Tisaanah drew in a hiss between clenched teeth as Sammerin held her wrist between gentle fingers.
“It’s easy,” he said, and in this moment there was nothing I was more grateful for than the unshakeable calmness in his voice. “Clean break. Simple fix.”
He glanced over his shoulder at me. The reassurance was meant for me just as much as it was meant for her.
I shook my head, without entirely meaning to.
Even with everything else going on, even considering that creature looming over me and the darkness and the magic and that fucking sword —
It was the snap of Tisaanah’s bones that filled my ears, drowning out everything else. That, and the crack of her head hitting the ground, so hard that I thought for one terrifying minute that she might not get up again.
I paced the outskirts of Tisaanah’s room, like there was something I could keep from settling in my mind as long as I kept moving. Her eyes followed me. I knew it hurt like hell, to have your bones stitched back together, flesh forcibly repaired. But she didn’t react. She just looked at me, in that particular way of hers, like she was not just seeing but observing. Peeling back layers with her stare.
I didn’t realize that I had spent six months memorizing that look — memorizing the way I felt beneath it — until her eyes had landed on me in that training ring and I knew before she moved or spoke that it wasn’t her.
I paused beside her bed. “Everything quiet?” She nodded.
Sammerin gingerly placed Tisaanah’s hand on her lap. “Be careful with it for a while. The joint will be weak for another week or so.”
I looked at her wrist. Straight, unmarred, like it had never been injured at all.
A lump caught in my throat. “I’m sorry.”
“You should have done it sooner,” she said, quietly.
“It didn’t want to kill me. If it had, I’d already be dead.”
Tisaanah flinched, her eyes landing on my shoulder. I kept my odd wound covered — I still hadn’t quite figured out what it was, exactly, though I did know that it fucking hurt — but her gaze bore through the fabric.
I’m sure she saw the same thing I did when I looked at her wrist, but for me, this pain was only a reminder that Reshaye didn’t need to waste time with broken sticks and magic swords if it really, truly wanted me dead.
No, what happened in there was a game.
I should’ve known that. I should’ve held out longer.
She opened her mouth, and I knew she was getting ready to tell me, yet again, for the hundredth time today, that I should leave.
“We know how this discussion goes, Tisaanah. Don’t start.”
“If I had hurt you—” “It wasn’t going to.”
Sammerin stood and cast me one quiet look before he slipped out the door. If Tisaanah noticed him go, she didn’t show it.
“If I took even one more moment longer to take back control—”
“You didn’t. And now you know how to do it.”
How strange it felt, trying to be optimistic about this, of all things. Optimistic or willfully ignorant. My most cynical, most obnoxious self would call the two the same.
“Besides,” I added, “tomorrow we leave for Threll, and you’ll be glad you have one of the best fighters in Ara with you when we get there.”
The echo of a smile twitched at the corners of her mouth. “Are you bragging?”
“It’s not bragging if it’s true. And for once, I’m looking forward to watching those bastards burn.”
I meant every damn word of it.
She lifted her face, and for the first time since I returned, I didn’t pull away from the bare, electrifying force of her gaze. I wasn’t sure, entirely, why it had made me so uncomfortable. Maybe there was too much I didn’t want her to see, or too much I was afraid of seeing in her. Maybe there was just something about the way her face struck me, every single time, that terrified me beyond belief.
I pushed aside one strand of hair that cut across her green eye. “Show me that unrelenting brute force, Tisaanah.”
She didn’t move, didn’t speak. But a fiery glitter seeped into her eyes, and I let their flames strip me, burn me, consume me, until there was nothing left but ash.
 |
SAMMERIN CLENCHED his pipe between his teeth as he released a perfect ring of smoke.
His face never betrayed anxiety, never anything more than thoughtfulness. But I knew he smoked only when he
was nervous.
We strode through the halls of the Tower in silence.
Down and down.
“What is it, Sammerin?”
His eyes asked me a silent question, and I returned it with a knowing look.
“Whatever you’re pondering. Just say it.”
Another slow puff of smoke, through his nose like a dragon. “One day, Max. It’s been one day, and we’re already here.”
“It wasn’t going to kill me.”
“That thing is unpredictable.”
“She had it. I should have waited.”
“A broken wrist was a small price, and it looked to me like she gladly paid it to ensure your safety.”
“What are you saying, exactly?”
“I’m saying that I listened to you tell me for years how much you wish your father had not hesitated that day.”
My fingernails bit my palms as my next words lashed from between my teeth.
“If you’re implying that I should have—”
“No. Definitely not.” He shook his head, releasing another unfurling breath. I wanted his reaction to be stronger than it was. “But what if it was more? If it was going to kill you, would you let it? Because that would be something she would have to walk with for the rest of her life, too.”
I still saw the faces of my siblings every single time I blinked. Didn’t I know it.
“It wasn’t going to kill me.”
“You need to think about what you’d do if it got there.” “We won’t let it get there.”
Sammerin gave me a look that veered infuriatingly close to pity.
“Don’t,” I growled.
“You’re in an unwinnable situation. And it knows that, especially now. It will use it against you.”
I hated how right he was.
We walked in silence, the smoke from his pipe clogging my lungs.
“I wish I could wrap this up in some kind of profound conclusion,” he said, at last. “Something more helpful than just telling you to be careful.”
I did, too — even though I suspected that even if he could, I wouldn’t like what it had to say.
