She doesn’t speak.
The room fills with a silence that presses in on me.
A stray tear spills from the corner of her eye, falling to the pillow resting beneath her head, and somehow, it kills me more than if a river of them fell.
I knew she was tortured, tormented physically—but not all scars are visible.
I know she doesn’t want to speak to me, but her mouth opens and closes, trying to get the words out. To purge them.
“They used my weaknesses,” she murmurs, “to distort reality, to fracture my mind, and fill it with memories—I can’t figure out if they’re mine, conjured. I don’t know what’s real.” She whimpers, voice breaking under the pain.
I try to keep my face soft, tender, but merciless thoughts of vengeance swallow me whole. Thoughts of extinguishing every inhabitant of Kryntar Castle and reveling in the sight ofwatching the light leave their eyes. I don’t care if they personally hurt her or not—they were there and did nothing to stop it, and that warrants pain that follows them into the afterlife.
I shove the rage down, swallowing it like poison.
“I’ll help you sift through them, Duskae. Every one of them. I know I’ve lost your trust—I fucking deserve that! But I want to help you heal, too,” I plead, unable to keep the desperation from my voice.
She turns to me, then. Rage and pain clashing in a battle of the head and heart. “Youwant to help? But you are all I see!Youare the distortion,” she snarls. “Saving me, betraying me, loving me, hurting me, and all I see when I look at you ishim,” she breaks.
Maldrak.And the instinct for violence bucks wildly in my chest again.
Her chest heaves, breath coming too fast, too hard. She sits on the edge of the bed, auburn hair framing her face with strands of gold that steal breath from my lungs.
“You are everywhere. You are my dreams, my nightmares, my solace, and my ruin—all of it, all at once. I cannot bear to meet your gaze for fear you’ll strip me of all I have left. The only end to you is at the bottom of a flask,” she sobs now, her body shuddering under the force of them.
My heart shatters. Because she cannot trust any part of me—my words, my intentions, my love, my vows—not even my presence now. But it’s all I have to offer.
“It is my vow to you, Elyssara, that I will only give to you. I will not take that which you do not wish to give freely. I only wish to see you rise. To be the queen you were born to be,” I beg, dropping to my knees before her. I’m not above it. For her, I’ll do it. “Let me help.”
I place my palm tenderly on her outer thigh, but she flinches under my touch. And something in me breaks. I knowI lost her trust, but whatever happened at Kryntar Castle has extinguished any salvageable shred.
She recoils slowly, “The only way you can help me, Kael, is by allowing me to live without you. I can’t bear to look at you, think of you, speak of you. I just… can’t.” Tears run freely across the freckles of her cheeks, now. The freckles I laid kisses upon. The cheeks I’ve cupped in my hands. The tears I never want to cause.
I want to give her this. I do. But she’s my Starbound—I won’t let Maldrak’s cruelty take her from me, no matter what that makes me. A selfish bastard. An asshole.
“I can’t do that, El. I’m sorry, but I will not abandon you when you need me most,” I defy boldly, trying to keep some softness in my tone but failing.
“You’re always with me, Kael—that’s the problem,” she murmurs, closing her eyes.
And I realize?—
“The brand.”
“Yes! The brand! Your family crest!” she rasps, fists clenching at her sides. “I have to live with you branded into my fucking flesh, as if you hadn’t already branded me and possessed my heart, anyway! You are so thoroughly under my fucking skin and in my bones that not even slumber will rid me of you!”
She rolls onto her side, curling her legs and arms into herself like a child, and I can see her ribcage shuddering with grief and pain.
I set a knee on the mattress, but stop. “May I?”
She doesn’t speak—just gives the smallest nod. Only then do I fold myself around her, a barrier against the world I helped break. As if I can shield her from the world’s monsters. But, I know, to her, Iamthe monster.
She doesn’t push me away, so I hook my forearm around her waist, pulling her into me.
Her body stills, but not in peace—in anticipation. Of what, I’m not sure. Probably pain.
We lie like this for a while, letting her take even small comfort in my presence.
She stops shuddering, and I think I’ve made progress, but the mask of cold indifference slips back into place when she edges out of my embrace.
