Caroline nods dully and he sweeps Llin’s frame up into his arms like she weighs nothing.
Wordlessly, Benny carries Llin down to the water and lays her down on the wooden raft before stepping back and allowing Caroline a few last private moments with the love of her life.
‘It’s time,’ he says a minute later, pressing his hand against the small of her back. ‘It’s time.’
Still trying to stifle her shuddering breaths, Caroline moves to one side of the raft while Benny takes his place on the other. Together, they push the raft out, wading into the soft waves of the sea, which break and foam around their calves, the green ballgown swirling around Caroline. Before they get too deep, Kyor hands them each a burning torch and then returns to my side.
I don’t want to watch. I don’t want to see Llin’s body, which only hours ago was so full of hope and laughter and life, be turned into nothing more than ash and memories. But I won’t draw my eyes away. Watching on and honouring her passage is the least Llinos deserves.
The water is halfway up their thighs when, as one, Benny and Caroline lower their torches. The flames catch slowly at first, licking around Llin’s body until they rise up, higher and higher. Before they have consumed her entirely, Benny and Caroline offer the raft one final push, and the current of the sea takes her, slowly drawing Llinos away from the shore.
Kyor’s hand slips into mine, his fingers intertwining with my own, as we stand there watching the flames float into the distance, carrying with them the most loyal friend I have ever known.
‘I didn’t know how to pronounce her name the first time we met,’ I whisper. ‘I didn’t know how to pronounce it, and now I’m never going to say it to her again.’
As we watch Benny and Caroline return to the shore, dripping with water and tears, I know that Kyor won’t bother to offer me some trite words of comfort. Like me, he has already suffered too much in his life, and he knows there is nothing he can say. But the truth is that he doesn’t need to say anything. Right now, his presence is enough.
By the timewe arrive back at the High Hold, it can only be a few hours until breakfast. I don’t know where Caroline goes or where she lives when she isn’t with us or scribing in the library, but I don’t offer to go with her, knowing she needs to be alone. So I simply hug her tightly before she disappears. Looking weary beyond tiredness, heartsore, and exhausted, Benny trudges upstairs to our dorm. And Jonas doesn’t even look back as he climbs the steps to his room.
I don’t hesitate when Kyor tugs my hand. I follow him down the stairs towards the kitchens and into his bedroom. He steps inside and closes the door behind me.
As he slips off his jacket, I reach up onto my tiptoes and press my mouth to his. Yet my tongue has barely savoured a hint of his vanilla taste when he breaks away. Pulls away from me.
I frown. ‘I trust you,’ I say impatiently. ‘I trust you with my life. That’s what you needed to hear, right? Well, there you go. Now you know. I trust you and I want you.’ I move to kiss him again, but rather than reciprocating my action, he cups my cheeks and draws my face away from him.
‘I believe you,’ he replies softly, ‘but you’re forgetting the only rule of this relationship.’
Another day, another moment, and my mind would have spun at the word. Now, my mind is strangely numb. I shake my head. ‘What rule?’ I say. ‘There are no rules.’
‘Not as a distraction. That’s the one you gave me, remember? Not as a distraction.’
I open my mouth, desperate to object, to say that’s not the reason I want him, that it’s more than desire. It’s a need, a yearning, an absolute desperation.
The pain of his rejection burns through me. A pain that quickly shifts into anger.
‘You’re choosingnowto be a gentleman? Seriously? When I actually need you to fuck me, that’s when you find some morals?’
A muscle twitches along his jaw. ‘I was a kid, Thorn?—’
‘I’m not talking about my family. I’m talking about Estel’s sister.’ Even as the words leave my lips, I’m not sure why I’m bringing this up. What am I hoping to achieve? I know that causing other people hurt does nothing to minimise my own. And yet I can’t stop myself.
‘Estel’s sister, Thea?’
‘Yeah, the one you got pregnant, although you denied it was yours. The one who was stripped like my family was stripped. Sound familiar?’
‘Rose—’
‘What? You want me to trust you, but you don’t want me to know anything about you. Is that it?’
That muscle ticks again. ‘I don’t know what you’ve heard …’
I scoff. My voice is so bitter I barely recognise it. ‘I told you exactly what I heard. You knew what would happen to her, and you still denied the kid was yours.’
‘Because I wasn’t the father!’ It’s the first time he’s raised his voice, and it’s exactly what I need. I don’t care how much I want whatever this is between us; all I know right now is that he’s the only person in this arc with the power to truly hurt me, and I need him to do that. I need him to do that because I deserve it. I’m the reason Llinos is dead. I deserve to suffer. And I know Kyor’s never one to back away from a fight. Yet rather than continuing to battle with me, he lets out a sigh.
‘I knew Thea. Just like I knew Estel. Through balls, through parties, through growing up in the High Hold. But I didn’t get her pregnant. I don’t think I even fucked her.’
‘You don’tthink? Wow, Kyor, there’s so many you can’t even recall the names of all the women you’ve bedded? What a gentleman.’
