And I hate it. Hate that I’ve caused him to do that. I hate myself.
In these broken hours between sleeping and awake, I contemplate this all whilealsoknowing that, somehow, I have to tell NoxeverythingI have gone through. The fear of doing so plagues me relentlessly, forcing uneven breaths into my tight chest as my clammy hands hold on to the pommel of the saddle. I feel sick with the knowledge of it all sitting on my shoulders and, eventually, give up on sleeping altogether so that I might be distracted by the ride itself. Nox has slowed our horse down to traverse the dark terrain carefully, Daje and Xander somewhere close enough to hear their horses’ hooves behind us. But no onespeaks a word, the silence both aiding in our awareness of the guards’ proximity and pressing invisible walls into me from all sides.
We continue riding at a slow but steady pace through the night and into the next day, finally stopping in the afternoon to let the horses eat and drink from the nearby Vida River. Nox asks if I want privacy to wash, but the thought of being vulnerably naked out in the open sends my heart ricocheting against my ribs. I don’t want to be still caked in Eve’s blood, but I don’t know how close the guards are. If the king is with them this time. If Queen Amari is. These worries hold me prisoner on the edge of the river, nervously chewing on my bottom lip as I stare down at Nox’s boots.
“I can surround you with shadows,” he offers, so quietly and softly that all it does is stir up the feeling that I don’t deserve him. His gentleness and steadfastness. I don’t deserve it when, in our time apart, I had believed he had faltered. Had chosen something else—someoneelse—over me.
I take him up on his offer, if only to not subject us both to riding the rest of the way with the reminder of what had happened in the palace. He leaves a pack that had been attached to our horse’s saddle at the water’s edge, and then I am surrounded by thick darkness on all sides but above, sunlight shining in on me as if I am in a shallow well. Sinking into the icy waters, I welcome the numbness it ushers in. I don’t linger, quickly running my hands over the areas that are sticky with old blood, watching as the rust color seeps into the water. Despite how hard I scrub, Eve's death still clings to me when I exit the river.
Now changed into simple black pants and a white shirt, a wool cloak clasped at my neck, I join Nox, Xander, and Daje around a fire, its heat doing nothing against the chill that has taken residence in my veins. I, naively, thought I might be theonly one who had both too much and not enough to say, but as I look at each of the men’s faces, I recognize the same conflict in them too.
“So,” Xander says first, his voice raspy as if it is on the verge of going out, “what happens next?” Had his been one of the shouts I heard? When Remi told me to run? Before the shadows traveled over the sand. Before I had killed—
“Rhea.” Nox’s voice snaps me out of my spiral, and I look up from where my gaze had settled on the fire to find Daje staring at me and Xander staring at where Nox sits at my side.
“I’m sorry.” I turn to look at Nox, finding his hand hovering in the space between us, as if he meant to reach out and touch me only to stop himself. He lowers it quickly to his knee, and I pretend the action doesn’t shatter me further, “What was the question?”
“The guard asked you what happens next?” Nox answers, no short amount of malice in his tone as his eyes slide to Xander. My cousin narrows his in return.
“Oh. Why are you asking me?” Of everyone here, I am the least qualified to make any sort of decision on what comes next.
“Well, considering it is sort of up to you whether or not I stay in the Mortal Kingdom, I figured you’d be the best one to direct the question to,” Xander says. Nox stretches his legs out in front of him, his arms crossing over his chest as he watches our exchange. The air thickens with his magical signature, both halves of my own power rising as it presses against my skin to meet his.
“In what world is thatmychoice?”
Xander frowns. “The one where you canhealpeople to cross through the Spell.”
Daje’s eyebrows rise high on his head. “You can do that?”
At the feel of their stares on me, I twine my fingers together in front of me. I suppose there is no avoiding this conversation—and all it will lead to.
“I tried telling you both earlier,” Xander cuts in, fingers reaching towards the fire. “But you wouldn’t listen.”
Daje scoffs as he tilts his head. “We had just woken up disoriented in a foreign place, and Nox had almostdied. You can’t exactly blameus for not being the most receptive to new information.”
Xander and Daje go back and forth arguing, their voices muffled when my eyes catch on my blood-flecked fingers. Eve’s blue eyes flash in my mind, cracking my chest open just as easily as the sword had slid through hers. I blink, and my fingers are clean again. Turning my gaze towards Nox, I find no reprieve as his form flickers to closed eyes and decaying skin before I blink and he is whole again. But the memories have already left their mark as I hug my knees to my chest, as if that might holdmetogether. How many times could I be pulled apart? Forced to break over and over again before I’m nothing but that sickly black ash my magic makes of others.
Movement in front of me makes me stiffen on instinct, Nox’s concerned face coming into view as he squats down in front of me, blocking out Xander and Daje. Making himself the only thing I can focus on. “Are you alright?” he asks, and gods, I wish that question didn’t feel so impossible to answer.
“I— Yes.” I swallow, twisting my fingers together again. Nox notices the nervous movement, and with a slowness that I know is only because of what happened earlier, he gently reaches out and clasps both of my hands in his, brushing his thumbs over the tops of them. Our eyes hold, grief balancing precariously between us. Mineandhis. “I thought I killed you.”
“You didn't kill me. You—”
“—still doesn't explain how she healed them!” Daje’s raised voice cuts between us, drawing Nox’s gaze over his shoulder.
“I didn’t know that I could do that,” I tell them. Lay it at their feet like a barbed confession. The woods around us fall silent, and I imagine the shadows of the trees growing towards me, as if even they are leaning in to listen to my failures. Nox moves so that he’s sitting at my side again, close enough that I feel his warmth even through the cloak. “Not until the siren queen forced me to try on her legion.”
“Forced you?” Nox asks, a muscle in his jaw ticking.
I nod. “It was because of the ring the king put on my finger. It was controlled by the siren queen’s magic—” I pause at the image that flashes in my mind.Nox buckling under my magic. The feel of his own shield faltering, my shadows overpowering him. A gentle hand on my shoulder and a lyrical voice in my ear. Ruby-red hair and glowing hazel eyes. Nox squeezes my hand again, and though I push the memories down, my body is not so easily swayed into forgetting what I did. My fingers curl in towards my palms, as if trying to stop the magic from leaving me. The act pulls my hand from his before I even realize what I’m doing, and though Nox gives me a tender smile, it’s the same guarded one as before. Desperation floods me, the urge to keep him fromliterallyslipping through my grasp pushing words I’m not ready to acknowledge past my lips. “One of the siren princesses is my sister.”
Nox blinks, his lips parting as if to speak only for him to pinch them shut again. But where words fail him, they find Daje just fine.
“I’m sorry, did you just say one of the sirens is yoursister?”
I meet Daje’s wide eyes, his brow crinkled as he leans forward. “Princess Aria and I share the same father.”
A collection of choked sounds tumble from him, a question jumbled in there that I don’t know how to answer withoutstarting down a new path of misery over the fact that my uncle had been the one to murder my parents.
