She pulls back.
“No. Don’t say that.”
“I’m serious. I would never hurt you intentionally. I promise you that. But I’m massive, and my hands are made of stone, and I’m clumsy. If I ever grab you too hard and bruise your skin, then poison me. The same way you poisoned them.”
She stares at me. Her lips part, close, and part again. She can’t find her words. She doesn’t need to, because I don’t need a reply to what I just said.
I pull her back against my chest, and she lets me, her fingers curling into my shirt. She married a man who would’ve killed her one day, and when nobody came to stop it, she stopped it herself.
People will call her a murderer. I know what she is. She is the strongest woman I’ve ever known, and I got lucky, because she’s here, alive and warm, pressed against my beating heart.
In the other version of this story, Bran kills her before she kills him, and I turn to stone and they move me in the Stillhalls. But she saved herself, found her way to me, and saved me as well.
Chapter Nineteen
Sorina
His lips press against my knuckles, then to the inside of my wrist, moving higher until his mouth traces a line up my forearm, to the crook of my elbow. His hands hold mine the way you’d hold something you’re afraid to drop. I can feel the warmth of him through the stone, the steadiness of his grip, and I know he means what he said. Which is the part I can’t take.
I pull my arm back.
“Sorina?” He looks up at me. “What’s wrong?”
“Don’t say that.” The words come out barely above a whisper. “You can’t say that to me, Korr.”
I push myself off the floor and pace the length of the living room with my arms wrapped around my middle. Behind me, I hear him stand, hear his weight shift as he reaches for me, but I’m already at the door.
“I need to think.”
I don’t look back as I step out into the corridor. I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand and start running. I don’t know where I’m going. I just need to move and put distance between me and the insane words he just said to me.
I turn a corner at full speed and slam into a wall of living stone.
The impact knocks the wind out of me, and I cry out, my feet sliding on the smooth floor. Hands catch me under the arms before I fall, and hold me upright the way you’d catch a cup tipping off a table.
I look up. Irrva.
“Are you okay?” She’s got me secured, her grip gentle but firm, her face drawn tight. Her eyes sweep down my body, checking for injuries. “Oh, Sorina, you can’t run down the corridors like that. It’s dangerous for someone as tiny as you.”
She sets me back on my feet and doesn’t let go until she’s certain I’m steady.
“I’m fine,” I say.
“You’re sure? I didn’t…”
“You didn’t hurt me. I ran into you.”
She lets out a breath of relief. Then she looks at my face again, and I know she can see I’ve been crying.
“What happened?”
“Nothing. I just needed some air.”
She watches me for another second, then lets it go.
“I heard about the council. That you and Korr were summoned.”
Heat rises up my neck and into my cheeks.
