“You know nothing,” she snarled, those dark veins appearing around her eyes again like plumes of smoke. “I don’t care about him. I don’t care about any of this. That’s the terrible beauty of having a mind with so many cracks, you can’t distinguish one thing from another. Do I want any of this? Do I even know what it is to want?”
“You care. But you are remarkably good at lying to yourself about it.”
“We shared a womb, but it was only days ago you found out I existed. Let us not pretend we know each other because we were forced to occupy the same space for a few months. We are sisters by blood. Not by spirit.”
“Then why do you act as if you know me?”
“I don’t know you, but the way you tense your jaw or ball your fists or twitch your eyebrows when I speak tells me so much. I know more every passing second. It does not mean I care.”
“If you don’t care, tell me how to end this. How to sever the bonds that have been destroying us for so long.”
She laughed again, the sound maniacal and unnerving. “There is the difference between us, sister. I’m already destroyed. I am already hollow. And you are, too. You just have yet to realize it. If I was capable of pity, I would pity you now for being so fucking naïve. So hopeful.”
I stood, grinding my teeth as I loomed over her. She just stared up at me, her lips stretched into a smile that showed her sharp teeth.
“Sweet dreams,” she taunted, her tongue sliding over her canines. “You haven’t the will to kill me and I’ve tasted you if you recall. And I would venture a guess that you do not understand dreams. I, on the other hand, have spent so much of my life escaping to them.” She leaned forward, dropping her head like a cat ready to pounce. “I have been merciful thus far as you slept. I could be callous if I wanted to.”
My calf pulsed as if the bite had suddenly reopened. I quickly reached in, forcing the mouthpiece over her and buckling it tightly around her head, silencing her.
She was right about one thing. She was broken. She was a mangled, ruined shell with nothing inside but the madness that I feared over all else. The madness that plagued my dreams, threatening to overtake me. She was everything I did not want to be, displayed before me as if to taunt me.
I bent to pick up the sheet and tossed it back over the cage, sparing prying eyes from looking at her. When I turned, someone was standing in the shadows with his arms crossed over his broad chest. A flash of moonlight moved across the smooth surface of the blade in his hand. When I met his gaze, I realized it was Cathal.
“Risky,” he commented.
“You spying?”
“Observing. My cap’n is wrapped up in conversation. As his quartermaster, I have to be his eyes and ears sometimes. I’d like to know what kinds of monsters ye keep for company.”
I searched his person for a piece of jewelry that might resemble a silentium and found one among the multiple necklaces hanging over his chest.
“Don’t go near her,” I warned, marching past him just as Vidar was striding my way.
He had a look in his eyes. The look he had when he wanted to slam me against a wall, pull my hair, and chide me. Gods, I would let him do it, too. I would welcome it. I was not making good decisions anymore. Uncertainty and a lack of faith in myself and my mind was rendering me a fool.
“What happened?”
“I got answers,” I said flatly. “Though I don’t know what good they’ll do me.”
I started to walk away when Vidar gripped my arm and spun me to face him, anger burning like hot embers behind his stare.
“You weren’t supposed to do that alone,” he said. “We agreed. We don’t know what she’s capable of.”
“I know. Which is why I didn’t want to risk you getting near her.”
I pulled from his grasp and traipsed away. I wasn’t surprised when he followed. He stomped up behind me with a gait that I could feel rippling through the ground and caught my shoulder, spinning me forcefully back around.
“This isn’t just about you, Dahlia.”
“I know.”
“I don’t think you do. We agreed to face her together. You’re not being honest with me and that’s a problem.”
“I am!” I barked, ripping my shoulder from his grasp. “I am being more honest with you than I have been with anyone I’ve ever met. And that terrifies me because the things I have realized about myself these past months would frighten even the bravest of men and there is nothing about that that I can hide from you.”
He stepped in, eyes reflecting the moon’s blue glow. “No. You can’t. I’ll always find out eventually, but if I have to do it on my own, there will be hell to pay.”
Heat rippled through me at his words. No woman who was right in the head would hear such an admission and hunger for the man who said it. I knew what Vidar was capable of and I craved it. Always. I stepped closer to him, raising my chin in challenge.
