She refused to look at him, and Örim only became more frantic. “Cassie, please. I need to know. How long have you been hurting yourself?” Was this what Eleri had been alluding to at the clinic after the incident with her voicelock? Had she hurt herself then too? Had she been hurting herself this whole time? In their home? Under his protection? Without asking, he already knew the answer. The reality made him clutch at his wrist nodes, overwhelmed with the implications.
Cassie started to wail. Her face contorted into a horrible, twisted expression, only made worse by the lack of accompanying sound. He hadn’t realized. It was there the whole time, and he hadn’t realized.
Because he hadn’t been looking.
Örim wanted her to be well, so in his mind she was. She was fierce and resilient. His perfect aöseria. She agreed to let him love her. She agreed to try. And he’d been so wrapped up in his own euphoria that he’d never peered beyond her surface. The hard and glittering astelide of her exterior obscuring the truth of how she was coping. But only a fool would think her healed and whole and well. And he was certainly a fool.
Örim knew what happened to the cracked ones. They cleaved themselves open and threw themselves into the lightning fields, letting bolts sear through them until they overcharged their energy cores. He wouldn’t let that happen to Cassie.
Örim reached under the docks to pull her out into the sunlight. This time, she didn’t struggle away. She was featherlight in his arms. All hollow bones and bits of hair and sinew. But each gasping, shuddering sob set fissures into his shoulders as he rocked her.
“My aöseria. Why? Why are you carrying this hurt on your own?” He received no response other than the tight clutch of her arms around his neck. “Hurt me instead. I’m a lot less fragile than you. I can take it. I can always be fixed and reseeded. You are precious, and your body does not repair itself the way a teösian’s does.”
Sometimes I hate being here.
“Being where? In Laurus? We can leave. I can take you back to Teös with me. Or we can go to any IA planet. I have resources.”
Cassie shook her head.Here. Here breathing. I hate it.Her eyes welled with water, and Örim understood her words, her meaning, but he wished he didn’t.
But neither of them could stay out in the sun like this. His body felt the strain of heat against his sensitive eyes, and Cassie was starting to dampen with sweat. “Let’s go home, aöseria. We can talk more there.”
She clung to him as he situated them both on his levibike. Örim recognized she was in no state to respond to requests to wear a helmet or to sit properly on the passenger seat of the bike, so he drove like his venerable fossilized ancestor was on the seat with him. And all the while, Cassie wept. Her tears bled through the fabric of his shirt as he pulled up to their home. He lifted her off the levibike and carried her inside, where he was gratefulfor the cool and dark. With all the gentleness he could manage through his maelstrom of anxiety, Örim removed her boots and then placed her on her nest of bedding.
“I’ll go get the wound-care kit.” Örim was reluctant to leave her, but Eleri’s warning about infections and possible death rang warnings in his mind. He would not be able to comfort Cassie appropriately if he was concerned for her health.
Stay.Cassie signed. Örim couldn’t. Not while she was bleeding.
“I just need to go to the other room for a moment.” Örim ran. He ran because he feared what he would find when he returned. With unusual careless haste, he snatched the medical kit from their shared lavatory and then hurried back to Cassie. She sat glassy-eyed in the center of her nest, scratching absently at her already torn arms.
“Cassie, no. Please. Cassie, look at me!” He dropped the kit and reached for her. It was his fault. She’d asked him to stay. He’d left anyway. But the sight of her hurting herself was more than he could bear.
Örim sank down beside her nest. His chest node had already broken for her once. But it was precariously close to cracking again. He gathered her close again, and Cassie made no attempt to flee. “Come back to me, please. You’re somewhere else, I know.”
Cassie shook her head against his chest.I don’t want to be here anymore.
“You have to stay. I’m a greedy, selfish male; I need you to stay here with me.” Örim felt the franticness of trying to evade an incoming storm. She was already fractured. He wouldn’t let her fill herself with more lightning.
Not safe. Never safe.
“I will keep you safe. But I need you to stay. Cassie. I need you to promise me you’ll talk to me or someone else if you feel like you can’t stay.”
Rhea is dead. I failed.
“No.” Örim clutched her tighter, afraid she’d evaporate from his arms if he gave her half a chance. “You are not responsible for anysöktevil. Do not let the Aviarist take anything else from you. I won’t let him have you. Don’t give yourself to him.”
I don’t know what else to do. If it will save Piper and Swift, he can have me.
“Cassie. The Aviarist wants all of you. Giving yourself to him won’t protect Piper or Swift.” He smoothed a hand through her hair, grateful at least that she’d stopped attacking herself. Her hands had gone slack against her thighs. “Can we clean your injuries?” Örim asked, even though he knew it was probably terrible timing. But he couldn’t handle her bleeding and injured without spiking his own anxiety. Eleri’s warnings about human infections rang loudly in his head the longer Cassie went without treatment.
When she didn’t protest, Örim retrieved the medical supplies he’d dropped in his haste to reach her. Cassie sat exhausted in the center of the pillow nest, her eyes were clear though, not glassy and distant as they’d been previously. Örim pulled on gloves and then searched for the antibiotic ointment, slathering it over Cassie’s arms before wrapping them in bandages. She only winced slightly at the sting of the antiseptic. Her blood had speckled down onto her clothing and dotted the blanket serving as the base of her nest. Örim would wash it after she was sleeping. Now hardly seemed like the time to mention it.
Örim removed the gloves and knelt in front of her, waiting to see if she would share anything with him.
CHAPTER 38
Örim
Cassie didn’t speak again immediately. She was crying too hard. After the glassy-eyed look had receded, her heart rate spiked high enough Örim could hear the resonance through her chest. He took her hand in his, waiting quietly until she was ready, even though her silent sobbing was nearly unbearable.
