“Did that hurt? To admit that?”
She shook her head. “No. But I suppose it does make me more fearful.”
I glanced into the trees, wondering why it wasn’t Vidar or Meridan that showed up to find me.
“Did someone ask you to talk to me?” I said.
“No. I had a theory, though. You care for Vidar very much. You care for Meridan. But we’ve just met, you and me. I thought, perhaps, we haven’t known each other long enough for me to be used against you. That’s what it is, isn’t it? He used them against you in your dreams. It must be hard to see them now, alive, when you’ve seen so many horrible things.”
I felt the air tighten around me and stopped breathing for a moment, the blood and bones of a thousand deaths washing across my vision.
“Yes,” I whispered. I squeezed my eyes shut, shaking my head. “It’s not clear. It’s all fading.”
“The dreams?”
“Yes. I can barely remember it all.”
“That’s good, isn’t it?”
“I want it to be, but there’s an echo. A stain. The less I remember, the more I feel like there’s been something left behind. Something dirty that I cannot wash away. I still feel what it did to me, I just can’t remember how.”
Aeris scooted closer to the edge of her rock and leaned toward me. “Even a stain can be washed away with some time.” Her fingers moved as if she wanted to reach out to me, but she diverted, tucking her hand under her leg. “I know your friends are in a panic. They won’t say it, but your captain… he loves you very much. I’ve seen desperation in many different eyes and his scream the loudest. I also spoke with your sister. She is… horrifying.” She looked up at me, biting her lip. “She is also desperate.”
Silence filled the space in the wake of Aeris’s words as I processed what she was saying.
“Are you thinking you would have been better off going inland with your captain now?” I muttered.
“No. I think I’m here for a reason.”
“A reason,” I chuckled. “Do you believe in reason and purpose after all your talk of Yri having no gods?”
“I believe I’vemademy purpose. Perhaps it wasn’t predestined that we cross paths, but we did and now I have something to contribute.”
“And what’s that?”
“What Lyla is feeling.”
“I don’t care what she’s feeling. She—”
“Yes, you do.”
“And? She got us into this mess. She brought those things to Dornwich. Gus is dead and I nearly drowned in my own madness because of her. If there is a thread of me that cares what she is feeling, it is the part I must sever so the rest of me can survive. So,all of us can survive. I made a mistake. Now I must burn the rot away before it spreads.”
“What if she can make you stronger?”
I could feel the cold blackness bleeding across my eyes as my anger burned through my vision.
“You insult me,” I scowled.
Aeris stood as if preparing to run. “Call it a curse or a gift, I have always felt what others feel. It has always been a whisper in the back of my mind. One I could ignore if I truly wanted to. When I spoke to Lyla, I could not ignore it. She infected me. She made me feel what she felt. I cried in Nazario’s arms that night and I knew not why. She does not weep, so why was I? But around you, I feel the same. I feel as if I want to scream. You are similar, you and Lyla, but only one of you is free now.”
I unfolded from the bank, coming to my full height in front of her. She stood her ground, her head tipped back to look up at me.
“Lyla should be torn apart for all she’s done,” I snarled.
But I did not feel those words. I did not taste them. I barely even heard them. They were just words, said because I felt like they made the most sense, but they were not true and it disgusted me to think it.
“Perhaps,” Aeris shrugged, taking a step back. “All anyone could say while you were sleeping was that it was your choice what they did to her. It’s the only reason she’s alive, I think. So perhaps you should decide.”
