The pads of my fingertips trailed to her cheek, to the smudge there. I wiped at it. It was boiledkuverimash. She and Lokkaru had been making more candles, evidently.
“Did Lokkaru say anything about the heartstone?” I asked next.
Disappointment spread across her features and I felt relief. Her lips pressed together and she shook her head, stepping away from my touch and kneeling by the low table. She began to organize the food in a manner which made me frown. She cleared away the half-eaten food—her meals—piling it onto the tray and replacing it with the fresh dishes, from Arinu, no doubt. Her motions were efficient and quick.
“Leave it,leikavi,” I told her when she rose with the dirtied tray.
“I’ll just go take this back,” she said quietly, her eyes still cast towards the tray. A slave’s gaze. “I will leave you to eat.”
I wondered if serving food to the Ghertunsibi—what they called their household, I’d learned—that owned her was one of her responsibilities under the Dead Mountain. The thought made hot anger rise. Not at her, however.
I snagged her wrist and she gasped when the tray crashed to the floor of the tent, spewing the leftover food over the rugs and breaking the dishes it had come in.
“I said leave it,” I rasped. “Iwill return it later.”
Her eyes darted to the floor between us. She had the instincts of a slave but why had they returned now? Because she was uncomfortable? Because I’d hurt her with my cruel words three nights ago? Because she’d witnessed me speaking with the shadows? Or because I’d been too rough with her during our first fucking?
You’re hurting me, she’d told me. Her voice had been quiet, patient, yet firm.
Just remembering those words made self-hatred burn down my chest.
It was likely all of those reasons made her wary of me now that I was awake.
Just three nights ago, she’d grinned as she found her pleasure riding my cock. Now, she could barely meet my eyes. Before, it had been relief in her gaze to see me awake but now she seemed nervous.
And I…didn’t want that.
You know better, was what my sister had always said.
So, though I’d never asked for it in my entire life, I murmured, “Forgive me.”
Vienne’s breath hitched, her gaze connecting with mine in surprise.
“Hanniva,leikavi,” I murmured, brushing my fingers over cheek again.
Please.
I knew she knew that word.
My voice was gruff. I was unused to issuing apologies, had only ever done so to my sister and mother. AVorakkarnever apologized.
“I did not mean to hurt you,” I told her, my jaw clenched and tight. “And then I did not mean to lash out at you afterwards. I did not mean for you to see…”
I trailed off, my gaze lifting briefly, tracking to the shadowed space in myvoliki. My chest gave a dull pang and I swallowed, remembering the black blood blooming across my sister’s abdomen.
When I looked back at her, her eyes were there as well, as if she too had seen what I’d seen. But I knew it was impossible. My mind had become so warped that sometimes, it was difficult to know what was real. When I went to battle, when I lost too much sleep, when I dwelled too much on my past life…thoseoccurrences—as Hedna liked to call them—grew more and more frequent.
One day, I feared I would lose myself entirely to them. I feared I would lose myself to those shadows, that I would join them there and never return.
Swallowing, I waited for her to speak. Our eyes connected and held. I was relieved when she didn’t twitch her gaze away.
Slowly, she pressed a hand to my bare chest. Right where my heart was thudding away.
“Use it,” I rasped. “So you know I speak the truth.”
Her eyelids fluttered in surprise, her lips turning down into a frown. I’d meant her power—whatever it was she was capable of doing, though I had a relatively good guess of what that was—and she knew it.
There was something else there. Fear. In the lightness of her eyes, there was the flickering of fear.
