I let out a surprised laugh. “Yeah, I don’t think purple is his tone. Really brings out the dark circles under his eyes.”
The corner of Marina’s mouth tugs upward, and I feel like I’ve won something though I’m not sure what. But then silence stretches between us once more, thick with unspoken guilt and regret. I ball my fingers into the iridescent fabric of my own dress, the soft cyan I’d chosen for tonight suddenly seeming far too bright. Why hadn’t I picked something darker? Something to make it easier to disappear?
My shadow digs into my shoulders, like it will drag me away into the darkness I seek.
Instead, my gaze drifts from the mural back to the pixie beside me. She’d been brave tonight in choosing to bear the marks of her mistakes and trauma. Perhaps I can try a little of the same.
I shrug my shadow off, and straighten my shoulders.I’m glad you came,I sign to her, finding the words come easier from my hands than my mouth.
Her pale brows lift in suspicion.That…isn’t exactly the greeting I was expecting. It isn’t like you to so easily forget a slight.
“I wouldn’t consider cutting someone’s throat a ‘slight’.”
I can’t help but laugh at Marina’s shrug of indifference.
Exactly why I was expecting more weapons and less pleasantries.
“Why did you come then?”
Marina glances at the morphellia all around us with a wistful air.I couldn’t resist. I never thought I’d live to see another blooming.Her eyes slide back to the portrait of Niko.I never thought I’d live to see a lot of things.
But she had—because of him.
She turns to me, her eyes appearing bluer than usual in the underground light.Willa,she begins hesitantly, but I stop her before she can continue.
“Look, Marina…you don’t have to apologize. I’m not going to retaliate or banish you. I know why you did it.”
I wasn’t going to apologize.Marina’s brows furrow as if this is the most ridiculous thing she’s ever heard.
“Oh.” I fiddle with my fingers as an awkward silence descends between us, one Marina seems in no hurry to fill. “Well, alright then, I guess.”
You have been angry at me since Niko died, and hold a grudge as well as I do, Willa. What reason would suddenly deem my actions forgivable?
“You’re right.” I let a breath leak through my teeth. “I was angry that you let him sacrifice himself, and a part of me always will be. But I understand it. He spared your life when he should have ended it. He gave you a renewed purpose, he gave you a family you could hold onto. And I’ve lived long enough to know how sacred that is, Marina. So I understand you defending it with everything you have, even when it’s hard…even if it means slitting my throat because he asked you to. I respect it. I envy it.”
Marina is silent for a long moment, her gaze hard.I didn’t do it for him.
I glance at her in surprise, but she presses on,Last year, I did. Niko has never asked for anything in return for saving me. Not once. He never even asked for an apology for being the one to have hurt him so many times. And you have to understand, Willa…despite the stories, he’s had so little of anything he’s wanted in his life. So, I gave him what I could…the one thing he asked of me in two hundred years, even though it meant losing him forever.
Marina squares her shoulders.But I didn’t stab you out of blind loyalty to him. I did it just as much because of my loyalty toyou.
I stare at her. “You let me bleed out on the floor like an animal because you’reloyal?”I repeat incredulously. “Loyal tome?”
She levels me with an unrepentant stare.
“Marina, youcan’tbe loyal to us both. Not now. Not when he’s trying to steal the island away from me.”
Niko is my king, but you, Willa… you are my queen. And just as Niko once saved me, you savedallof us. So my loyalty is yours just as it is his. And I will defend you for the rest of my days…Marina’s gaze strays to my shadow, and her expression turns lethal.Even if it’s from a blight within yourself.
I stiffen in shock, feeling suddenly cornered. Like Marina has seen to all the things I’ve tried to hide, all the reasons I don’t deserve what I have. “So you believe him, then? That I’m ruining the kingdom, and he would be a better ruler?”
Marina’s gaze turns pitying as she gestures to Niko’s portrait.You see this painting, and only see all the reasons you aren’t fit to rule. Do you know what I see?
I don’t think I can bear to know, but she continues regardless.
I see a king with half a heart, and an island fading into oblivion. You completed them both. You saved them both from ruin. Do you understand? My loyalty to you is not in conflict with my allegiance to him because you are of the same heart. Allegiance to one is allegiance to the other.
My throat pulls tight at her words, and my eyes begin to sting, as memories of Niko rise from where I’ve tried to bury them. They crest over me like a suffocating wave, and I stave them off with a shake of my head before I drown.
