He reaches through the bars, straining toward me again. His thick fingers brush the sword hilt but fall short. He tries again, pressing himself against the bars until the metal must be cutting into his shoulder. It's no use. He's too short and the distance is too great.
"If you could just shift a bit to the left," he suggests.
"Leave it."
"Don't be daft. You can't stay stuck to a wall like a mounted trophy."
Hrolf ignores me and steps closer anyway, one thick hand hovering near my arm without quite touching. "Why didn't you fight back? Against the knight?"
"I can't remember what I did," I say it to the floor. "During the demon attack. There are hours missing in my head."
I swallow. "What if I hurt her?"
The question has been circling in my mind since I woke.
"Did you?" Hrolf asks simply.
"I don't know."
I try one more time to remember. When the witch cursed me, she stripped away what little control I had.
I became just the thing that kills.
I close my eyes and push at the void where my memories should be. There has to be something, some fragment.
I see the witch. Her golden hair and red dress.
I see her hands moving, tracing symbols in the air. Runes that glowed and rotted and sank into my skin.
I feel the moment the curse took hold. All the doors to the monsters in me slamming open.
And then—
Nothing.
A clean, absolute absence. When I surface again, the world has already changed.
I cannot see what happened in between. It's like a book with its middle torn out. The beginning is there. The end is there. But the pages that matter are gone.
Rhianelle paid the price for what I cannot remember.
Through the bars between us, Hrolf studies me with those sharp, unblinking eyes. "Well, it seems to me if you'd wanted to kill her, she'd be dead. Nightwalkers don't leave their prey alive. You brought her back for healing. A real monster wouldn't do that."
He may be right.
It doesn't quiet the guilt clawing at my ribs.
"The witch cursed me," I tell him. "Before the demons came. She did something to me. It made me lose control completely. I woke up surrounded by demon corpses and Rhianelle was—"
"So you're afraid you hurt her while you were cursed."
"Yes."
"But you also killed all those demons. So maybe you were protecting her from them," Hrolf says thoughtfully. "If you'd truly lost yourself to the beast, she'd be dead. There wouldn't be anything left to save."
It's possible. I want it to be true so badly.
But wanting doesn't make it so.
