* * *
“Idon’t think I have fire thura,” I huff disappointedly as I try again to follow Tarek’s meticulous instructions on how to produce a flame with my fingers.
His chest is pressed against my back, and his arms hold mine as he guides me through the familiar pattern of movement that I’ve been trying to perfect the entire time it’s taken Curio and Riall to build the large pyre in front of us. I still can’t make even the tiniest spark.
“We can keep working on it,” he encourages as he nuzzles my neck.
I snort but press into his show of affection.
“I can admit defeat. As much as I’d like to be able to light things on fire at will, I don’t think it’s in my destiny.”
“It’s probably for the better; you’re deadly enough as it is,” Curio teases as he grabs a body from the pile that was brought up here and hefts it onto the platform of stacked logs and kindling.
I give up on my failed fire attempt and move to help pile bodies onto the pyre. The last of the guilty Igeeyin the Scorpions have been questioning bled out this morning, and it’s time to clean up the mess and get as far away from this place as we can. Neith has been adamant that we’re welcome to stay or visit whenever we’d like, but I’m certain the surviving Igeeyin will be happy to see our backs and hope to never lay eyes on our faces again.
I feel the same way.
Neith has made an effort to introduce me to several nice Igeeyin families, fae who weren’t involved in what happened to me. They were eager to please their Moon and show me a different side of the people I come from. I tried to look past what I’ve been through, to bond with people who look like I do, and learn what I can about the history that shaped these people, but the connection isn’t there. Maybe it was before I was taken, but the fae I am today was forged in the fighting pits of Tilleo’s ludere, and none of these people, no matter how kind or welcoming they try to be, can understand who I am now because of that.
Even Neith, who experienced some of the pain I did while I was trapped as a blade slave, doesn’t get it, but I wouldn’t expect that she would. They helped her numb the pain, made it possible for her to escape the echo of what was being done to me. She was able to hold onto the softer parts of her soul because the nightmare was never hers, it was mine. I was the only one who had to learn how to survive it.
Curio grabs the feet of a male from the heap, I grab his hands, and together we carry the body and then swing it up on the ever-growing stack.
“I still can’t believe we had the answers sitting right in our palms, but we were too focused on the hunt to see any of it,” Riall grumps.
The Scorpions have been beating themselves up since Faline’s confession when we finally put all the pieces of the puzzle together. I think they’re waiting for me to blame them for all of this, but the person truly responsible is dead, and I can’t find it in me to be mad at the Scorpions for something that was out of their control. I made peace with what happened between us before the First Crescent implicated herself in all of it, and I don’t need to dredge anything back up. I won’t give the cunt the power to fuck with my happiness now like she fucked with my life then.
“I still can’t believe I did it to myself,” I counter on a grumble as we walk back to the mound of bodies we’ve been adding to over the past few sun cycles.
“Your memory?” Tarek asks as he works alongside us.
“Yeah,” I sigh. “I thought eventually we’d question one of them and they’d say the rest were liars, that someonedidmess with my head when I was taken. Then every single one of them confirmed over and over again that I must have activated a failsafe.”
I scoff and hear in my mind the words spoken over and over again from the mouths of doomed Igeeyin.You would have done it to protect the princess. To guard the Igeeyin’s secrets, which is why the contingency existed in the first place.You did exactly as you what you were trained to do!I shake my head and resist the urge to kick one of the dead pricks responsible for this mess.
“Why the fuck would I shred my own mind?” I ask, knowing full well there isn’t an answer that will satisfy me. “How could I have followed so blindly and been so weak?”
When I was first told that’s what happened, I knew it was a lie. It had to be. It didn’t sound like me at all. I would have fought. I would have found a way to protect myself. But whoever I was then died when I was taken, and try as I might, I don’t understand much about who that girl must have been. Neith and Lutyn have spoken with me at length about the indoctrination they experienced, about how I would have been raised with it too. They explained that I could have easily believed that what was expected of me was an honor, that The Cause was worthy of such a sacrifice. But it still frustrates me beyond reason.
Could I really have been that daft? I just followed the orders of a bunch of zealots without question? It’s fucking addled.
“You’re probably not going to be able to reconcile the girl who did that with who you are now, Beasty. You’re going to drive yourself mad trying to make sense of that. What’s the point of being pissed at a ghost?”
I let loose a resigned exhale and nod. I know he’s right, but I can’t let it go yet.
“Any news on the blood-link front?” I ask, needing to change the subject.
Riall huffs out his own resigned sigh. “I’ve looked through every text the Igeeyin have, and pulled what I could from our own library, but I haven’t found anything that would explain what they did or how. It has to be linked to the Sanguinna in you. I’m almost positive it’s some kind of perversion of a Blood Bond and a uniquely powerful thura. However, even if we can figure out what thura is at play here, Sanguinna bonds are only broken through death.”
“So we’re tied together and that’s that,” I interject.
“I’ll keep hunting for answers, but for now it’s looking like that’s the case,” Riall agrees.
I shrug. “I don’t loathe her. I suppose that should be somewhat comforting.”
“I’ll count that as progress,” Neith declares as she walks up behind me, a cheeky twinkle in her silver gaze.
“There’s an ebb and flow to it. I wouldn’t get too excited,” I snark, and her smile blooms.
