His chest is rigid now. Not rising. His mouth is opening and closing, fighting for air, but nothing moves, and his face is turning bluer by the second.
Something other than anger fires through me. Something worse.
Fear.
He cannot breathe. He is dying. And for all my fury moments ago, I don’t want that.
‘Jonas!’ I yell again, but I can’t move. Though the Retterheld is over, apparently the deaths are not.
‘M’lady!’ The door bursts open as Summer explodes into the room with a raised saucepan, which she swings around her head. As I jerk back, I realise she is here to defend me. To beat Jonas to death with a saucepan if that’s what it takes. But rather than using her makeshift weapon, she pauses and takes in the tableau that greets her. Jonas collapsed on the floor. Me on the other side of the room.
‘I heard you shout,’ she says uncertainly, saucepan still held aloft as she takes in the tear tracks down my face, though thankfully the ice has melted.
‘I—I …’ I clear my throat. ‘I’m fine.’
Jonas gasps and inhales a huge, shuddering breath, pulling air into his starved lungs. Whatever had a grip on him has released.
I swallow hard.
Because I know what had a grip on him.
Me.
Somehow,Iwas the one strangling Jonas, stealing the air from his lungs, and if Summer hadn’t burst in …
If she hadn’t startled me and caused me to release whatever magic was consuming me, I would have killed him. Killed one of my oldest friends.
And, apparently, my betrayer.
Florian is alive.
Florian is alive. Kay is to marry Artur. Kyor chose his father over me …
And somehow,through it all, I am the gifted.
The weight of the day, of all that I have endured, presses in on me. From watching Zara plunge her sword into Grenda, to seeing Kyor’s pictures of Thea, to the shocking news of Kay’s pregnancy and William living …
I stand in the house that was meant to bring me joy and a future, yet the past crushes me. How could one gifted by the Goddess be forced to suffer so much for so long? When will it end?
The answer comes to my mind far quicker than I want it to.
Never.
For someone like me, life is to be endured, not enjoyed.
‘Everything is okay,’ I say suddenly to Summer, as if Jonas isn’t heaving in grateful breaths. I even force a smile to my lips. ‘It’s fine. You can go now.’
She nods her head but doesn’t leave. Instead, she bites down on her lip. ‘Do you need me to take gladden root?’
‘Gladden root?’ It’s not a name I’m familiar with, yet its use comes to me with a surge of magic through my ribs. ‘A memory tonic?’
‘I have used it for masters before,’ she tells me unemotionally.
She has had her memory wiped? Repeatedly?
‘What? No!’ The words burst from me with vehemence as I whirl towards her. ‘Never. You need never do that here. Whatever you see … we’ll deal with it, together.’
I mean the words with every fibre of my being. Gladden root might be the answer to forgetting my broken heart or Jonas’s betrayal, but I know, perhaps more than any other person, that we are each the sum of our experiences. That every pain and loss, as much as instances of joy and love, shape us into the person we are. Take those away and it unravels our very essence.
