I didn’t even trust myself to open my mouth after that, for fear of whatever would come tumbling out. I kept myself
tightly bound, carefully wrapped, as I returned to Max in the tower lobby, as I nodded politely when Willa invited me to some ball or party or some other frivolity — I wasn’t paying attention — and as Max and I left those oppressive Towers into the crisp almost-autumn air.
Max tilted his chin towards the city, a cluster of activity just down the hill. “I’ve already broken my record of time spent in polite society for the last five years. We could keep up the streak and have that promised celebratory outing, if you want. Get a drink or three. Talk about all of the ways in which that test was bullshit.”
There was a certain veiled softness, a certain imploring question, to his tone that made it very clear that he knew something was wrong.
“No. Thank you.”
“Do you want to—”
“No.” I said it more sharply than intended. “I only want to go home. Please.”
I want to go home.
I didn’t even know which home I was talking about. Max’s house. My room in Esmaris’s estate. My little cabin
in my village, beneath the wings of my mother’s safety. A Nyzrenese city I barely remembered. All of them. Or none.
I just didn’t want to be here, in the judging shadow of the Towers, when I fell apart.
“Of course,” Max murmured. I closed my eyes, heard the welcome crinkle of paper and ink, and opened them to flowers. The sight of those wild, twisting vines was just enough to make every strained knot inside of me snap at once.
My knees hit the dirt.
 |
MAX LISTENED in silence as the words spilled out of me. With each one, his mouth grew tighter, his eyes harder, the tight wrinkle at the bridge of his nose more pronounced.
“They are fucking with you,” he said quietly, when I was done. “Don’t accept that from them.”
I drew my knees up, wrapping my shaky fingers around them. Even now, all of my muscles were still tensed, as if holding back something unpleasant that I couldn’t allow to reach the surface.
Were they fucking with me? Or did they just not think of me — or anyone like me — at all?
“Why would they do that?”
“I don’t know. But that? What they did to you during that evaluation?” He shook his head. One sharp movement that burned more than a string of curses.
“They needed to test me,” I said, quietly. “And I did it.”
“It doesn’t matter. That was so far beyond the bounds of a typical evaluation. You were better than they expected you to be, but that doesn’t change the fact that they stacked the deck against you.”
“I’m not afraid of that.”
Max let out a violent scoff. “So, to you, all of this is alright? It’s alright for them to humiliate you this way? It’s alright for Zeryth to leave you in slavery even though it would have taken nothing for him to get you out? It’s alright for them to screw with your head for some stupid game? He tried to force you — literally — to your knees. That’s fucking demeaning. And that’s alright with you?”
No. Not alright. I swallowed a surge of rage. But—
“I cannot change what they do. I can only change what they think of me.”
“Right, because Zeryth Aldris’s friendship has done so much for you, so far.”
My head hurt. Heart hurt. I pressed my palms to the ground, soaking up the coolness of the damp earth. “I need his favor. You know this.”
Max stared at me for a long moment, cold fire rising in his eyes. He stood up, paced, crossed his arms. And then turned back to me. “Do you know what I don’t understand about you sometimes, Tisaanah? Why aren’t you angry?”
That made me want to laugh. Why wasn’t I angry? I wasn’t angry because I devoted so much of myself into turning that energy into something else, stuffing it so deeply into myself that it lined the inside of my skin. “I can only control myself. That’s all. No one has any responsibility to me.”
“No. No, they do have a responsibility to you. They have a responsibility be decent human beings.” He let out a breath through tight teeth. “Sometimes— sometimes I look at you and I’m amazed at the sheer fucking scale of how people have failed you. Just utterly failed you. It’s enough to make me sick, so what about you? How can you look at any of them and not want to claw their eyes out?”
“This is not about me,” I shot back. “I want to make things change. And to do that, I need to use whatever tools I have.”
“Whatever tools you have.” “Yes.”
“And what is that, exactly? What is this tool that you’re utilizing? You are more than your value to powerful men, Tisaanah, and those people will use you and throw you away.”
I drew in a breath so sharp that it sliced me from my chin to my navel.
I heard that. I heard that shade of judgement. I knew it so well — whispered in hallways and corners and in the cloying tones of every man I danced for. I knew it so well it only had to lift its head from a mile away for me to catch its scent.
I jumped to my feet, fists clenched. “That is not true,” I spat. “I had nothing more than that, Max. My value to powerful men is why I am alive. So don’t you dare speak of me in that way.”
His face immediately shifted, lips parting. “No, I—”
“You do not get to tell me how I should feel about what has happened to me. And what will anger do for me? Why do I need that? So I can drown in it? So I can use it as excuse to do nothing with my life?”
His mouth closed. Tightened. I saw a flicker of hurt cross his face, then felt it echo in my chest. “I’m guessing,” he said, tightly, “that you’re thinking of someone specific.”
Silence. We stared at each other, both simultaneously wishing that we could inhale our words back into our lungs. My blood rushed in my ears. It drowned my words.
So I was relieved when Max’s came first. “I would never, ever judge you. That was an ignorant thing to say.” Most people averted their eyes when they apologized. But not Max. He looked right at me, unwavering, the corners of his mouth twisted. “I’m sorry.”
Shame was an unfamiliar shade on his face, softening all those hard-edged features. He looked…sad. Just as drained as I was.
I watched him, a question stirring.
Once, in Threll, I was walking the bounds of Esmaris’s estate and came across a dead bird in the street. It had been crushed to death by a wagon wheel — smashed right up its middle, glossy black fire-tipped wings splayed out against the white cobblestones. I knelt down beside it and examined the morbid beauty of the day-old blood against those shiny black feathers, the grotesque symmetry of the way it flattened in the street. I imagined it just standing there as the wheel rumbled over it. And I wondered, How did you get here, little bird? Why didn’t you fly away?
Sometimes I found myself looking at Max, at the aftermath of all those hidden scars written across every inch of his body and mind, and wondering the same thing
— What happened? Why didn’t you fly away?
“You want me to hate the Orders as much as you do,” I murmured. “But you won’t tell me why. What did they do to you?”
He let out a quiet breath. “I can’t give you those answers.”
“You do not want to.”
He gave me a long, thoughtful look, his brow furrowed. “You’re right. I’m a mess. I know I am. I can’t argue with that.” He shrugged, but the attempt at nonchalance only made the rough edge in his voice more apparent. Anything but careless. “I do nothing because I’ve already tried everything—and failed. I couldn’t take it. I just couldn’t do it anymore.”
Just couldn’t do it anymore. I felt that weight settling into my own bones, the crushing burden of hopelessness. I looked down at the dirt, at the leaves scattered over my toes. The moss on the rocks reminded me of the burns crawling across Vos’s face, the gaps between the leaves echoing the voids where his nose once was.
Fingers gently lifted my chin, bringing my gaze back up. Max looked at me with serious determination. “But I believe you are
better and stronger than I am in every way. That’s the truth.”
A lump formed in my throat. I waited for his fingers to leave my chin, but they didn’t.
“Don’t let them ignore you, Tisaanah. You’re better than they are. They should be terrified of you. Make them scared. Be angry.”
I blinked, and in that split second of darkness, I saw everything—every wide-brimmed slaver’s hat, every crack of Esmaris’s whip, every one of Zeryth’s condescending smiles, every injury that marred Vos’s body. They clawed at me, digging their nails into my heart like desperate ghosts.
My answer shuddered in a broken breath. “I can’t. I can’t.”
“Why?”
Because it’s too much. Because my fury petrifies me.
Because the last time I got angry, I felt a man’s life wither in my hands.
I opened my eyes and looked into Max’s, cloudy and blue, a reflection of my own. “Because if I allow myself to be angry, I will never stop.”
He leaned closer. So close his nose brushed mine, so close I could count his eyelashes. And so close that I felt his warm breath across my face as he smiled and said, with the viciousness of smoke and steel, “Good.”
