Denver’s throat bobs, the only crack in his Chancellor’s façade. “What Shaw did was admirable. But I fear it is only one more reason for me to stay in Nadjaa. With Shaw at Cullen’s side, he is only more powerful. The savagery that will be unleashed, Mirren, I must be here to—"
I slam my dagger into Denver’s desk. Denver shies away, his eyes wide. “Mirren, I—"
“No!” I shout. “You listen. You think you’re the good guy, the one that is going to bring balance, but you are exactly the same as Cullen. You abandoned your children to face a cruel world alone and now you’re abandoning Shaw. Helovesyou and you’re willing to sacrifice his last wishes to keep your seat of power. So let me tell you this, Denver. You don’t deserve what he gave you. You never did. And you certainly deserve nothing from Easton and me. I will leave this room and I will save my brother and we will never think of you again.”
Denver shakes his head, abashed. I grab my dagger and shove it into the bandolier, an old one of Shaw’s I found in his closet. “Once, Mirren, I had a heart like yours and I lost everything because of it. I will not make the same mistake again.”
I narrow my eyes. “What do you mean?”
He is silent so long that I turn away in disgust, sure he won’t answer. It isn’t until I’ve reached the door that he says, “Love,” the word is hushed. Ashamed.
“I was Outcast for falling in love.”
* * *
Max is sitting cross legged on Shaw’s bed when I return to the room. Her eyes burn as they follow my movements, watching as I carefully place all Shaw’s daggers in his weapons locker. I remove the bandolier, my hands running over the supple leather before storing it as well. Every morning I’ve been strapping Shaw’s weapons to me, a ritual that has kept me tethered, but one that will have to end soon. There will be no need for weapons once I cross the Boundary.
“So it’s true,” Max spits vehemently. I don’t shy away from her animosity as I once would have. Now, I bask in it. It’s assuredly deserved. “We’re leaving tomorrow to take you to Similis.”
I nod without looking at her, stepping out of my boots and placing them neatly next to an old pair of Shaw’s. His room has always been obsessively neat, and I can only think he’d approve of my keeping it that way.
“You’re just going to leave him to Cullen? He sacrificed everything for you and you’re just going to leave him?”
I turn to her, meeting her eyes. Her face is angry and vengeful, but something softer simmers behind it. Pleading. She wants me to tell her that Shaw can be saved. She didn’t see his knife slice across that soldier’s throat, didn’t see the last piece of his soul leave his body. She didn’t watch his beautiful eyes turn black, vile Darkness twining itself through every bit of who he was. Who he is no longer.
“He’s gone, Max. He sacrificed himself so that we could all live. I’m going to respect his wishes and heal Easton.”
She shakes her head vehemently, jumping off the bed. Her face is framed by lengths of fluffy coils, softening her regal features. “I don’t accept that,” she snarls fiercely, “I don’t accept that he’s gone. And while you’re pampered there behind your Boundary, I hope you know that I will be here doing whatever I can to get my friend back. I hope you’re tortured by thoughts of him and how you did nothing to save him.”
I swallow roughly and pull Max into a hug. Her body stiffens but after a moment, her arms come around me. Her hands tighten, clinging to my shirt as if it’s the only thing keeping her from floating away. I know the feeling.
Her skin is soft against mine and I wish for a moment that the anger and vengeance Max feels could be transferred by touch. I wish so badly to feel outrage, to feelsomething, but all I feel is a swirling void. Numb and icy, like the deepest pits of the sea.
There’s a soft knock on the door and Max pulls away from me abruptly, wiping at her eyes. Calloway pokes his head in. “Did you talk to Denver?” he asks.
I nod. My eyes wander to Shaw’s shelves, lined with so many unread stories. I wish I could bring them all with me, touching their covers reverently and imagining the man who chose them. But there will be no room for them in Similis. There will be no room for anything I’ve gained in the Dark World, none of the beauty or the pain. There is only room for gray, for sameness; no space for anythingother.
“We are going alone. We leave tomorrow.”
ChapterForty-Two
Mirren
The Boundary extends as far as the eye can see, a metal monstrosity that snakes through the valley, dividing Similis and Ferusa. On one side, the Dark World sprawls in verdant greens, lush and wild. On the other, everything is neatly trimmed. Nothing grows for beauty, only sustenance.
Dread settles over me, the first feeling to burst through the curtain of numbness that’s cloaked me on the journey here. Has the wall always looked so foreboding? And why have I always thought it was built to keep things out, when it was clearly designed to hold things in?
My gaze is drawn to the left of the gate. It has been walled over with bricks, but it seems they weren’t able to repair the integrity of the Boundary after all. The hole that led me to the most terrifying and most rewarding times of my life. The path that brought me to myself, that freed everything I kept locked away. The passage Shaw gifted me.
I still don’t know how he managed it.
“Why don’t you wait until morning, Mirren?” Calloway suggests from his place next to me. His voice is light, but his eyes are worried. The same worry has marred his handsome face for the entire week it’s taken us to get here, as if he fears I will crumble away to dust at any moment. I don’t know how to tell him there’s nothing left to crumble. I am a shell, empty but for one driving force.Heal Easton.My body continues to move, to eat and breathe, only because it is necessary to complete Shaw’s final request.
Even my power lies dormant and cold inside me, starved and stagnant as the bottom of a bog. Soon, I will have to scrape together enough to feed it in order to heal Easton, but for now, I spend a few more minutes in dissociated silence.
“She shouldn’t put off the inevitable,” Max snipes. The journey here has not tempered her anger. She wears it as a noblewoman would wear a dress—devastating and beautiful in its power. I can only be thankful for it; thankful that Shaw knew the purity of her and Cal’s friendship before his demise. That he was at least granted something beautiful before his world turned to darkness. “If she’s going to leave, she should just leave.”
Her coffee brown eyes fall on me, daring me to contradict her. I turn away before I can think about the other emotion that glimmers softly. Hope.
