She doesn’t falter. “I trust you, Erik. I want to hear everything you need to tell me.”
I can only nod. We move away from my father’s statue and head toward the cabin’s entrance, finding the ground on this side of it slushy while the door is clear of snow.
I take a deep breath before I open it and step inside.
All of the scents from within the cabin rush at me, as if they were trapped all this time, bringing with them memories of fur and wolves and family.
The blood that was spilled here must have been long ago cleaned away by insects because there’s no sign of it.
The weapons on the wall directly to the right have remained in place, including my father’s broken war hammer.
The stairs at the far end of the space, and the loft around three sides, appear intact. Father built them to stand the test of time.
Asha heads straight for the hearth, busying herself around it, repositioning the remaining woody pieces within it before reaching for fresh logs from the small pile nearby.
I set about spreading out a fur next to the hearth before I reach for the tinder and light the fire with ease. Then I take the bucket that once contained clean water, step outside to gather snow, and bring it back to boil it.
We work in silence until the weight of the past lifts; these simple, familiar actions ease the hold I’ve kept on my memories.
I know Asha is listening, giving me the space and time to begin when I can.
I start where it’s easy. “My wolf’s name was Skirra.”
Chapter 53
Itell her everything, speaking for a long time, stopping only to chew a small portion of our remaining food and gulp the cooled water.
I’ve learned to identify Asha’s emotions. The small changes in her expression that match her sadness, anger, surprise, frustration, outrage, and far more rarely, happiness.
She asks quiet questions, especially about my deep light, and constrains her moments of shock, although her heartbeat gives her away, leaping and pounding when the things I say must be shifting her foundations or hurting her heart. I can see that the way I lost my family hurts her as if my family were her own.
I talk through it all, and by the time I reach our interaction in the throne room, my voice is hoarse.
“I convinced myself that the only way I could appease the humans who were screaming for your death was to deliver a punishing verdict on you. I would make you pay for the sins of your people by fighting the monsters in the wastelands. At the same time, there could be no hint that I favored you.”
I clear my throat. “I needed to make you indispensable to them, to convince them that you alone could fight those monsters. Then I put you as far away from the humans as I couldget you. I chose that tower because of the way the sound carried from it to the one where I stayed. I could hear if anyone tried to attack you at night. And they did. They tried.”
Her eyes have widened now, as if this final surprise is too much for her to restrain.
“They were the ones you killed, Asha,” I say. “When I would come to your room at night and take you to the prison and ask you to interrogate and kill humans.”
“I thought they were political assassinations,” she whispers.
I shake my head. “I could tolerate dissent among my people. I didn’t want to rule by fear. I knew they were conspiring to kill me from the beginning. But if they tried to hurt you?—”
My jaw clenches with remembered anger—Skirra’s rage—that would surface whenever Asha was threatened.
That anger clouded my reason until I wanted blood. “I wanted them to die by the hand they sought to cut off.”
She’s sitting opposite me on the fur now, her hands clasped in her lap. “When we met in the throne room, you looked at me as if you were trying to pull the thoughts from my head. When you took my hand, I thought you were testing me. I thought it was because you perceived my defects.”
My jaw clenches. I hate that, even now, she describes her power that way.
“Were you wondering if I recognized you?”
I nod. “Even when I realized that you didn’t, you were the only one who looked me in the eye. Before I was changed, there was no shortage of stares. After, you were the only one who sawme. Even as a beast, you saw me.”
She takes a deep, shaky breath and then exhales it. “Back at the fae castle, you told me that this connection between us has only ever brought pain.” She bites her lip, her eyes glistening with tears. “When you said that, I told you I wanted to go back, all the way back to the time before Malak changed you. I wouldask you to run away with me. I would pull us all through the mud and slime, just as I pulled you through the wasteland when you were dying.
