A trembling weightlessness.
Billy sees the fear forming across my face and leans in until his forehead nearly touches mine.
“They fixed everything,” he promises. “The doctors said the surgery went well. You were unconscious for hours. You had a transfusion but… you’re stable now. Strong.” His voice softens. “You’re safe.”
There it is again.
The lie.
Safe.
The word circles me like something unreal, something precious and fractured and temporary. Because I know where I am. I know what this place truly is.
“You… you carried me? Or-” I stop, the memory of him crawling toward me slicing through my mind like a blade.
He freezes, sorrow blackening the warmth in his eyes, “I tried,” he whispers. “I wasn’t fast enough. Gore reached you first.”
His older brother.
The lash in his hand.
The guilt in his eyes.
I swallow, my chest tightening with too many emotions layered over each other, fear, relief, grief, shame.
“You were hurt,” I say, my eyes dropping to his arms, his torso, searching for the damage I know should be there. “Your back…”
“They treated it,” he answers quickly. “Gone are the days when they let wounds fester for the sake of devotion.” A humourless smirk touches his mouth. “Fortunately.”
I don’t believe him.
Not fully.
Not even close.
He’s holding himself too still, too stiffly, too carefully. His shoulders look like they’re bearing invisible chains. But I let him lie to me because I understand why he’s doing it. He wants to be the strong one this time. He needs to be.
I look at the baby again, unable to hold myself back. My fingers brush the edge of his blanket. He stirs, stretching one impossibly tiny hand. His skin is warm. Softer than anything I’ve ever touched.
A sob breaks free from my chest.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, not even sure who I’m apologising to, my Pair, my son, myself. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”
Billy’s hand moves to my cheek, turning my face gently toward him.
“None of this is your fault.”
“It is,” I breathe. “I ran. I-”
“You survived.” His voice sharpens with a fierce, quiet intensity. “You protected him. You protected yourself. And I would take a thousand lashings if it meant you lived.” His eyes burn dark when he says it, a shadowed devotion that feels both holy and terrifying.
There is something dangerously poetic in the way he looks at me.
Like I am the battlefield he chooses to bleed for.
Like my survival is his only theology.
I feel myself trembling.
