Then, her legs buckle, and her knees hit the ground with a condemningthud.
“Mayah!” I fall to my knees in front of her. She doesn’t hear me. Don’t think she sees me either, eyes vacant, shoulders caved in with grief.
She remains kneeling on the ground, her expression almost dazed, hands clenching and unclenching at her sides. A barrage of emotions washes across her face—disbelief, fury, despair.
“How?” she finally rasps.
I swallow hard. “It was after the battle where Lev was killed. I remained at his side until he died, and … Mayah, it broke me. I had never felt such fury. I never did again until…”
Until that arrow pierced her side.
I take a shaky breath. “I—I went alone. Followed that battalion back to their camp. And I obliterated it.”
A choked sob tears loose from her throat.
“Did you kill them the way you did the rebels?” she whispers brokenly.
“Some.” My voice is thick. “But I couldn’t summon that much power for everyone. I called down lightning.” I tear my gaze away in shame. “I still dream of that night sometimes. The screams. The smell.”
She takes a deep, shuddering breath, tears limning her blue eyes.
“Do you regret it?”
The urge to lie is overwhelming—to tell her I regretted it immediately, hated myself for it. But the truth is I was numb.
Still am. Or was, anyway, until I met her.
“A little. But not truly, not until you told me your friends had been there. Now, I wish with every fragment of my broken soul that I could go back and spare you the pain I caused.”
She says nothing, but the tears that keep streaming down her face speak of her grief. Pain thatIcaused.
“I can’t—I can’t look at you right now,” she whispers, rising on shaky legs. She walks away, leaving me kneeling in the dirt.
For a moment, I’m frozen. It’s what I wanted—for her to hate me. I thought it’d make it easier to bear her marrying Faramir. But the sharp pain in my heart is indescribable. Like a thousand soldiers each took a dagger to my chest in tandem. My ribs might cave in under the force of the noose wrapped around my chest.
Faintly, I realize there are tears dripping down my cheeks. Not at what I’ve done—at what it’s done toher. I haven’t wept since Lev died.
Mayah’s gait is unsteady, hand bracing against the occasional tree for balance. I wipe the tears from my cheeks with a shuddering breath, then grab our bags and follow her through the trees.
I leave a few feet between us. I’m undeserving to even breathe the same air as her.
Not once does she turn back.
She’s ignored me the entire day. Not even a wayward glance in my direction. I don’t press her—just try to make myself invisible. We sit across the fire, neither of us eating the rabbits I hunted.
“Zev.” Her voice is soft.Zev, she called me. Not Zevayr. Not bastard or asshole or monster or the Dark Commander. My shoulders loosen a fraction. “I should hate you. Tides, Iwantto.”
Her words land like a blow.
“But I don’t,” she whispers. “I hate what this war has done to us. All of us. So much suffering. So much loss. It’s why—it’s why I have to do this. It’s why I need to marry your brother.”
Anger and regret and longing and fucking helplessness churn inside me. I was unsuccessful—she doesn’t hate me like I intended, but I’ve never been more relieved to have failed.
But her marriage to Faramir … how can I knowingly let her marry that monster?
I swallow hard, nodding stiffly.
Because it’s not my decision to make.
