Chapter 20 #2
“Someone attacked her in the streets. I just happened to be there at the right time,” Abby replied, shaking her head. “Stabbed the prick in the shoulder.”
Each word she said was a spear to the gut. Sapphire had suffered so much at the hands of men. Never would she suffer from mine. I swore it to myself.
“Shall I wake her for you?” Abby’s voice was soft, but hesitant.
For once I didn’t know what to do. If I woke her and caused her distress, it would do more harm than good. But this was what Matthias and I had risked our lives for, to find her.
Slowly, I nodded. “We will wait in the other room,” I offered as Matthias and I ducked back under the doorframe.
From the short distance, I heard soft mumbles. Abby’s gentle voice coaxed Sapphire awake. “Hey, easy now. You’re safe, all right? It’s just me.”
There was a ruffle of sheets, a quick intake of breath. Sapphire's panic cut through the quiet like a blade. “What is it?”
“There is someone here to see you. His name is—”
“A man?” Sapphire’s voice was laced with fear. “You brought men here to me? You just want money like the rest of them.”
The sound of her fear hit me hard. My chest tightened until I could barely breathe. After everything, after clawing my way across Oscuro to find her, this was what she thought—that she’d been sold out again.
I started for the door, but Matthias grabbed my wrist. “Wait.”
Abby’s voice wavered but stayed gentle. “No, it’s not like that.”
“Of course it is, it’s always like that, and to think I trusted you even for a moment,” Sapphire spat.
I gritted my teeth. I couldn’t take it any longer. The distance between the two rooms felt like the span of a universe . . . like a punishment. My feet moved before Matthias could stop me again, carrying me through the doorway.
Sapphire’s head snapped up the moment I stepped inside. Her breath hitched, eyes wide and wild. Recognition flared—disbelief, horror, something I couldn’t name.
She scrambled backward, pressing herself into the corner of the bed, knuckles white in the blanket. Obsidian wings curled over her head, wrapping around her like a cocoon. They were beautiful and damning all in one glance. A reminder of where she dwelt. A place void of true light.
Under her blue eyes hung dark circles, like she hadn’t slept for weeks. How could she in a place like this? Her face was sunken in, cheek bones sharp and pale. A skeleton of herself.
I froze where I stood. Heat coursed through my veins, my stomach churning.
“Hello, Sapphire.” My voice came out low, broken.
She stared at me like I was a ghost. Maybe to her, I was.
Abby moved over to my side. “I think she’s in shock.”
I nodded. “I won’t go any closer.”
She left the room, ushering Matthias with her. I waited until it was quiet before reaching for the wooden chair to the left of me. Sapphire still hadn’t spoken a word. I moved the chair a little closer to the bed, careful to keep my distance so she still had space to feel safe.
When my eyes finally found hers, a single tear tracked down her cheek. I bit the inside of my lip, holding back the urge to dart across the room and take her in my arms. “It’s me . . . Nik.”
She nodded gingerly. “I know.” Her voice trembled. She looked so frightened, or in pain—perhaps it was both.
“I’m from Lucius . . . the Light Kingdom in the afterlife,” I said, wanting to offer her some form of hope. I needed her to see that I wasn’t a threat.
Her expression didn’t soften—it shattered. “How—how is that possible? You’re not a Shadowkin?”
I shook my head slowly as I stayed rooted to the spot, but everything in me wanted to move closer. “I serve the Light King . . . as a soldier. That’s why I can move between the Veils.”
Her eyes darted from my wings, to my face to the floor and then back to me, like she was trying to understand. She adjusted her position on the bed, wincing with pain. “You’re wings—”
There would be time later to explain everything, right now she needed medical attention. “Where does it hurt?
Her blue eyes widened as her brows drew together. “Wh—what do you mean?”
I gestured gently to the bruises on her upper arm. “The pain—where does it hurt?”
She hesitated for a moment. Slowly, she lifted her dress, revealing dark purple and brown splotches on her ribs. “Here.”
Anger simmered under my skin like oil boiling in a pot. I wanted to rip every single soul apart who’d dared to lay an uninvited hand on her skin. I wanted to tear their eyes out and shove them so far down their throats that they’d watch themselves choke.
I closed my eyes and sucked a deep breath in. “Let me take you to a healer in Lucius. You don’t have to endure this anymore.”
Sapphire scoffed, shoving her dress back down. “What would you know? This is what I am, Nik. This is what happens to women like me.”
Her eyes burned into mine now, daring me to disagree.
I opened my mouth to speak, but she continued.
“Men pay three coins for me. That’s all I’m worth.
And when they don’t pay, they take anyway.
That's my life. That's what I chose to do, instead of beg on the streets. Instead of starving. And even after I died I chose the same. It was easy, hating myself and everyone who touched me. So don’t sit there and look at me like I’m something to save.
I’m not. I deserve everything this filth of a place throws at me. ”
My legs ached to stand, to rush to her side, to beg her to come with me. But I couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t take the decision from her. “No, you don't," I shook my head. “You have a choice.”
She looked at me then, eyes glinting in the dim light, anger and exhaustion warring in her face. “A choice to what? Keep pretending I’m worth saving?”
I held her gaze. “You are.”
Her voice cracked, just slightly. “How do you know?”
I hesitated, only for a moment. As soon as I opened my mouth it would change everything. She’d either welcome me with open arms, or she’d trust me even less than she did now. Yet I knew if I didn’t come clean, she’d find out sooner or later and I thought that would hurt her even more.
“Because,” I said quietly, “there’s a light in you the dark cannot touch.”
The room froze. Tension shifted from fear to disbelief as her eyes widened until the blue was almost gone.
Sapphire sat forward, shoulders squared, inky black wings crushed against the wall. “Who told you that?” her voice never once wavered.
My posture slumped, and without taking my eyes from her, I reached behind me and plucked a feather from my wing. I brushed the charcoal from it, revealing its true colour underneath. Red.
Her breath hitched. For a moment, she just stared, the colour draining from her face. Something in my chest ruptured. I hated this. I hated how she looked at me like I was one of those men who took something from her without asking.
Perhaps I had.
“You?” Her voice cracked, disbelief giving way to fury as the truth settled in. “You were the one watching me? Following me?” She backed up in the corner of the bed again, the blanket clutched to her chest.
“I’m sorry, Sapphi—” I leaned forward in the chair, but she flinched, and it stopped me cold.
“Why would I go anywhere with you?” she snapped, voice rising. “You’re no different from the rest of them. Just another man who lies through his teeth.”
The words punctured a hole straight through my heart. I stood this time, but I didn't move towards her. I didn’t even bother to defend myself. “I never meant to lie to you. I just didn’t know how to tell you the truth.”
Tears welled in the corner of her eyes. “Leave.”
“Sapphire, please—”
“Get out!”
The sound cracked through the air, final.
I nodded once, throat thick. “All right.”
With a constricted chest and an aching heart, I turned towards the door but paused.
Reaching my hand into my trouser pocket, I brushed against the coin—the one I’d brought in case she chose to come back.
I hesitated, then I pulled it from its secret place and set it gently on the seat of the chair.
“That coin means freedom, Sapphire. If you take it, you can leave this place behind.”
I locked eyes with hers. “You are more than the life you’ve been given,” I said quietly, not trusting my voice to hold steady. “And outside these walls, the light waits for you.”
She didn’t answer. So I turned for the door, and I didn’t look back.
Matthias looked crestfallen when I stepped back into the room. They would have heard everything.
From my other pocket, I pulled a bag of coins I kept there, and handed it to Abby. “Please use this for anything Sapphire might need. Try and keep her with you as long as you can.”
She nodded softly. “I’m sorry, Nik.”
Matthias laid a hand on my shoulder, a gesture of comfort. He held some paper out to Abby. “This is ashink paper. Something I’ve been working on. If she needs us, all you have to do is write on it, fold it four times and say my name. It will winnow to me.”
Abby’s brow rose in surprise. “Impressive, Prince.”
Not long after, the world tilted. The air shifted and we winnowed back to Lucius with the weight of Sapphire’s silence buried deep in the soft fissures of my heart.