A snarl escapes my lips as I push into my chambers in Keep Wolfhelm, slamming the door shut. My heart beats too fast, too enraged. I tear off my shirt and stand before the mirror, staring at myself.
If only looking at my reflection could show what’s wrong with me. The worst thing is everything looks normal.
But something notrightslithers beneath my skin. Something Farron did to me.
There’s a knock. I don’t answer. A moment later, I see the door open in the reflection of the mirror. Farron slips inside, closing the door behind him.
“I don’t want to talk to you.”
He sighs and crosses his arms, leaning against the wall. “Yeah, well, I don’t particularly want to talk to you either. Rosalina made me.”
This cuts another emotion through the wrongness.Anger.I whirl. “Youdon’t want to talk tome?”
He pushes off from the wall. His clothes are still singed from the heat of the volcano, the laces of his shirt undone, auburn hair mussed across his brow, and the beginnings of a beard that I’m not quite used to yet shadow his face. It makes me feel like I’m staring at a whole new person.
Maybe I am.
“I saved your life,Daytonales, and this is how you react?”
“Saved my life? Life…that’s what you’re calling thisthinginside me?” My flesh seems to wriggle right where the arrow from the Bow of Radiance put a hole through me. I claw at my skin as if I could get it out.
“The Green Flame. It’s what brought you back,” Farron says in a tone of voice that suggests I’m an idiot. “A magic unlike anything in our world.”
“You lied to me.”
“So what is it you’re mad about?” Farron walks right up to me. “The fact that you got a second chance at life or that it was me who gave it to you? You didn’t seem to care when you thought Caspian had brought you back.”
I inhale through my teeth. “Because I expect Cas to do evil shit like this. But how I saw you today over Perth Quellos? It wasn’t you.”
“It wasn’t me? And what do you think when you see me?”
“Someone kind and intelligent and gentle and?—”
“Weak,” Farron spits and pushes on my chest. “Your little leaf, so delicate it might burn beneath a Summer sun. That’s how you see me. How everyone sees me.”
“You’re twisting my words.”
Farron laughs, a short, bitter sound. “I understand. It’s so clear. The great golden hero of Summer can’t accept someonerescuing him. Particularly me. You can’t handle the fact that I saved you. Saved all of us.”
I take his face in my hand. His mouth forms a thin line, but he lets me. “We save each other. We always have. There is no me without you.”
“Do you want me to say I’m sorry? I won’t. Because I’m not sorry. Not even a little.”
When I don’t reply, he grips my arms hard.
“You don’t think I was afraid to take this power? I was. I was so afraid. But my love for you, for Rosalina, gave me all the courage I needed. I will not lose someone the way I lost my mother. I will never let you leave my side.”
My heart hammers in my chest.
“Tell me,” he breathes. “Tell me you wouldn’t do the same for me. For Rosalina.”
“No—” I start, but I can’t finish. He’s right. I’d do anything for them.
He smiles, and it’s dangerous.
“Fare.” My shoulders slump, and I let out a defeated sigh. “I don’t even know if I’m alive. Not really.”
His fingers curl around the back of my neck, his lips a breath from mine. “You’re alive, Day. You’re alive. I made it so.”
