I run out of words. They just stop.
Koshin reaches for my face. His palm cups my jaw, tilts my head up until I'm looking at him. His thumb drags across my cheekbone, pressing harder than necessary. Claiming, not comforting.
"You couldn't run if you wanted to." His voice is low, rough. "I'd find you. Drag you back. Keep you."
"That's not romantic."
"I'm not romantic." His thumb presses into the hinge of my jaw, and the pressure sends a shiver down my spine that has nothing to do with fear. "I'm honest."
I should be afraid. Should be angry. Should feel trapped.
But his hand is warm on my face and he smells like blood and bathwater and I want to lean into him and bite him and I'm so tired I can barely keep my eyes open. And underneath all the fear and fury, underneath the shock of silver lines and impossible lifespans—
I'm not running.
I'm wet and furious and exhausted and not running.
That might be the most fucked up part of all.
"Cosmic tattoos," I say. "Very healthy. Nothing says stable relationship like involuntary soul bonds and threats of kidnapping."
His mouth curves. A real smile this time, crooked and dangerous.
"There she is."
"Shut up." I lean into his hand despite myself. "I'm still mad at you."
"I know."
"This doesn't fix anything."
"No. It doesn't."
"And you're going to tell me everything. All of it. What the marks mean, how the Houses will react, what happens now. No more omissions."
"Yes."
"Promise me."
His eyes hold mine. Silver on black.
"I promise."
Morning comes whether I want it to or not.
I slept. That's the strange part. Eight hours, maybe more, deep and dreamless and heavy. No blood on the carpet. No begging. No sound of bone giving way under my hands. Just... nothing. Blank, peaceful nothing, and I woke up feeling rested for the first time in years.
I should probably be concerned about that.
I'm sitting in the hall outside Seris's borrowed room, back against the stone, watching my hands in the light from the corridor sconces. The marks haven't faded. If anything they're clearer now, fine threads woven across my knuckles and down toward my wrists. Permanent. Visible. Cosmic tattoos provingI belong to a mad god, because apparently my life wasn't complicated enough already.
I killed my father last night. Beat his skull in with my bare hands while a god held him down for me. And I slept like a baby.
There's probably something deeply wrong with me. Some crucial piece of humanity that got bent or broken or just never installed correctly.
Normal people have nightmares after things like that.
Normal people feel guilt, horror, something.
