“Ilynglass? Repeating myths now?” Until two days ago, she thought freezing men where they stood to be myth too.
“It’s not myth if you’re of the blood, and, Ellie, you’re...” He caught himself, though it was unclear why. “When we arrive tomorrow, you’ll experience so many wondrous things, and they will all help you to better understand yourself. Me. Us... and why I’ve never given up on you. You’ve never known such a bounty of truth! Most will never, ever know this much about anything, let alone themselves.” He spoke like a man drunk, though he was a teetotaler. He was drunk on something worse though. Power.
“How can you be certain what you’re being shown is real? And not a deception?”
Taven’s grin, half shadow, half dancing orange light from the firepit, reminded her they were alone, in the forest, at night. “I’ve been there, love. To Rivenholde.”
Her eyes narrowed. “But you told my mother you only know the way from your clairsight.”
“I didn’t want her to worry needlessly.”
She pulled back. “I saw how you let her live. I know who pays her debts and funds her life. What do you think Asterin would think if he’d have visited Nightwood before I cleaned up? How interesting that the man responsible for her needless squalor is the same one who was hell-bent and determined to see an innocent man, Asterin’s own brother, murdered out of jealousy and spite.”
Anger flashed across his waxen expression. “Asterin, with his pretty books and colossal libraries, knows nothing of who we are, where we came from, or what we can do. The most well-read man in the kingdom knows nothing, Ellie. Doesn’t that tell you everything?”
“What does it tell me, Taven?” she practically screeched, nearly tripping over the stump where she’d arranged the tray. She was suddenly very cold. Had the wind been so fierce the entire time? “No one ever tells me a damn thing!”
“Ellie...” Taven held his hands out with a wary glance around. “You’re doing it again.”
“What?”
He backed away from her, his eyes on the ground. Horrified, she watched ice crystals spread along the fallen boughs at their feet, racing toward his boots.
“I’m not doing this,” she whispered, but she was.
“Look at me.”
“I don’t know what’s happening.”
“Look at me, Ellie.”
She lifted her head, her breath shaky. His soft smile was so warm and unpretentious, it reminded her of a time when she’d trusted him more than anyone else in the world. Long nights by the fire, head in his lap, listening to him read her some of the most fantastical stories from her father’s library. He’d stroke her hair, changing his voice for every single character. She’d wake the following morning in her own bed with no memory of getting there, but there’d always be a single violet rose on her nightstand.
Taven could be a monster, but he’d also slayed them for her. There’d been no confusion about who Fabrien and Castien were, who she was to them. One of the greatest conundrums of her life had been the ongoing struggle to reconcile gentle, loving Taven and controlling, abusive Taven.
Both Tavens believed they loved her.
Neither could be trusted.
He reached for her again, and she was too tired, too scrambled to object. When he kissed her, she allowed that too, and hated herself for it.
“Ellie, I know what an imperfect man I am, but I have loved you since the day you found me in your father’s stable.” He brushed the tip of his nose against hers. “I have loved no one else.”
So much would have been simpler had he been just another indisputable monster. But Esmeray was right... No matter who Taven really was, or which face he was wearing, he believed in his own righteousness. In moments of candid reflection, she missed her brother the most. Though they’d been many miles apart for years, he’d always been the brightest star in her small and suffocating sky. He alone knew how dark and complicated her relationship with Taven had always been.
But the trip to her homeland wasn’t about anyone but herself. Elloven had long ago stopped thinking of her future, but the idea that she could dream, could plan, was astoundingly hard to wrap her mind around.
“Going back is the right thing.” Taven’s soft, deep voice cut through her reverie.
“You want us to go home?”
“To the mountains.” He wrapped his hand around her head, tugging her against him.
“For you?”
“No, El, for both of us.”
“I was born at Nightwood, and other than Whitechurch, I’ve been nowhere.”
