Acacius’s fingers lightly twisted in her hair and guided her head back, running the cool material in a path down her neck.
“What is in your hair has already dried, but it’s all gone from your skin,” he murmured, unraveling his hand from her strands. He tucked the cloth back inside of his cloak and held up a layer of the thick fabric around his waist. “Wipe your hands on my robe.”
Marina held out her shaking hands between them.
He leaned over her palms, and a string of his saliva dripped over her encrusted skin. One at a time, he scrubbed them clean, applying enough pressure to rid the grime, but holding the back of her hand with a soft nuance.
Once he was finished, he stepped away and nodded. “There.”
She brushed her clean fingertips over the smooth skin of her cheeks and the valley of her neck, reassuring herself.
It is gone.
She leaned her weight back on the cavern wall, relishing in its cool surface against her spine.
You are all right.
She kept a palm snug against her chest to steady her heartbeat.
Focus on your surroundings.
Obeying herself, she swept her gaze over the stalactites, frozen like caramel dripping from the cavern’s roof.
“Are you well now?” he asked.
“No,” she answered truthfully, unable to bring her gaze to him. A few days ago, she would’ve spared her pride and lied.Though, after the last twenty-four hours, her will to shield herself had faded.
You are my legacy, Marina.
Mira’s words razed her again.
She clenched her jaw until the physical pain lanced through her molars.
Her stomach clotted with nausea, and the muscles in her neck clenched. Rage unfurled in her chest along with a restlessness to expunge it from her insides.
“Why did you allow him to lay his hands on you?” Acacius asked, his tone laced with discontent.
Unable to stand still a second longer, Marina pushed off the wall and stormed over to the cluster of stalactites. Their pointed ends hovered inches from the ground.
She ripped her foot up and drove her heel through the spired piece of rock. It crumbled and shot off into pieces. Reverberations traveled up her leg and into her ribcage. It felt good, causing the destruction of something. She could not control the ruination within her own life, but inflicting it on something else released a bit of the strain coiled in her chest.
“It was me who called upon Torin to take your title,” Acacius confessed.
A harsh breath scuffed out of her, not the least bit surprised.
When she was summoned to a duel after leaving Acacius in the middle of the forest outside of Tenebris, stuck on her spikes, she’d suspected it. He was ruthless that way, and after their clash, it was his turn to act in their mindless revenge war.
He’d gone after her village, and then her title. All the things of importance to her—just as he said he would. And yet, he failed to succeed because he did not truly wish to hurt her. He was like a predator playing with its food, only to never eat because they enjoyed the game. In the grand scheme of it all, Acacius and his stupid, elementary vengeance was so miniscule.
She clawed the hair out of her face, turning on him with wrath overflowing. “Do you think I care about Torin? About your revenge? You think my title means anything to me after what I’ve done?”
“Then what do you care about?” Acacius snapped back. “Or is it still nothing? Because it doesn’t seem that way to me, Rina?—”
“I was nothing to her!” Marina whirled around and slammed her fist through another column. Pieces of broken rock sliced her knuckles. The pain lasted seconds before her skin mended. “Just like Finnian fucking said!” She punched through another.
He stared at her, his mouth in a tight line. Something akin to sympathy crinkled across his brow, and Marina could feel the jab of it like a spear through her ribcage.
Hair stuck in her eyelashes and in the corners of her mouth as she swung her arms out again and again, blasting through the pillars. “She sent those gods to my bedchamber! Night after night. They hunted me down in the palace as if I were prey.” She gritted her teeth and smashed her foot through the trunk of a stalagmite. “They tried to lay their hands on me, plunge them inside of me, take me as their prize.” Tears bit at the back of her nose as Mira’s betrayal ripped through her heart all over again. “I thought she loved me—” A sob strangled her words.
