“No.” I resumed my absent stroking through Calix’s hair. The boy’s nose scrunched as if he were in a dream, then the creases softened again. I sighed. “I am ready.” Not because Neirin had broached the subject, but because of the child who leaned against me. Because of those we were going to rescue from the Queen’s hold. Because of Ruairc’s words, when he told me to embrace the broken parts of myself.
“Aureus and I lived on the streets with our mother when we were children,” I said. “One of the men that Mother took to bed—” I swallowed. “He did not want her. He took my innocence, robbed me of the chance to choose for myself how I wanted to give my body, and killed Mother when she tried to fight him off.” It was easier, somehow, to say the words than I’d expected it would be. Painful, but freeing too. Like I’d needed to voice them, needed to no longer carry the burden alone.
Sitting beside me, Neirin tensed, but he said nothing, only let me speak.
“It wasn’t until a few days ago that I recalled the events. The nightmares I’ve had all my life—they were fragmented glimpsesinto that night. Mother’s scream, Aureus hiding, my wrist being grasped, being tugged from my brother.”
When I quieted, Neirin buried his nose in my hair, his breath warm as he exhaled heavily.
I carefully moved my arm, and Calix snuffled in his sleep, readjusting himself with his head turned away in my lap. Drawing my dagger, I held it up to the last light of the evening. “It belonged to him—to the man who hurt me.”
“You defended yourself.” Neirin’s words came across as a statement, not a question, and I turned my chin to look up at him and meet his eyes. I began to form the words to question him, but he spoke first. “You’re brave.” He placed his left hand on my heart. “You have a fire within you. I saw it the first time I set eyes upon you.”
Turning my gaze back to the dagger, I let Neirin’s words sink in. Was I brave? Or was I only rash, a fool, always lunging before I thought? Perhaps there was no difference between the two. “When I slashed the man across the face, his eyes pooled with hatred. I thought he would kill me, too, but a knock on the door of the pleasure house room we were in startled him, and he fled out the window. It didn’t matter that I cut him. It didn’t make a difference or change what happened before I got my hands on his knife.”
Neirin took my hand in his, coaxing me to turn the dagger. Its mirrored surface not only reflected the light, but it also reflected us. Neirin’s eyes were pained, as if he’d seen a ghost. “It made a difference,” Neirin said, swallowing.
I looked up to him again and found his face had paled. “Neir—”
He blinked as if clearing his thoughts. “You showed that man you did not fear him. And even if you could not take back what he took from you, in standing up for yourself, I believe you set forth on the path you’re on today. I believe your action was thefirst spark of your fire. And now—” He smiled, and the color returned to his face as he kissed my forehead. “Now you burn brighter than any hearth, any wildfire.”
His words melted the edge of nerves the subject had brought, and I hummed, the corners of my lips turning up. I sheathed my dagger at my hip, and with that, released the remnants of my fear of the man who’d hurt me all those years ago. There was no way of knowing if the man was dead or alive, living in the streets or in an estate. If he did live, he would see the scar of my mark each time he caught his own reflection. And if he were to cross my path again, I would detect him in a heartbeat. He wouldn’t hurt me again. Though that pain would always exist to an extent, I didn’t have to let it weigh me down anymore. Neirin was right, something had sparked in me that night.
Embrace the broken.
Was that what Ruairc had meant? That without the moments that shape us, we are nothing more than a mold of everyone else? Was it my broken pieces that made me unique, bold, and that fed my fire and strengthened my resolve? And Neirin—he, too, was broken in his own ways. Perhaps I was the broken piece to complete his puzzle, and perhaps he was the same unto me.
“Neir,” I said, breaking the quiet. “What happened to your guard uniform? The night of the festival?”
He nodded across the river, to the thick forested wood on the other side. “It’s still there, I suspect. I shed it when I shifted.”
I sucked in my bottom lip as an opportunity came into view before me. One Neirin would never agree to. Perhaps it was time for me to be brave again, to take the first step.
51
EVERA
Warmth cocooned me.Neirin slept at my back, his arm wrapped at my waist, and Calix was curled against my chest. The cold breeze caught my nose and sent a chill down my spine, but in the warmth of my family’s embrace, I felt safe from anything that lay beyond us. Secure. Was I wrong to push this pursuit? Was I putting my new family at risk for the sake of the children held in the castle? Could I live with myself if something happened to one of them? They were the same questions I’d asked myself time and again as I’d waited for Neirin’s breathing to slow with sleep.
I studied the outline of the treetops, silhouettes against a sky speckled with stars. Though I knew my plan held the possibility of failure, it was the only option I could see before us. The river flowed too fast for us to swim, or at least it was for Calix and I. Neirin could, as his fox, but he would never agree to a plan that involved having to shift. However, if he woke to find Calix and I already at the other bank—if shifting were his only way to reach us … It was the only way.
“Calix,” I whispered the boy’s name, stroking his cheek with my thumb. He mumbled but didn’t rouse. “Calix, wake up.”
Yawning, he half opened his eyes, his lips pouted. “Wha—”
“I have a plan. We can’t wake Neirin,” I said, hushing him.
He sighed, and I wondered briefly whether he would go along with my plan or if he would question it. Leaving Neirin, I knew, went against his instinct and his loyalties. But he was loyal to me, too. He trusted me, and I hoped that was enough for him to put his faith in my plan. It was the only chance we had.
Without further word, he shuffled away from me and sat on his knees, his eyes studying as I carefully moved Neirin’s arm aside and wiggled out of his hold. The chill at the lack of his body heat hit me instantly, and I resisted a shudder.
Looking down at my mate, my love, my world, I hesitated. But this was the only way. I’d turned countless options over in my mind, and no other path seemed possible. It was time for me to be brave, to be strong. To put into place what would move us forward. Once we were across the river, though, there truly would be no turning back. As if the rushing water itself were a physical representation of the last barrier between the war that waged in my mind—the war between running away and keeping my family safe or risking everything to do what was right.
Adjusting the single small blanket we’d shared to keep Neirin warm, I resisted the urge to kiss his brow before standing and turning my back to him. My heart thundered in my chest, and I let out a breath to steady myself, focusing on the rushing of the river, the gurgles and splashes, the smell of fresh water in the air.
Calix stood beside me, handing me my bag which contained the remains of our rations and supplies. Nodding, I took it from him, letting my right shoulder take the brunt of the weight, and set forward, following the course of the river.
We walked in silence,even as the bridge came into view. The twin moons shone down, both waning, denoting the passing of time. Had it been only just over a moon, then, since the festival? Beside me, Calix’s steps shuffled the stones as he dragged his feet, showing his exhaustion. I was responsible for him, for a child. So recently, I had dismissed the thought of marriage and motherhood. But this family with Neirin and Calix wasn’t confining, wasn’t stifling. They both supported me, believed in my abilities, in my mind, and in my heart. The corners of my lips turned up, and I wrapped an arm around Calix’s shoulders, drawing him closer to me as we followed the river.
