled in a confused frenzy, but all of them scattered when I saw Harthon’s gaze fixed on my lips. Just as it was when he woke me from my dream, except this time, it didn’t move.
Heat blossomed in my stomach and traveled through my veins as my attention flew to his overwhelming presence, the way his chest brushed mine, the restrained strength in those hands that so carefully held my wrists.
He was always so careful with me. Careful, but not coddling.
Empowering. My heart paused as his lips lowered, my eyes fluttering shut of their own accord.
There was the whisper-soft brush of his lips against mine. So fleeting, it was more of a touch than a kiss, not that I knew what it was like to be kissed, but I wanted…I wanted more from him.
Instead, cool air swept in as he released me.
I opened my eyes in time to see him pull away and shift back onto his mat, his face unreadable and mine the complete opposite, because never in my life had I felt that type of anticipation, that type of want, and I—how did one just recover from something like that?
“It will be difficult getting into Two without being caught. If we can’t cut through the land, we’ll have to find a window between ocean storms and circle around by ship.
It could take a few weeks to get to her, but we will be bringing her to the Citadel, where she’ll be safe and with you,” he rumbled in that dangerous bass, returning to our previous conversation as if what had just happened hadn’t.
My earlier desire to fight was gone, the points he’d made regarding Merelda’s safety too strong to be denied.
She would be safer with him, with us, in his city center.
“Her name is Merelda. You’ll need to get her brother Marsik, too,” I said, voice trembling from the sensations that still lingered on my lips.
He nodded. “We’ll get them both. Now go to sleep. You won’t fall back into that dream.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because I’ll be here with you.”
Then he tugged me toward him and I went, not because I needed his warmth, but because I wanted to, whether or not it was a prudent thing to do.
I just wanted.