‘You could stay a little longer if you wanted,’ Ruben says, closing the distance between us. ‘I’ve missed you.’
‘I missed you too,’ I respond without thinking. As his eyes warm in that old way, I hurriedly correct myself. ‘Your friendship. I missed your friendship.’
An easy smile lifts the corners of his lips and quickly turns into a laugh. ‘And there’s that friend-zoning again. Like the tannery never happened.’ He winks.
This time I can’t help but laugh in response.
‘Will you stop with the tannery!’ I blush. ‘I still can’t believe that—’ I break off, clearing my throat. ‘I have to get back.’
His smile drops, but only by a fraction. ‘Of course. You’ve probably got all sorts of fancy balls and things going on up at the High Hold.’
A chill settles low in my chest. What do I have to get back to exactly? A new maid, a large house, and a heap of loneliness. And as for balls, it’s not like I have a great history with them. Not only that, but I expect Kay and Artur will use the next one to announce their engagement.
The thought makes me ill.
‘Let me gather your herbs and things,’ Ruben says, moving back towards the kitchen.
‘They can stay here,’ I offer. ‘I’ve plenty back at the house. You keep them. Sell them if you want.’ He may have won big, but without a job, he needs a way to keep money coming in.
‘Thank you.’
I pack Mother’s notebooks and Dinah’s blade into my satchel, but as I go to lift it all up, Ruben helps, as if it’s heavy. When heslips it onto my shoulder, he grazes his lips against my cheek in the softest kiss. A sigh leaves my lungs as I close my eyes. The opportunity for someone to kiss me with such tenderness is something I believed I’d been stripped of.
I’m just sad it’s the wrong man doing it.
With a surge of emotions I can’t – and don’t want to – face, I offer Ruben a half-flash of a smile before swivelling on my heel and disappearing out of the front door and into Kyor’s damned rain.
If nothing else, the Retterheld taught me that romantic love is a farce. I never believed I needed it before, and now I’m sure as hell not going to make the mistake of letting a man near my heart again. By the Mother, if the Issen powers could just freeze that part of me instead, life would be easier.
Thankfully, there are plenty of carriages waiting to take me back to the High Hold, though the trip is far slower than it was on the way out. It leaves me too much time to sit alone with my thoughts. Though for what feels like the first time in years, it is not Kay who is at the forefront of my mind. Nor is it William. And it’s certainly not Kyor.
No, it’s Noleen’s face that’s seared into my mind. The frailty. The inability to even hold a smile. The inevitability that she will soon meet Mortidem.
I helped, but not enough. The God of Death stalks her already. But her lack of magic? It doesn’t matter how much I want to believe that I am mistaken, I know I am not. Her body is devoid of the power that should have filled her veins. But how?
I recall all too well when my own mother became ill. I don’t know whether it was the same sickness that affected so many in the slums, but whatever it was, her daily health tonic wasn’t enough to prevent it.
With her, the pain came first in her stomach, then an icy cold that spread up through her chest and throat and down into her legs, until every part of her was afflicted. She was in agony at the end, and I could do nothing.
That same helplessness is riding me now. Crippling me. I thought that helping Noleen would give me purpose, but it has made me feel more helpless than I felt before. More useless. More full of questions I don’t have answers to.
By the time I reach home, the weight of it is still lodged beneath myribs, heavy and unmoving, and I am more than ready for an evening meal having eaten nothing since breakfast. I unlock the door on instinct alone but brace for the quiet.
Instead, the smell of freshly baked bread and a clean home greet me. Summer has been working. Hard.
‘Kay?’ I call out optimistically, slipping off my shoes. ‘Kay? Are you here?’
A silhouette appears at the end of the hall, and my heart flutters for a split second before I realise who it is. Benny.
‘She’s not back yet,’ he says, and the weight in my stomach drops further. Kay and I argued, sure, and said things we didn’t mean, but she couldn’t seriously be avoiding me for this long? We have lived together, in each other’s pockets, for years and years. The only time we’ve been apart was for the few moons while I was in the Retterheld.
I assumed that she would at least want to ask me about meeting the Goddess. About her powers. About anything, really.
Has she changed so much that she doesn’t even want to see me? Before, she was desperate for me to win, and now that I have, she’s just … left me.
Like Kyor.
The hurt is so fucking raw. And I said to myself I wasn’t going to cry today. I’m not. Damn it.
