I startled, my mouth falling open.
“He never admitted as much,” she continued, as if patricide was common in her world. “But one night, our father wandered off, drunker than usual, and they found him the next day on the riverbank. Drowned.”
“He might’ve just hit his head and fallen in,” I said. Not to defend Renwell, but to offer Nikella some peace of mind.
She pressed her scarred lips together. “No other signs of injury. And he hated the river. Couldn’t swim. Never went near water if he could help it. He’d also beaten Renwell rather badly that night. It was just like my brother to make someone’s worst fear come true.”
I remembered the way Renwell had occasionally protected me against Father’s wrath, had told me I was better than him.
“Perhaps he was protecting all of you from your father,” I said.
Nikella’s gaze sharpened. “Your desire to see the good in people is admirable until it makes you willfully blind.”
Wounded, I opened my mouth to argue, but she cut me off. “I told you before that Renwell doesn’t care for you or me. That I was like you when I was younger. Any time he stepped between me and our father or me and Korvin, I thought he might love me. But he was simply playing with my emotions, the way Korvin played with my pain. He wanted to see how far he could twist them. I understood the truth when he left me with Korvin without a backward glance.”
She broke off, breathing hard. Her eyes grew distant as she gazed east. “When you’ve experienced very little real love in your life, it’s hard to see it even when it’s standing right in front of you, asking you to choose it.”
I frowned. Was she speaking of Jek? Of the feelings he told me to pass on to her?
My gaze fell to Aiden. I’d experienced love from Mother, Everett, and Delysia. With friends like Maz and Ruru, Melaena and even Nikella.
But with Aiden? Our shared past and broken trust. The new heated moments we shared. The teasing that felt too real. It confused me. Made me want to run toward it and away from it all at once.
“Or,” Nikella continued, “when your heart is broken and even the smallest bit of comfort is addictive, it’s easy to mistake a few calculated words and actions as the love we seek.”
My heart rose to my throat. I knew where she was going with this.
Her eyes were kind as she said, “Renwell stepped in when you were vulnerable. He hardened and twisted your heart when it was at its weakest. He used you, manipulated you, and tried to forge you into a weapon he could leash to his side. That sort of treatment would cloud anyone’s judgment.”
I ducked my head to hide the tears that brimmed in my eyes. Every word rang so true, I felt deaf from their clamor.
She wasn’t telling me she thought I was weak. She was telling me she understood. That her life with her family had shaped her in ways that still harmed her today.
Moments slipped by while I struggled to fit everything she’d said into my heart.
I lifted my head. “You want me to understand you. Understand him. So that I won’t end up like any of you.”
A small smile disrupted the scar that split her face. “Exactly. You have a future, Kiera. A good one, if you fight for it. One that could include love and happiness if you let it.” Nikella purposefully glanced at Aiden. “You inspired him to want hisown future for once. Your instincts are good. You’ll learn to trust them again.”
I blinked in surprise. Was she telling me to pursue Aiden? Did she think there was any world in which we could be together after all this?
Even as the thought crossed my mind, so did the image of the two of us exploring the world together. Sailing across sky-blue water. Scrambling over sandy rooftops. Watching Arduen’s Mountain set itself aflame. All in each other’s arms. Nothing between us and nothing in our way.
Free.
The campfire hissed and crackled, shattering the illusion in my mind. Such a life couldn’t happen.
I refused to think of the darkest potential future.Dead and defeated.No. Aiden would be king. I knew it in my bones, even if he didn’t. Rellmira needed him. Rellmira was his.
But me? I would take Everett and Delysia and we would start over somewhere new. Somewhere without terrible memories haunting us.
We would be free, yes. And I would be alone.
Chapter 39
Aiden
The logging campwas a gods-damned fortress.
