“They do that,” I said. “Goats. Cows. They rechew what they’ve already eaten.”
“It’s scared of me. I don’t know why. I’ve done nothing to it.”
“Animals can sense a predator. And that is what you are.”
Her eyes shifted toward me, reminding me how bottomless they were.
“Those fat birds,” she said, indicating the chickens pecking at the ground near the back of the hold. “They get close. Do they not sense I am a predator?”
“Chickens are not the brightest of creatures.” I looked over her sickly form, noting the way she seemed to have picked her fingernails so short, they bled. “Is the hemsbane doing this?”
“How am I to know? I’ve never been this long exposed, to the weed or to dry air. Nor have I been away from him this long.” Slowly, she closed her eyes, peeling at her already rigid nailbeds. Then she pressed her lips together like she was suppressing a scream or like she was in great pain. “How do you live in this silence?” she said through her teeth.
I watched her stain her oversized shirt with blood as she abused her fingers and turned to look at Vidar. He’d noticed as well, but again, he didn’t seem to care. Perhaps I was in the wrong to feel sorry for her, but I did.
“I hardly live in silence,” I said. “You are confused because you no longer hear him?”
“Not in dreams. Not in the waking world. He is gone.”
“That is a good thing, Lyla. Your mind and your body are your own now.”
“What do you know!” she barked. The chickens fluttered about in a fright and behind me, the goat had leapt to its feet. “What good will come from no longer being bound in chains?” She rolled to her feet and crouched over to me, gripping the bars to press hergaunt face between them. “I feel pulled in all directions. Where do I go, then? How do I choose? How do any of you choose?”
“We just do, for better or worse. It’s called freedom.”
“You want a monster like me to be free?”
“Would you choose to be a monster if you were?”
Her eyes lingered on mine for a breath before her nose twitched like she’d caught a whiff of something foul. Then she hissed, pushing off the bars to bury her hands in her matted hair. When she could not get her fingers through the knots, she growled furiously, hunching over herself and forcing it until strands of it loosened from her scalp.
“I don’t understand!” she said, beating her hands on the floor with every word. “Kill me! You’ve ripped me in half already, cut me, bled me, and imprisoned me. Why?”
“You’re my sister.”
“A fact you denied over and over again! Now that I am in shambles, you spare me? Kill me.”
“No.”
She stood, proving that, despite the look of her, she was still strong. She turned to the back wall and slammed her hands against it, curling her fingers against the wood only to drag her already bleeding fingertips down the grooves.
“What does he want me to do?” she mumbled. “What does he want from me?”
“It doesn’t matter. You are free of him.”
An eerie chuckle filled the room before she slammed her palms against the wall again with a maddened scream.
“Stupid. You are so stupid, sister. First to spare me and then to assume we are free of him because our hearts stopped beating for a moment.” She turned to face me, blackened veins framing her eyes. “And you’re a coward, unwilling to put my death on your conscience despite what we did to that old man. What we would have done to this entire crew had we been given the chance.”
“You had the chance,” I reminded her. “You hesitated. You allowed me to capture you.”
“Lies,” she hissed, slumping forward against the bars again until she was on her knees, her head hanging low. “You read so much when there is so little to read.”
Her breaths became labored. Clipped. If I did not know better, I would say she was crying, but my gut said she was incapable of such a thing. Still, the way she trembled was far too pathetic for me to overlook. I wanted so badly for Lyla to be black and white, but instead, she was a muddied color in between, shifting from one side to the other in no particular pattern. I didn’t know if she needed comfort, punishment, or an execution.
Slowly, I reached out toward her hand. I could feel Vidar watching me and silently warning me away from the act, but my hand moved without thought. I rested it gently over the top of her cold knuckles and immediately, she stopped her quivering. She gradually lifted her head until I could see her eyes in the dark shadows of her hair. Her breath rolled across my fingers before she lifted her gaze toward mine… and revealed my mistake. She took hold of my wrist with her other hand so quickly, I barely saw it. Then she pulled, bringing my arm into her cell. The front of my body crashed against the bars, the sound accompanied by Vidar rushing to stand and unsheathing Lady Mary.
With my hand in her grip, Lyla glared between me and Vidar like a toddler testing its limits. Then she examined my hand, her grip on my wrist unyielding.
