Lydia mutters under her breath.
“What did he do to you?” I growl.
Because watching me from the throne is Asha.
She’s watching me with both her eyes.
Asha blinks rapidly, batting tears from her eyelashes.
She’s stunning, arrayed in vibrant crimson that matches her soft lips. I’ve always known she was beautiful, since the moment I laid eyes on her, but there’s something about the lack of blemishes on her face that unsettles me, makes me want to lash out.
I’m going to kill Azrael.
It’s not that I care what Asha looks like. If this is what she wanted, I’d happily have searched the ends of Alondria for a cure for her scars.
It’s that I know where this is coming from. It’s the same place from where Azrael told Asha in the gardens that he “had things he had to work through.” The same place from which the mask he made her wear during their wedding ceremony came.
It’s because he knows he can’t love her, not truly, with her scars.
So instead of learning to, he’s taken them away.
Taken away the scars I love to trace just before I kiss her, the scars that remind me how I almost lost her before I met her, the scars that serve as a reminder to cherish every second with her.
But what they mean to me isn’t even important.
It’s what they mean to her.
It’s how her scars provided her freedom, honed her jagged edges, her wry sense of humor.
Her scars are her agency. Her ability to shine as simply Asha, her soul bare and beaming to a world who might otherwise allow her beauty to distract them.
Asha can take the warped features of her face and cast a spell on others with a smile. She can alter the perception of others with her words, not through any magic, but with wit and kindness. Until what they once saw as a pity, a beautiful girl marred by an unfortunate accident, they come to realize they actually prefer.
They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but my wife spins hearts, softens minds, until the scars on her face dance like strokes on a canvas, painting a vision so stunning, she changes the eyes of the beholder.
Az took that away.
Sorrow fills my wife’s eyes as she looks down at me, then glances over at Elias.
“You promised you wouldn’t hurt any of them,” she whispers.
Lydia stiffens, like a cat whose back curls.
Fin lets out a ragged exhale.
I can’t tear my eyes away from my wife.
“That one’s still alive,” Az says, walking up to Asha and taking her hand, pulling her from the throne to stand before us. “No harm has come to the others.”
Asha nods, and there’s something about her gaze that seems distant. Or perhaps I’m just not used to seeing her with both eyes intact.
“You did the right thing.” Az strokes Asha’s hand as she stares at the rest of us, tears still soaking her eyelashes, but still only on one cheek. “One day, you’ll be free, and all of this will be behind us.”
“I’m going to need you to explain what’s going on here,” seethes Lydia.
The faintest smile brushes Azrael’s lips. “Asha and I would like to be able to go on with our lives, but there’s something getting in our way, isn’t there, love?”
Azrael snakes his hand over Asha’s shoulder, brushing her hair behind her ear.
The sound of snapping bone rattles in my imagination as I revel in the idea of breaking his fingers one by one.
“Asha, what’s going on?” Fin asks, concern for his friend evident in his voice.
Asha swallows, her throat bobbing in her thin neck.
She’s lost weight.
So much of it.
I want to heave. I want to pluck Az’s eyes out with my thumbs for what he’s done to her.
“Asha, love. I’m so sorry,” I say, my throat tightening. “I’m so sorry I failed you—”
Azrael laughs, his chuckle a cool echo across the marble floor. “Don’t waste your breath, Kiran. It only makes you seem simple. Don’t you know?”
When I don’t flatter him with an answer, Az says, with a grin as slick as a feline’s, “Asha’s the one who warned me you were coming.”
CHAPTER 109
