Several minutes pass before I find the courage to speak again. “I’m sorry, Fin. Truly sorry for what I did to Ophelia. For taking her away from you. I was just…” I take a breath, expelling the excuse. “Well, it doesn’t matter. Her life wasn’t mine to take.”
“You think it was mine, then?”
“That’s not what I said.”
Silence swarms us for another long minute, when I finally collect my thoughts. “You know, I wish you would tell me. Exactly what you think of me, I mean. You hide it behind jokes and caustic comments, but I wish you would just come out and say it.”
Fin huffs. “Say what? That I hate you? That I think I probably always will? Does that make you feel better, Kiran?” His voice is rising now, and he jumps to his feet. “Does it give you the closure you need if I tell you I wish Gwenyth’s plan had worked? That I wish she’d succeeded?”
“If she’d succeeded, you would be dead,” I say. My late wife had intended for both of us to die by the end of all her scheming.
“But Ophelia would be alive.” Fin emphasizes his words by flexing his hands. “Or do you not understand that? Is your heart so hard that you can’t imagine wanting to die for your wife? For Asha even?”
Irritation flares within me, but I keep it in check. “Ophelia betrayed you.”
“Yes, for her brother. Because the life of her family was being threatened. Just like Asha was going to betray you when it came down to choosing between Dinah’s life and yours.”
His words strike me like a spear to the chest.
“It’s the same,” he says, his chest heaving. “It’s the same, except you spared Asha, and you killed Ophelia. For the same crime.”
My head spins, but I have nothing to say as Fin walks away, hands clasped behind his head. He doesn’t come back until morning.
CHAPTER 31
NOX
Scales the color of a fresh bruise glimmer in the sunlight as the scorpion stares me down. Two pincers acting as a mouth clink covetously, as if it’s smacking its lips. Its tail curves upward, spanning the height of the pit.
My stomach churns.
If this were a bear, I’d try to remain still, but this is not a bear, and never in any of Gunter’s books have I read what to do if I were to find myself trapped in the pit of a giant scorpion.
So I do the only thing my inadequately prepped mind can think to do, and I lunge for it.
It snaps its pincers eagerly, probably delighted to have caught a prey stupid enough to actually come closer, but when I jump over its reaching pincers and land on its flat head, it rears back and shrieks again.
The force of its rearing sends me flying, but I’m ready for it. Instinctively, I wrap my arms around its tail when my torso slams against its firm scales, stealing the breath from my lungs. I have to dig my fingers into its underside to hold on as it flicks its tail, but at least I don’t fall.
That thought must jinx me, because the scorpion lurches and I lose my grip, sending me flying. My weight hits the wall of the pit with a sickening thud, pain shooting through my right leg and the back of my skull.
The world swims around me, multiplying the approaching scorpion in my vision by dozens.
Farin’s laugh rings in the distance. I vaguely hear him say something about how Blaise won’t have to see him kill me in the tapestry.
The wry part of me that still thinks Farin’s an idiot is pretty sure it’ll show him standing above me laughing as I get eaten, and that Blaise won’t take too kindly to his standing by.
Unfortunately, I don’t have the breath to say as much at the moment.
The scorpion lashes its tail at me again, but it has a crude angle on me, and its tail crashes into the wall just above me, giving me just enough time to roll out of the way before it launches at me with its pincers.
I’m on my feet in the next instant, but putting weight on my leg is agonizing. I push away the pain, trying to focus on surviving this.
Standing makes me an easier target, and the glinting barb of the scorpion’s tail almost skewers me before I’m able to stumble out of the way.
It jabs again, and each time I feel as though the distance by which it misses becomes narrower.
I blink, and the scorpion multiplies in my vision again. It takes another stab at me, and since I see a dozen barbs heading in my direction, I have to take a guess at which one will strike true.
I guess correctly, but only barely. Sharp pain slices across my bicep as the barb breaks flesh.
Instant nausea washes over me.
That’ll be the venom, I realize.
Great.
Yep. I’m really hoping that Farin sticks around to watch this, and that the tapestry shows him pointing his finger and laughing.
Thankfully, the fact that the barb barely broke the skin seems to keep the venom from paralyzing me completely. At least I have that to be thankful for.
Blink.
The dozens of scorpions collapse into one.
One that happens to be scuttling toward me, pincers, well, pinching in anticipation.
I suppose it thinks I’m stunned. The thought causes a giggle to escape my lips, until I realize that probably is a sign of being stunned, and I clamp my mouth shut.
Instinct cuts through the venom’s haze, providing me with enough clarity of mind to stumble backward.
My back hits the wall of the pit. The pincers vibrate.
I think the venom must be swirling in my head again, because I start to wonder if maybe this is the best way I could go. The most fitting.
Paralyzed by the venom of a monster. Completely taken by its will. Ready to offer myself to be eaten.
This is how I killed the others, isn’t it?
I’ve just happened upon a monster that’s bigger than I am.
This seems fair somehow.
The scorpion rears back its stinger for the kill, but stops suddenly, as if shaken.
“Nox!”
I hear my name, and find myself searching for its source. My eyes have difficulty focusing, but when they do, they find Zora standing on the side of the pit. She’s launching rather large rocks at the head of the beast.
