Niko dances out of my reach with the comforter, and for a moment, I’m overcome by the distinct urge to stab him. Or maybe pound my fist into his face until he doesn’t look so smug.
“Give them back before my skin breaks open all over again.”
He sets me with a flat look. “No,” he says perfunctorily, before moving to the window and thrusting the shutters open.
“You’re lucky I can’t reach my sword,” I pout, throwing my hands over my eyes as the sunshine pierces straight through my retinas. “Or I’d run you through right now.”
“You could certainly try.” Niko spins toward me with a flourish. “But as I’m the one who taught you everything you know about swordplay, I’m certain I can still best you. No matter that you’re now twice my size and built like a boulder.”
I bristle as his eyes run over me in frank assessment, bracing for his coming disgust. But he only twists his mouth in distinct annoyance. “I’ve never taken you for a hypocritical coward. I don’t think I like it.”
“I don’t care what you like,” I reply obstinately, glaring at him from between my fingers. “Are you the only one allowed to convalesce in bed, then?”
Niko sighs, his eyes rolling to the ceiling like he’s gathering patience we both know he doesn’t possess.
“Sammie, we’re not going to pretend like you aren’t twice the man I am. You don’t get to sink to my level, because you’ve always been far above it. So, you’re going to sit the fuck up, and we’re going to face reality as it is, not as we want it to be.”
My heart softens a bit at his words. Niko is a lot of things, but he has always seen me for who I am. Even before I’d come toSomnya, I spent my life mired in the emotions of others. Perhaps a trait that began as a way to protect myself in a cruel world, or perhaps I was simply born with a heart determined to bleed for others.
When my magic first bloomed as a Strayed, it felt impossible to delineate where others stopped and I began; impossible to keep every one of their whims from sinking beneath my skin and coloring my own wants. It felt like everything I was had once been a part of someone else, like nothing belonged only to me.
A small seven-year-old with wild black hair and a magic everyone else feared was the only person to see to the true heart of me. Niko has always been the anchor back to myself when the tides of others threatened to consume me whole. There is no hiding from death. A person can spend their life pretending to be whatever they want, but when the end comes, it sees them for who they are. Beneath the riches, beneath the platitudes.
I feel his attention now, lethal and still, and I both hate him and love him for it. He raises a brow in silent challenge.
With a small measure of misery, and a larger measure of shame, I nod my assent.
Niko is at my side in an instant, arranging and fluffing the pillows to his satisfaction before slipping his gloved hands behind my back to help me up. Agony radiates through me, pain without an acute source as it encompasses the whole of my body—every inch of my skin, my eyes, my muscles, and the raw space where my magic used to be.
My breath stalls in my chest, and I’m forced to grit my teeth to keep my groan trapped in my throat. But for the first time since I discovered the loss of my magic, I sit up.
When he’s certain I’m propped up securely, Niko settles into the chair beside the bed. The same seat I’d told Adira to leave, even though it killed me to do it. I know the request hurt her—that she would have remained faithfully by my side nightand day—but it is easier to exist in isolation. Easier to ignore the gaping hole where her feelings have always resided, curled beside mine.
I already admitted too much in my pained stupor, and upset the delicate balance between us. I couldn’t explain that I don’t recognize the shape of my heart without hers.
Sucking in a breath, I adjust myself on the bed. Niko hands me a steaming mug of what smells like Marina’s pain-relieving tea.
“Drink,” he commands to my irritation.
Not once in our three hundred years together has Niko ever done what he was told, even when it was to his benefit. That he now expects obedience from me is laughable, but I take a sip despite my annoyance, because it isn’t worth the energy of an argument.
“Happy now,sir?”
“Of course not,” he replies, taking an annoyingly prim sip from his own mug.
I tense in anticipation of the moment his hard gaze softens to unbearable pity; the moment when I transform from his friend into another burden of the kingdom to care for. Niko carries the responsibility of enough. I never wanted him to carry me, too.
But he only heaves an irritated sigh and says, “What is there to be happy about? Even mutilated to high hell, you still manage to look prettier than me, and I can’t say I appreciate it.”
A laugh balloons out of me, and despite the way it stings my wounds, it heals a piece of my heart. “I don’t know how Willa abides your ego.”
“I think my prowess in bed certainly helps the cause.”
I shake my head lightly, choosing to ignore that particular statement. “How is she faring? Recovering from Nyawa sap is a nasty business.” I shoot him a cheeky smile. “You’d know.”
Niko takes another sip, fitting me with a flat look. “Don’t change the subject, Samuel.”
“And what subject were we on, exactly?”
