And so Ruben relights the fire, and we gather around it in silence. There is nothing that can be said.
I haven’t even known Stide for a full moon, and that can’t be enough to say Iknewher. Yet I knew enough of the woman that she was. Sherisked her life with me,for me,not once, but countless times. She put the happiness of the one she loved far above her own, and every time it mattered, she was there.
And now she is gone.
The pain is a sharp stab in my sternum, and without warning, the fire becomes too hot. I rise to my feet, trying to shake away the clawing that grips my insides. I don’t want this. Don’t want to be stifled, sweating the way Stide was even as her body shook with cold.
And so I turn and walk away.
I walk until the firelight dims behind me, until the crackle of the flames is lost to the calls of the nightbirds and the susurration of the wind. I need to walk. To move. To dosomething.
It comes as no surprise when I sense him behind me, and the moment I stop, he does too.
‘You don’t have to hover,’ I say tiredly. ‘I wasn’t running.’ Not really.
‘I know.’
When I turn to face him, he looks older in the darkness, the firelight not reaching us here. Not weaker, but worn. As though something has finally cracked beneath the armour.
‘I don’t know how to do this,’ he says quietly. ‘How to grieve properly.’
‘There’s no handbook on it, Kyor,’ I say, though I suspect Caz would prove me wrong in short order. If there were such a text, she would find it. ‘You just need to let yourself feel. Acknowledge the pain.’
He shakes his head. ‘I am sick of pain, Thorn. Here’—he gestures to his injured shoulder—‘and here.’ He points to his heart. He looks at me desperately. ‘I don’t know how to fix us, Rose. Properly. For good. I don’t know how to promise you a future when neither of us knows what that entails.’
‘Then don’t make promises,’ I say simply. ‘Just speak to me, Kyor. And for the Mother’s sake, tell the truth.’
He flinches but nods. ‘I was raised to believe that withholding information was not a lie,’ he offers. ‘It was a necessary omission. Silence is a strategy. Protection. I was taught that love is proved through endurance, through tests. Honesty never factored into love.’
‘And do you still believe that?’
‘No.’ His answer is immediate. ‘No, I don’t. But unlearning the habits of a lifetime is hard.’ A sad laugh breaks free. ‘Harder than I expected.’ He takes a step towards me. ‘There are still things I cannot tell you. You know that. But I wish I didn’t have to keep any secrets from you.’
In that, at least, I can see his desperate honesty. There is no deflection in his gaze. No charm. No bullshit.
‘Do you trust me with this truth?’ I ask, knowing there’s only one answer he can give that will give us a future. ‘Would you trust me with it if you could?’
‘I trust you with my life,’ he replies instantly. ‘I trust you with Elska’s life. I trust you more than any other human alive.’ He pauses, a muscle feathering in his jaw. He’s evading my answer, and he knows it. ‘There is more than our happiness at stake here, Thorn. Believe me. Please.’
I do, and as much as the pain of his avoidance stings, I try to bite it down. He’s not the only one who’s holding secrets, who has skeletons in his closet. Every time we grow close again, it deepens the ache of my own hypocrisy.
I still haven’t told him of William’s existence, of the reason this trip cannot be slowed.
So what does that say about our relationship?
That our trust is frayed, tethered, and so it can only stretch so far. Is that even trust at all?
How can I trust someone who is bound by a vow to keep something from me? How can he trust a woman whose deepest joy – her own brother – she cannot risk sharing with him?
Yet despite it all, I need him.
We stand in silence, the night pressing in as close as the secrets we cling to our chests.
And I … I have to try. ‘There are things about me, Kyor. About who I am …’ My voice cracks as I shake my head. My lips try to move but no sound comes out. There is no vow on me, yet Icannotmake myself speak of it.
I look at him in hopelessness, and he sighs.
He scrubs a hand over his face. ‘Maybe talking isn’t what we should be doing,’ he suggests.
