Hearing me enter, my mother turned toward me. The servant bowed and hastened away.
“I’ve changed my mind,” I said, voice trembling. “I want to help.”
Chapter 51
Mare
When I'd promised to aid my mother's cause, her first order had sent my heart plummeting into my feet.
Curling my toes, I gazed into the silvery water pooling in the stacked-stone basin, its wave oddly viscous. Quinn rolled up his sleeves and joined my side.
"This." He gestured to the water. "Is symbolic to the people who live south of the wall. I won't go into the details if you don't care for history."
"No, please," Liam said sarcastically, limping to my other side. "I'm oh so curious."
"It's a touching fable about unity." Quinn frowned. "Point is, Ethna likes to do it here."
"I would like to know," I said, lifting my eyes.
"The people here worship spirits. Everything represents, well, two things." He knelt and ran a finger through the silverwater. "Water is memory. Our lives become one with the rain when we die."
Liam bit his lip and looked away. His eyes flicked up to the sky briefly—a sky where no stars ever shone.
He still hadn't told me what his catalyst meant. But at least now I understand why mentions of death upset him.
"Ready?" Quinn rose and extended his hand.
Taking a shaky breath, I placed my palm in his.
"You need to want me to see you," he breathed. "As much as I want you to see me."
"See, there's the problem." I flicked him a smile. "I don't much want you to see me."
"Heh. It's only a little bit. I don't want to share my life with you either. Just the past few days."
I could manage that. Swallowing, I stared into Quinn's yellow eyes.
My resolve had not wavered. If my mother could turn our home into a place where Liam could live without fear, where women could be made Paragons without protest, where little girls did not grow up in brothels . . .
Then I could stomach sharing a rethaite with Quinn.
I laid my hand atop his and closed my eyes.
Memories assaulted my senses, though they weren't mine. A lantern cleaving through the darkness, silhouettes seen through fog. A shardwolf begging for scraps at my table, tongue lolling out of its mouth. Rich purple wine flowing into a cup, my trembling hand picking it up.
Sitting by Liam's bedside, checking his wound. Cursing myself for not being as talented at healing as Reese.
Reese, Reese, Reese. The name rang around in my head, and new memories surged to the forefront.
A redheaded kid with a crooked smile. Laughing in pools of our own blood in a back alley, because at least we were alive.Sparring in an empty field, watching the rage on Reese's face grow into something more sinister.
Bodies around me, torn to shreds. A pool of blood around my feet. His hands around my throat.
We snapped apart—but it wasn't me who broke the connection. Quinn nursed the hand I'd been holding, like he'd been struck.
"That's enough," he panted. "I trust you."
My own memories of the past few days lingered, fresh.
