She opens her mouth, then closes it, swallowing before beginning again. “No. I didn’t kill the King of Mystral. Why no one believes that despite the fact I’m unable to lie about it escapes me.”
I watch her for a long time after that, absorbing all the information I can.
I tell myself that it’s because I want to survey my enemy, catch her in her weakness.
Really, I think I just want not to have to imagine Marcus’s death.
CHAPTER 24
BLAISE
I wasn’t supposed to be the villain.
I wasn’t supposed to be the villain.
I’m not the villain, I remind myself as I toss pebbles into the winding creek that cuts across the lush greenery of Charshon. We arrived last night, leaving Avelea’s border behind as we ventured into the place where I’ll betray my friends.
I’m not the villain. I’m just a liar, a girl who’s lost everything and isn’t willing to lose one more person.
It’s quiet here in Charshon. The streams murmur softly. The soil is soft beneath our feet, dampening the noise of our steps. Even the night is quiet, not at all like the forests of Avelea where crickets sing and hum all night long.
I wish something would hum, something would drown out the noise in my head.
My baby is dead my baby is dead my baby is dead.
My baby is dead, and so am I, in a way. At least, I’m dead enough to have severed the parasite from my body.
My baby, my poor sweet child whom I’ll never get to name, never get to bury properly, is dead.
A light-haired girl, mourning over the dead brother she clutches in her lap.
A heart strewn across a cave floor.
A body swollen with salt water.
Nox is dead too, somewhere, in some realm, some reality.
My baby is dead, and I am dead, and Nox is going to be dead, and I am going to betray my friends, and the crickets can’t even be bothered to drown out the noise berating my mind.
“Do you miss the light?” a tiny but self-assured voice asks from behind me.
It’s enough to startle me, which is concerning. My vampire senses should have heard her approaching, but I suppose my grief, my anxiety over Nox’s fate, is enough to drown out the padding footsteps of a child.
She’s an odd little girl, in that she seems to possess more intelligence than should be allotted to a child. As I was trying to catch up on some sleep and avoid the sun during the day, I overheard her talking with Asha near my tent. Apparently she invented some sort of substance that has life-restoring properties if administered directly to the heart. She’d gifted some to Asha, in case she ever needs it, which seems a tad morbid for a child, especially with the clinical way she approached the topic.
I wonder if that was how Nox was as a child, too smart and serious for his youth.
Amity settles in next to me, digging her already-smudged fingernails into the dirt like her fingers are roots that drink from the earth itself. She’s much too close for a child who doesn’t know me, and the way she tucks herself into my side has my spine going rigid with discomfort.
The evening breeze stirs up her scent, but I don’t let myself name what her blood smells like. I don’t want to know.
“You didn’t answer my question,” she says, as if I’ve been unforgivably rude, which I suppose I probably have been in her eyes.
“It’s not so bad,” I say, slipping into my mask of a smile, the one I’ve molded to my face over the years. “In fact, if I close my eyes like this”—I demonstrate, squeezing my lids shut dramatically—“I can just pretend it’s daylight outside.”
I open my eyes to Amity wrinkling her brow in skepticism.
“I don’t think that’s the same.”
“Oh no?” I nudge her in the shoulder. “You’ve never pretended so hard that you convinced yourself something was real?”
“Not since I was little,” she says, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world.
“Right. I should grow up like you then, I suppose.”
For a moment, she opens her mouth like she doesn’t know how to respond to that. I wonder if I’ve hurt her feelings, which is probably for the best, since she doesn’t need to be around me right now, anyway. Not when the breeze is whipping her hair around her face, imbuing the air with her scent. I’ve spent very little time around Marcus, but I’m certain Amity will be in for a scolding once he finds out she snuck out here alone with me.
It’s a strange realization. That parents shouldn’t trust me around their children.
My heart stings a bit.
“You should go back to your tent and get some rest. We don’t set off for another hour.”
“I’m not tired,” Amity explains. “My circadian rhythm has adjusted to being nocturnal, like you.”
“Has it now?”
“Yes, but mine’s the first one to adjust, meaning you’re the only other person up right now, so there’s no one else to talk to.”
