I can’t have him look at me.
I justcan’t.
Because if he does, then I won’t be able to keep ignoring...that.
As if it knows my conscious thoughts are skating around it, my back suddenly twinges with a sharp, prodding pain. I suck in a breath, my very inhale braced against the barbs in my chest.
“Auren, Hojat will be gentle,” Slade tells me, but he doesn’t get it. There is nothinggentleabout this. What he’s asking me to face is rough hate and slashed violence. What he’s asking me for is to take on a soul-deep trauma that I want to keep ignoring.
He wants to yank out the stopper holding in my anguish while I’m still desperately trying to keep my fingers pressed to the cork.
I’ve just been told I have rot inside me, but maybe it’s not his fault at all. Maybe it’smine. Maybe the things that have happened to me, the things I’ve done, are the reason that the rot stayed rooted inside of me.
“I don’t care if he’s gentle,” I say, turning around to shove my feet back into the boots. I don’t even bother to do up the laces, because I just need to getaway. Out there, in the depths of the cave, where its secrets stay hidden and depths stay untouched. “I’m going back out.”
“Auren—”
“He’s not looking me over, and I’m going back out to thefuckingcave!” I shout, chest heaving, my cheeks flared with angry, defensive heat—heat that I cling to, because I can’t bear to plummet into the ice-cold reality of loss.
Why can’t they just let it be? Why are they being so horrible and pushy? I just need to stay in that cave. Because I can’t, Ican’t—
“My lady.”
It’s barely above a whisper.
But that hoarse, quiet voice makes everything in me suddenly grind to a jarring, weighty halt.
Slowly, I turn around, and my entire world tunnels down to the person standing slouched in the doorway.
“Digby.”
He doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak.
For a second, we simply look at each other.
He’s been a tight coil in my chest, a leak in my heart that’s been stoppered along with the rest. I can’t even fathom that he’s here. In the crevices of my mind’s cavern, he was there, buried in the shadows dark enough that I wouldn’t have to face the grief of loss. But he’shere. Somehow, he’s gone ahead and stepped out of the corners and come out safe and sound.
The wet blur that fills my eyes distorts him, so I blink furiously, forcing myself not to cry, because I need to see him properly, need to assure myself that he’s okay.
But he’s not.
He might be safe and sound andhere, but he’s not unscathed.
His face is made up of mangled blotches. All different colored bruises, their shades marking the severity of the swelling beneath. His brown eyes have a haunted look in them that they didn’t before, his gray beard and hair so disheveled that it doesn’t even resemble my tidy, stoic guard. I don’t miss the way he’s leaning against the arched doorway, the arm wrapped tentatively around his waist, the padding of wraps beneath his shirt.
“You’re here,” I say, my voice sounding like I’m standing on quaking ground. “I thought I...in that room. You were there, and I just... I mean, I was so afraid that I...DidI...?” The choppy question stands on tenterhooks, balancing on the edge I’m too afraid to peer over.
Did I hurt him?
Did I hurt anyone else I care about?
The coil condenses and tightens in my chest, reeling around my ribs, keeping it too taut for a single breath.
Digby frowns at my question like he’s not sure what I mean, but it’s Slade who answers. “No, Auren. You didn’t hurt him or any of us.”
A whoosh of relief passes over me, but I don’t miss the way he said that I didn’t hurt any ofus. He didn’t say I didn’t hurtanyone,because that would be a lie.
“My lady,” Digby says, making my eyes hook back to him instantly. “Let the mender care for your wounds.”
