Kilkenny sinks down onto the floor beside the tub and regards me with such warmth that my chest quickly becomes crowded. A hot tear slips down my cheek. As soothing as this bath is, I hate how vulnerable I am right now.
Kilkenny’s back straightens—he’s immediately ready to jump into action. “What hurts?”
“What doesn’t?”
His posture deflates. He reaches out to place a hand atop mine. “Give yourself some grace.”
“I hate being helpless.”
He smiles softly. “And yet you thinkI’mstubborn.”
I start to laugh, but my breath catches and a sob breaks free instead. I pull my knees close to my chest and bury my face. For a while, there’s just stillness. Then warm water flows over my back, and something smooth and cool slides across my skin. It takes me a moment to realize that Kilkenny is lathering my back with a ball of soap. Then my shoulders. He pours water over my hair and coaxes me out of my position so he can unbraid and wash it.
The whole time, I sit there, holding back tears as best as I can. It takes all my energy, sapping any lingering shyness over my nudity. Iremain still as Kilkenny lathers the front of my body with the soapy rag. By the time the lavender soap conquers the sweat and my hair is tons lighter, my chest aches from continuously swallowing sobs.
Kilkenny helps me out of the tub and wraps a towel around me. I expect it to be thin and hardly absorbent like the ones back in Cluain Baile, but this one is plush and so soft it makes me want to curl up in bed with it and never get up again.
I hardly register anything as Kilkenny helps me get dressed. He applies soothing balms to bruises I didn’t realize I had. As he wrestles my hair into a thick braid, Iywan’s voice from my vision echoes in my mind:Things turned ugly; there were no survivors.
It feels as if someone has reached into my chest cavity and clenched an iron fist around my heart. I focus on breathing slowly through the heaviness, but the tension doesn’t loosen—it only moves up my throat, to my head.
Kilkenny sits in front of me on the bed with his legs crossed, and I stare at him with heavy, bone-tired resignation. I want to thank him, but my voice doesn’t obey me.
I can’t do this anymore, I want to say.Just leave me here.
As I open my mouth to say it aloud, what comes out instead is, “I don’t know how to go on anymore. Who do I fight for now if not for Taig?”
Kilkenny brushes a tear from my cheek and says, “Yourself. You fight for yourself.”
I’m trembling as I try to contain the ugly cry that is threatening to shatter me. I wrap my arms around my legs, attempting to physically hold myself together.
“I know I told you not to break,” he starts. “But this is the part where you give yourself permission to do so. For now. I’ll be right here to help you pick up the pieces afterward. I promise. We’ll do this together.”
My breath falters. Each word dismantles my carefully constructed dam of emotional repression, brick by brick. A tidal wave of hurt, anger, and betrayal rises up inside of me—burning, aching, thrashing against my crumbling blockade. Instinctively, I start to shove it all back, but then, recalling Kilkenny’s words, I give myself permission to break. I release a shaky breath, tears following, and the emotions rush through. The first sob loosens, and before I know it, I’m in Kilkenny’s strong embrace, crushed against his chest. I weep for my father, my mother, my brother. For Ellynne, Callum. For Carys. Osheen.
I weep for the Durvla I thought I was.
And for the Durvla I need to find.
The sobs endure until I have no tears left, until my throat is raw, and my eyes are swollen. My chest feels as though it’s been overstretched from the inside out.
At the end of it all, Kilkenny is still there, his arms offering me comfort in my moment of weakness.
I take one steadying breath after another and wrap my arms around him, not just because I need his comfort.
But because Iwantit.
CHAPTER 71
Carys
Drip,drip, drip.
With each droplet of water hitting the stone floor that never floods, I grow a little more on edge. I’m no longer bound to the torture contraption nor to the metal chair. Instead, I’m sitting on the very corner of the bed, rocking back and forth to distract myself from the millions of scenarios running through my mind.
I’ve considered charging head-first into the metal bars of my cell, repeatedly if needed.
I’ve thought of standing on this very bed and diving into the stone floor as one would into deep waters.
