"You're only facinganyof this because of me." He heaved another log onto the fire, "You trying to take responsibility for my cousin's behavior is superfluous."
"It isn't though," I whispered. "Because I knew the truth."
He shook his head. "I'm not going to blame you for not endangering yourself after being married to a stranger." His grip tightened on a piece of firewood.
"I'm sorry," I said. "I had meant to get away before this could hurt you."
He stopped moving, his hand still on the log. "Before this could hurt me," he repeated.
I was foolish. My apology was selfish, and I said it anyway, my voice a whisper. "Before you got in trouble, because of me."
He didn't move. "That makes sense," he said, "that you'd plan to run. Since you were sold." His face was impassive, frozen. He turned to the fire, abruptly, his back to me, busied himself again with the logs.
I should stop now, but I let the words out, anyway. "Are you angry with me?"
His hands slowed. "I wish you didn't have to ask me that."
Should I apologize more? A little groveling seemed appropriate.
"No,” he said. “No, I'm angry with a lot of people right now, but none of them are you." His hands started moving again. "And none more than myself."
I leaned against that wall. "But you haven't done anything wrong."
The breath that broke out of him was bitter. "Someday you will figure out how to blame me for this, and when that day comes," his shoulders were tense, "I'll understand if you light me on fire."
I was shaking my head. "He repaid your loyalty with lies. Heliedto you. He gave you false medicines, and a false…" I lost my voice.
A branch cracked. "You keep fixating on that, that a man I never should have trusted broke his oath. You want to focus on that, like I wasn't the one of us that had a choice."
"I had a choice."
"Your sister or yourself is not a choice." His voice had risen. Heat rose in my face. I hoped they couldn't hear us outside.
He pulled apart another log with his hands. "Any good man would have canceled the deal the moment he saw rope burns on your wrists. You keep focusing on my wounds and ignoring your own, like the thing with the shoes all over again, like it's another way they broke you not to speak about pain, but the world doesn't work that way. I can have been harmed and still done terrible wrong. I can be the idiot your father lied to andstill have hurt you. And it's sad that you don't think I could have done better, but I know myself. I know I could have." He straightened, tension still in the lines of his back. Still not facing me. "I didn't choose to trust you because you were convincing. I chose it because I wanted to, against the evidence. I let myself be deceived. So please stop acting like I'm the victim here, when I let myself be the brute your father thought I was."
But I kissed you.I wanted to say it, but self-loathing muzzled me. It was nice, perhaps, to let him believe the fairy story where I was not the villain. But I knew I was lying, and I'd kissed him anyway. "It seems like I should at least get to choose that," I murmured.
"Choose what?" He broke a stick.
"Whether to be angry with you."
He stopped.
"Besides," the nausea rose again, almost a stupid laugh. Or was I crying? "It wasn't only you who chose the wrong people to trust. In Rowton I…got…you hurt, too."
"I'm fine," he answered, automatic, expressionless. "I didn't even have to fight anyone. I still forced you to handle it."
Handle it. The nausea and the horror rose again, images of the melting street thugs and the flames licking around Khal. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to stop thinking, stop remembering that I was me.
The floor creaked. "You're shivering."
I opened my eyes.
He rummaged through a chest, stopped. "We only have the one blanket."
"You had one with your bedroll."
"I must have left it." He was lying. Why was he lying? "Let's move you closer to the fire."
