Chapter Twenty-One
Sora
City of Quu, Khitan
Aeri is panicked and trying to speak to me, but she’s talking very fast, and it feels like my head is underwater. My left ear is ringing like mad. All I can hear is Seok saying that he doesn’t keep track of his brother’s affairs. All I can see is his smile. And then all I feel is the fury that made me wish I had killed Tiyung myself. Ty, the man who’d tried to protect me, to free me, to love me, I wished I’d murdered him with my own mouth just to hurt his father. Just to take something, anything, away from Seok and be able to return a small part of the pain he’s caused me. Just for the satisfaction of the moment.
Aeri is wrong—I am not that good of a person. I am not a good person at all. A good person wouldn’t ever wish that.
Shame twists around me like a vine.
Hate can overcome and defeat goodness. Hate has the advantage of being easier. And there’s no one I hate more than Seok. He took my family, my first love, all the girls in poison school, and now he took Daysum from me.
“…Okay?” Aeri gestures, arms flailing.
Oh. She was talking.
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand,” I say.
“We have less than a minute before guards burst in here, Sora! We need to go!”
“Oh,” I murmur.
Aeri goes over to her trunk, pulls on the handle once, and then kicks it. She mutters something about replacing everything again and then grabs a velvet bag. She puts her new, heavy fur cloak back on. I look down and realize I have on a snow bear cape. I must’ve absent-mindedly stolen it from the carriage.
“Do you need anything from your room?” she asks. “Like, is there anything you can’t live without?”
I have no idea.
Aeri groans and then takes my hand. She squeezes, pumping my fingers a few times. “Sora, I need you to focus. We have to get out of here now. We’ll replace anything you leave behind, but get it together and let’s go. Guards are coming in the front—I saw them when Dia screeched. They will arrest you and probably me. We need to try to sneak out the servant entrance. Now!”
I nod and follow her, but the truth is, I really don’t care. I did so much. I stayed alive despite not wanting to, I endured nearly a decade of torture in poison school, and I murdered over eighteen men—all to prevent Daysum from being sold to Lord Sterling, to save her from being a pleasure house indenture. And yet it happened anyway. The very worst thing I could imagine has happened. What is the point of escaping? What is the point of living? Of continuing to struggle when nothing I do matters. I can’t stem the tide of evil in this world, so why fight it?
I float down the back staircase after Aeri.
“Come on, Sora!” she whispers sharply.
I try to keep pace, because even in my haze I can see how frustrated she is. Aeri’s body is rigid, and she keeps looking back at me. I make myself go faster so that I don’t anger her. Plus, I really don’t want her to get arrested because of me.
We go all the way to the basement. I follow Aeri as she breezes through the cold, stone space. She skirts along moldy boxes and dusty barrels, but I knock two over. Cannisters go rolling, loudly skittering across the floor. She shoots me a death stare, and I take more care. Then we go up some stairs that end at hinged metal doors. I have no idea how she knows about this exit.
Aeri unlatches the doors and then stops after she opens the right side. She waits with one hand grasping a blade and her other by her neck. Then she takes a breath before popping her head out. Her arm reaches down, and she pulls me up.
We’re on the street behind the inn. I stand in the rain, looking around as she shuts the door with a soft click.
“Sora, please. You must focus,” Aeri pleads.
I want to do what she says, but I just can’t. I am empty. Nothing could fill this void.
“It’s okay,” I say. “I’m okay. Just leave me.”
Her shoulders slump. “I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
She gestures wildly and then slaps her hands to her sides. “Because you’ll be caught. Because you and the others are like family, but not a family I’ve ever known. The one I’ve always wanted, one that actually gives a shit about me. And I’mnotgoing to lose you. I lost my home once. I won’t let it happen again.”
It’s sweet, but she’s more determined and angry than anything else.
