She half-turned and placed a hand on his arm to still him.
“Rune, I have a confession to make.”
His arm fell on his lap, and he leaned back into her slightly, not enough to press their spines together, but enough that Seraphina could feel the heat of his body chase away the chill.
“Rune, I’m blind. I have no eyes. The reason why I didn’t want you to look at my face is that my eye sockets are... empty. And mangled. They look really bad, I’m told. You heard Hartmann. I’m the ugliest thing he’s ever seen. I believe him, because he knows me from before, when I had eyes, and... and Matteo told me so often they were my prettiest feature. Along with my long blond hair.”
Something tore inside her chest as it all poured out of her, more words than she’d thought she’d say. She could stop here. Details were irrelevant, but she hadn’t talked about it in so long, hadn’t had to explain herself to anyone, not even to the nuns or to Briar.
“The bluest eyes he’d ever seen,” she whispered. “He loved my eyes. He said they were as blue as the clear summer sky reflected in the stillness of the sea. I lost them when he died. They... They took his life and my eyes, carved them out of my skull, so the last thing I saw was the blood pouring out of him as they stabbed him over and over, and... and their faces as they...”
Her breath hitched. She swallowed, her throat tight. When she tried to speak again, only a gasp left her lips. She breathed in and out through her mouth, which refused to close. Her heart hammered painfully against her ribs, and she wanted to break down and cry, but she couldn’t. No eyes meant no tear ducts. They’d hacked at her face crudely, tearing more than her eyes, damaging her lacrimal glands and leaving the upper part of her face in tatters. The nuns had healed her to the best of their ability, but she would never see and never cry again. During her first weeks of recovery, she’d screamed at the top of her lungs,especially at night, when she couldn’t sleep and the agony of what she’d lost was too much, and she couldn’t release it through tears. The sisters had let her, never admonished her for how she kept them up for hours on end. Briar had sat by her side, smoothed her hair and prayed for her.
“Seraphina...”
The sound of her name coming from him pulled her back together when she was on the brink of falling apart. She closed her mouth and wetted her lips.
“I had a scarf that I used to tie around my eye sockets to cover them, but Hartmann took it. I know it’s stupid, but it made me feel... less exposed. Less ugly.”
“So, you can’t actually see my face.”
“I can, if you let me touch you. Trace my fingers over your features. That’s all I ask.”
“Why?”
“Because... if we do this, I don’t know how it will end. We might succeed, and tomorrow, we’ll be hiding together in the city, trying to find a way through the gates. Or we might fail, and we’ll never see each other again. We’ll be separated or... or dead.”
“You won’t die, Seraphina. I promise you.”
“What about you?”
“You don’t have to worry about me. I’ve survived worse.”
She smiled to herself. It was bitter.
“Will you ever tell me?”
He shrugged, shook his head. A non-answer.
“I’ll let you look at my face, if you let me touch yours,” she said.
Why would he take her up on her offer, though? What man wanted to look into the maimed eye sockets of a ruined woman? This was a bad idea. If this was their last time together, it wasbetter for him to remember her by her voice and her yellow hair, which she was sure he’d gotten glimpses of.
Seraphina felt him shuffle, struggle with something, and then a tearing sound filled the silence of their cell. He was ripping his clothes again. Before she could ask him why, he pushed a long strip of torn fabric into her hand.
“What–”
“To replace your scarf.”
“Your shirt,” she whispered, unbelieving.
“It’s only a bit shorter now.”
“And sleeveless...”
He didn’t say more, and she ran her hands over the strip of fabric, feeling the threads stick out where he’d ripped it. This meant he could look at her and not see the worst of it. Because he didn’t want to? Didn’t want to see the voids in her skull in his nightmares? Or because he understood how hard it was for her to show him her wounds?
Seraphina positioned the fabric over her eyes and tied the strip at the back of her head, strands of her hair getting entangled in the knot.
