“I know.” I scrubbed a hand over my beard. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“It’s the stress,” she said. “I feel it too. Everything is chaotic, and we don’t know what we’re doing. It doesn’t mean anything.”
My hand flexed at my side, where the imprint of her skin still seared into me. “You’re right.” The lie tasted like ash in my mouth.
She slumped against the wall and slid to the ground. “Has that ever happened before?” she asked. “Your panic attack?”
I shook my head. “Not to me. But like I said before, Marigold gets them sometimes. I think they started when her mother died, although she doesn’t really remember it. They happen whenever she’s scared someone she loves might be in danger.” I crouched to the ground and closed my eyes. “I hope my mother kept her calm. I hope this didn’t—that me being trapped here didn’t trigger another one.”
“Me too.” Clarissa’s eyes found the small hole at the top of the wall. “Hopefully it won’t be long.”
We sat in silence for a moment until she said, “You don’t have to talk about it, but…how did your wife die?”
I brushed my fingers through the dirt to give myself something to do. “Heart disease. It was inherited—her father died of the same thing not long before her. It happened four years ago.”
“I’m sorry, Thorne,” she breathed out.
I nodded. “Thank you.” Fire crackled from the torch as echoes of steel chipping against the rock wall filled the air. “She was…incredible. Not afraid to speak her mind, like someone else I know.” I gave Clarissa a pointed stare.
“Butunlikesomeone else, she wasn’t great at hiding herthoughts. You could read her from a mile away.” I chuckled. “Which caused some problems with my parents, seeing as they didn’t get along in the slightest. You don’t know how many fights I had to break up between them. Marigold entering the picture helped with that a little.”
“I can imagine,” Clarissa said with a grin. “It’s impossible not to love that girl.”
A pang shot through my heart. “And Iris did. So much.” I stared at the rock wall, aching to be able to see through the stone and find my daughter. “I wish she could see how much she’s grown.”
“I’m sure she would be proud of her,” Clarissa said. “And you. You’ve done such a good job raising her.”
I swallowed hard. “Anything I am is because of Iris. She changed me. I don’t think you would have liked the man I was eight years ago.”
“I highly doubt that,” she said, looking down at her hands.
“What about you?” I asked. “The night at Silenus Manor when you…when you were so panicked. Has that been happening your whole life?”
She shook her head. “No. That’s a more recent development, actually.” She turned her head to the side and bit down on her bottom lip.
“You don’t have to tell me anything you’re not comfortable with,” I said.
“That’s not it.” She took a deep breath. “It’s just that I don’t talk about it with many people. It…it started last fall. After everything that happened with Emperor Gayl. He—he tried to kill me the night he died. Me and a close friend.” Her voice quieted. “He would’ve succeeded, but my Shifter abilities heal me too quickly.”
I moved closer to her on instinct. “What happened?”
“He cast a spell to break most of the bones in my body.”
My eyes widened. I closed the distance between us and knelt at her side, covering her hand with my own. “Hewhat?”
She closed her eyes. “It was…the worst pain I’ve ever felt. And hearing it happen to my best friend at the same time…” A single tear tracked down her dusty cheek. “We’re both alive, but I haven’t been able to escape that day. Not fully. I’m not sure I ever will. It’s like I’m this…this fragile little girl who can’t even control her own mind. Any time I hear something that sounds like the c-crack of a bone—” She inhaled sharply and shivered. I wrapped an arm around her shoulders, tucking her under it.
“I’m so sorry, Clarissa.” I couldn’t even imagine. To endure such trauma and live to tell the tale…toreliveit, over and over like some nightmare taking over her body. And here she was, leading not only her own empire but doing everything in her power to save my kingdom. Putting on the confident, capable, brave face she wore so beautifully to hide the pain lurking beneath.
“You’re the strongest person I’ve ever met, did you know that?” I asked.
She looked up at me. “Then you haven’t met many people.”
I took her chin firmly between my thumb and forefinger. “Stop that,” I said. “Stop downplaying the kind of person you are. How everything you’ve gone through has shaped you into who you are now. You shouldn’t hide from your past and how you got here. You shouldn’t hide from the way those memories make you feel. It doesn’t mean you’re out of control—it’s exactly what makes you sostrong. Because you take what’s happened to you, all that you’ve seen, all that you care about, and you turn it into this passion for your people. Foreveryone.” I brushed my thumb along her jaw. “Your emotions are what make youyou. Don’t ever apologize for them. Don’t ever push them away.”
Her dark eyes held mine as her tongue flicked against her bottom lip. “I have to push some of them away,” she said, her voice barely a whisper.
My gaze fell to her lips.
