Blaise has been acting longer than I ever realized.
Something strange happens, and the older Blaise steps into the corridor. She pushes past Clarissa as if the babbling woman isn’t even there.
Blaise kneels down next to her younger self and takes her by the hand. “You can tell him what happened to you. About Derek and the baby.”
The smile remains plastered on the younger Blaise’s face, and now she’s whispering through her teeth. “I should have known better than to get myself in trouble. If I tell him, he’ll know it was all my fault.”
“It’s not your fault what happened to you.”
“But then he’ll think I’m just a little girl.”
The older Blaise brushes a hair from her younger self’s forehead. “You are just a little girl. That’s how he’s supposed to see you. I know you’re confused right now because of how Derek treated you, but Evander cares about you. He loves you like a little sister, and he wants to protect you. He can help you.”
Something cracks in the younger Blaise’s façade. “What if he thinks I’m gross?”
The older Blaise’s throat bobs. When she speaks, her voice is hoarse but steady. “What’s the cure for shame?”
The child shakes her head. “I don’t know. Not caring what anyone thinks about you? Being proud of yourself?”
“That’s what I used to think too. But pride’s a funny thing. It makes us want to bury our problems, hide them where no one will find them. Otherwise, those we love might finally see us for who we truly are.”
The child Blaise shudders.
“I know you’re worried that he’ll think less of you,” says the older Blaise. “But that’s your shame lying to you. It doesn’t want you to trust him because if you do, and he still loves you, your shame worries that you might not need it anymore.”
Tears stream down the little girl’s cheeks. I’m vaguely aware that they’re mirrored on my own.
“Trust?” she asks.
The older Blaise smiles.
A shift, and now it’s Blaise, older, walking into the room with me and Ellie. She cries, telling me of what she’s done, of a trip to Madame LeFleur’s and a curse she can’t seem to break. And now she’s in the bed, the night after we discovered her with Clarissa’s dead body, and she bites her lip, then tells me of Nox, the male she fell in love with during captivity.
Another shift, and we’re back to the forest, and though the scene hasn’t changed, and though in this reality of Blaise’s my child has passed from under the sun, the older Blaise steps from the shadows, and takes her weeping self in her arms.
“I forgive you,” she whispers to herself.
And when it’s all over, and the orb dissipates, all that is left, is simply Blaise.
CHAPTER 108
KIRAN
“Tell me, Kiran. Would you like to see her one last time?”
Az’s voice rings in my mind, still muddled with the residual anguish of believing I’d found him in bed with Asha. Of the realization we’d been trapped. Of Blaise’s betrayal I should have seen coming.
I’m going to rip that girl’s throat out if I ever get ahold of her.
Azrael’s words ring in my head once again.
Would you like to see her one last time?
More than anything, though I don’t know if I can bear it. Bear to see if he’s broken her.
But my heart belongs to her, so I agree.
The throne room has been renovated since I was last here. Asha and I never had much use for it, preferring to handle foreign relations at the dinner table, with piles of aromatic foods paving the way for collaboration.
Asha always said the food made me seem softer. I wasn’t sure that was a good thing when dealing with foreign diplomats, but she always assured me softer was quite different from soft.
It’s strange, how even seemingly insignificant memories like that make me ache for her presence.
A host of guards, followed by an array of Others that follow at Az’s command, lead us into the throne room. Before taking us to Asha, they bind all of us with goblin iron that keeps Lydia’s fire magic at bay, as well as my ability to control feelings.
Az made sure the guards took Dinah away. He claimed seeing her sister would only upset Asha. Three guards had to restrain Fin before they managed to wrestle Dinah from his arms.
A mere drags Elias’s unconscious body by the neck of his tunic, his legs limp as he smears blood from the wound in his side against the floor.
Anyone who doesn’t know my sister might mistake her casual expression for indifference, but I can tell she’s panicking on the inside for the life of her human husband.
“Kiran?”
My neck almost snaps as I find Asha on the other side of the room. My chest caves inward at the sight of her.
Because the woman in front of me is not the woman I’m used to seeing. Not the face whose scars I’ve been tracing every night in my dreams since the moment we parted.
Next to me, Fin swallows so hard it’s audible.
