“You didn’t make any promises about how quickly you’d carry out your end of the deal. Another week won’t make a difference. Or another one after that. Or a month?—”
“Stop.” My throat has constricted. “I can’t escape from this.”
When Erik sent me out of the cursed city to hunt Milena, it was a means to an end: to give me my freedom. Of course, I didn’t know it at the time, but he wasn’t actually sending me into danger. If I’d left with my family like he’d intended, I wouldn’t be here now.
If he’d died like he intended… I wouldn’t be here now.
He doesn’t reach for me, but it feels like the distance between us lessens as he says, “You said your sister needs to heal.Youneed time to heal, too.”
I wish I could. I’ve come close.
I finally release my left hand and hold it up. “There’s no healing while this is part of me.”
“Why not?”
I blink at him. “This is darkness. It’s death. I carry it with me everywhere I go.”
“It isn’t who you are.”
“Oh, I wish that were true,” I whisper.
His brow furrows deeply and now he takes a step toward me, but his face is still in shadow.
“Do you believe what Tamra said?” His voice is hard. “Do you believe that you’re like Malak?”
I answer his question with a question. “Did you keep me separated from my family because you thought I might hurt them?”
“Iwas the threat, Asha, not you.”
My breathing is suddenly shaky. He asked me to trust him, but all my doubts are resurfacing. “I don’t know if I should believe you.”
He’s always been two steps ahead of everyone else. Always seeing more than everyone else. Always using that knowledge for his own purposes. Maneuvering pieces into place.
His voice is low as he says, “Tamra was right about one thing.”
“What’s that?” I ask, my throat tight.
“Refusing to heal me.” He remains in shadow so I can’t see his eyes, can’t see into his heart. “Her healing power is Blacksmith power. It would have collided with the dark energy within the device in my heart. Fed its power. Made it stronger. She wouldn’t have been able to control that dark energy like you did. It would have killed her.”
I take a startled breath.
Did Tamra sense the danger? Did she wrestle with an unexplainable instinct that told her not to use her power on him?
Without knowledge of the existence of the device, she would have had no rationalization for any such instinct other than to focus on the choices Erik made in the past and her fears about the future.
“I knew about your sister’s healing power long before you did,” he continues. “I had time to think through the consequences of her trying to help me. I would never knowingly put her in harm’s way, so I abandoned hope, and now…”
He turns slightly, half of his face now in the light, revealing the tension in his jaw.
It’s the hollow in his eyes that strikes me the hardest.
“There’s no clean slate for me, is there?” he asks.
I don’t know how to answer him. I don’t know if the answer isyesorno.
Before I can even begin to find the words, his eyes harden again.
“If you believe what your sister said about you, then give in,” he says.
