A pain in the ass does not even begin to describe this girl.
She has me running through unfamiliar streets, stumbling over uneven cobblestones in the cramped darkness. My hand is coated in blood, pressed to the surprisingly shallow wound she offered as a parting gift.
She had the chance to kill me. More than once.
And yet, for all her talk of slitting my throat, she’s failed to do it multiple times now. Then again, I’ve failed to uphold my promise of burying her own dagger in her back, though I blame that on the strict orders I have to keep her alive.
I’m panting in the Plague-forsaken heat that constantly envelops this city. I turn down an empty street, nearly running into one of my men before I signal for him to turn left while I take right. Even with the thirteen of us split up, she’s managed to evade every one of my men for nearly half an hour.
A pain in the ass is an understatement.
The moon stretches its pale fingers across the city, casting everything in a dull glow that has done nothing to help find her. If shadows are her friend, then the moon may be her accomplice, with its silver rays streaming through her blood to stain the hair that masks her in moonlight.
I turn another corner, wincing at the wound on my arm. My feet pound against the uneven path like the thoughts racing through my mind. Her words echo in my head, stealing my focus from the streets I should be searching.
“I watched you kill him.”
Five years.
Five years ago, I killed for the first time. Five years ago, I plunged a sword through a man’s chest for the first time. Five years ago, I watched a man crumple to the floor before running from the first of my many crimes.
Five years ago, it was her father who was my first kill.
How did she know this, and I didn’t? Why was I sent to kill him in the first place? Maybe she’s mistaken. Maybe she’s looking for yet another reason to loathe me. I think back to that haunting night, the one that forced my fate upon me. I can almost see the room, the blood, the shakiness of my hands….
The room.
I nearly stumble when the realization crashes into me.
Her house. The one I burnt to the ground. That room I was standing in…
That wasn’t the first time I had been there. The pieces begin to fall into place, connecting that shadowy house where I had my first mission with the one illuminated by flames.
It was me. I killed her father—
Movement has my head jerking toward the shifting shadows.
I know it’s her even before I glimpse the figure darting across an alley. I have a throwing knife in hand, aimed at her before she can melt back into the darkness.
Her scream is strained, as though she barely has the energy to express her pain. I take my time walking over to her, watching her slump against a grimy wall before sliding to the ground beneath. She’s panting in pain with a bloody hand pressed against the healing wound I’ve reopened on her thigh.
“What?” she huffs. “Slicing my leg open once wasn’t enough for you?”
“Well,” I sigh, “apparently it wasn’t enough for you, considering you’re still trying to run away from me.”
“Get used to it.”
“Oh, I’m beginning to.”
Her head is propped against the wall, eyes fluttering with fatigue. She looks tired. Too tired. As though teetering on the edge of something more devastating than sleep deprivation. I tilt my head, examining her in the veiled darkness. “You feeling all right, Little Psychic?”
Her laugh is breathless. “You just cut me open with a knife. What do you think?”
“Oh, come on, I barely grazed you.”
She pins those blistering blue eyes on me. “Yeah, you grazed a wound that’s still healing. One you gave me in the first place, might I add.”
I almost smile. “You knew that was me, huh?”
“Of course it was you,” she huffs. “You’re the only one with aim almost as good as mine.”
“Almost?” I say dryly. “Really?”
“You heard me, Prince.”
I see her fingers flinch toward the knife in her boot before I have her wrist clutched in my hand. “Enough,” I sigh. “I’m tired. You’re tired. Let’s call it a night. Not to mention that you’ll bleed out if you don’t get that wound wrapped.”
“If you think I’m going to go without a fight—”
“I think,” I cut in while pulling the dagger from her boot, “that you won’t have any fight left if you don’t get some rest and bandages.”
“Isn’t that what you want?” Her voice cracks with the weight of accusation in it. “To stop fighting you? Come quietly to my doom?”
I study her for a moment, study the stubbornness sketched into the scowl she wears. The truth has my chest tightening, my heart heaving a sigh when my lungs cannot. Because I can’t seem to decide what’s more frightening—watching her stop fighting or watching her die.
What is she without her fire fueling her? A shell of the Silver Savior she once was? The ghost of a girl I was willing to ruin myself for? If she fights for nothing, she lives for death. But if she burns for something, she lives for hope.
I want her to fight me.
I want her to burn for me, even if it means with hatred.
I sigh, exhaling the emotions accompanying each dizzying thought, and instead say, “Where’s the fun in that?”
“This is ridiculous.”
Her mumble is muffled, and when I tug on the cloth covering her face, her gruff grumble is equally so.
“No, it’s necessary. You look great.” Try as I might, I can’t keep the laughter from lacing each word. I can practically feel her glare through the scarf I tossed over her entire head, partly to cover her highly recognizable hair and face, though mostly because I was far too lazy to wrap the fabric around her.
“I hate you,” she hisses.
“Yeah, you and everyone else in this kingdom, darling.”
The innkeeper waves a hand, beckoning me to his counter. I give her a little push forward, resulting in a reluctant limp. “Just one room. We’ll take whatever you’ve got,” I say, offering a tight smile hidden behind the bandanna covering the bottom half of my face.
“Yer in luck,” the man huffs. “A room just opened up on the third floor. Little thing.”
As way of answering, I roll a few coins onto the chipped counter, watching as he counts them before giving me a gruff nod. Then his eyes land on the girl being swallowed by a scarf. “What’s wrong with her?”
I feel her shift in anticipation of some smart-ass comment about to spew from the mouth I can’t currently see. “Terrible accident,” I cut in with a sad shake of my head. “You don’t wanna see what’s under there.” I lean in, giving him a knowing look. “She’s a little self-conscious. Rightfully so.”
The innkeeper nods, looking like we’ve just shared a hilarious joke. “Then by all means, keep ’er covered up!”
He laughs. I laugh. I bite my tongue when the heel of her boot meets the toes inside mine.
I know better than to laugh again as she blindly stumbles up the creaky stairs, blood dripping down her leg and threatening to splatter on the wood beneath. The door on the third floor groans when I push it open, revealing a room the size of my closet back at the palace. With the bed taking up nearly the entirety of the space, the washbasin in the corner seems to the be the only other accessory in the crude excuse for a room. A musty window sheds just enough dull light to display the grime decorating the space.
“I’m going to kill you.” She’s ripped the scarf from her face, huffing at the hair falling around it in a heap.
“Are you, now?” I muse. “You had trouble with that even before you were injured.”
She turns away from me, shaking her head. Her voice is distant, as though the words were intended to remain a thought. “I’m always injured. Always a little broken.” I watch her take in the room, if only because every response that comes to mind seems to be stuck in my throat. “This is it?” she asks, gesturing around. “What, are all your men going to pile into bed with you?”
“Funny,” I say without a hint of humor. “No, my men will stay out in the city tonight. Such a large group draws unwanted attention. Don’t worry though—they’ll meet up with us in the morning when we head out.”
She gives me a look that slightly resembles one of those sly smiles she used to show me. “You really think you can handle me on your own?”
I shrug. “I think I’m the only one who could handle you on their own.”
“Still a cocky bastard, I see.”
“I have a reputation to uphold.”
She snorts, struggling as she limps past me to slump onto the edge of the bed. I eye her bleeding wound and the quilt folded beneath it. “By all means, please bloody the bed I’ll be sleeping in.”
She barely spares me a glance. “And what makes you so sure that you’ll be sleeping in this bed?”
“What makes you think I won’t be?”
Ignoring me, she begins gingerly examining the wound on her thigh, completely content to disregard my existence. The sight of her rolling up the loose pant leg, revealing a tremendous amount of tanned skin, seems suddenly more significant in the shadowy room.
She hisses through her teeth when the fabric tugs at the sticky wound, and I watch her struggle to keep the pain from pinching her features. I run a hand through my hair, sighing out a quiet “Come here.”
“I’m good, thanks,” she says blandly.
“You’re such a pain in my ass, you know that?”
“If that’s the case,” she says sweetly, “you could simply let me go. Problem solved.”
“You and I both know that’s not an option.”
“Right.” Her voice is harsh. “Because your new king has you chasing me down.”
A handful of heartbeats pass before I say, “Well, you did kill his father, the king. And played a key role in the Resistance’s uprising. Not to mention that you used Kitt to help do it.”
“And I don’t regret a thing.” She looks me right in the eyes as she says it, not a trace of remorse reflected in her gaze. “Everything I did, everything I fought for, was for Ilya.”
My jaw tightens. “And that includes killing Ilya’s king?”
She shakes her head, looking away from me. “I didn’t go into that Trial planning to kill him when I came out of it. He came after me.” There’s something scarily similar to a plea in her eyes, not because she’s begging forgiveness for what she did, but because she needs me to understand why she did it. “But that doesn’t mean I hadn’t thought about driving a blade through his black heart a dozen times before.”
Even with the hatred coating each word, this is the most honesty I’ve received from her. I can hear it in the hoarseness of her voice, see it in the hands now trembling. Everything prior to this moment may have been fake, a facade, a fairy tale spun to lure me in. But starting right now, I’ve never seen anything realer.
I sigh, content to let the silence stretch between us before grabbing the small washbasin from the floor. I’m not worried about leaving her alone while I trek downstairs to fill the bin with freezing water, not with the injuries that have her trying her hardest not to tremble in front of me.
Water sloshes over the rim with each step back up the steep stairs, and after I push open the door with a damp boot, the girl slumped on the bed before me looks different from the one I left there. Her hair seems to bleed into the body beneath, blending with her very being now leeched of all color, save for the crimson staining her trembling hands. She stares unseeingly at the blood coating her fingers, swallowing hard at the sight, shaking with each shallow breath.
Something is very wrong with the Silver Savior.
And I’m not supposed to care.
I’ve seen trauma take on worse forms. Seen it cripple courage, devour dreams, and spit out the shell of a person. Trauma and I are well acquainted.
“Come here.”
The command is softer this time, sympathy seeming to smother the sternness in my voice. Her eyes flick up to mine, unfocused and filled with panic. She blinks, her voice cracking as she begins, “I… I can’t…”
“I don’t need to know,” I cut in quietly. Because I don’t. I don’t need to know what keeps her up at night, what haunts her dreams, what has her trembling like this. Because knowing that involves knowing her. And that’s something I swore I wouldn’t do again.
She is the history I’m desperately trying not to repeat.
And I’ve failed enough at that for one night.
I watch her swallow, watch her slide off the bed to sit beside me on the worn floorboards. She doesn’t waste a moment before dunking her bloody fingers into the freezing water, scrubbing vigorously with numb hands.
My eyes skim over her, using her distraction as a chance to let my gaze linger on the jagged scar down her neck. I don’t bother asking because I already know it was my father’s doing. I can practically feel the exact amount of pressure he used to carve into her skin.
But I say nothing of it, knowing that the wound likely runs far deeper than its physical form. The thought reminds me of just how careful I still am of her feelings. It’s maddening.
She’s so entranced with the task of ridding herself of her own blood that I have to grab her wrists and reel her back to reality. “Unless you’re hoping to scrub your skin off, I think that’s enough.”
With a slow nod, she’s pulling her dripping hands from mine to wipe them on a crumpled shirt I tug from a borrowed Imperial’s pack. Rolls of dingy bandages tumble to the floor when I shake them from the bag, frowning while fiddling to unravel one.
“Why are you doing this?” she asks, voice hoarse.
I don’t look up at her. “Well, I can’t have you bleeding out on me, now, can I? It’s selfish really. I don’t want to have to carry you all the way home.”
She huffs halfheartedly at that. “He has big plans for me, then? Plans I need to be alive for?”
I’m quiet for a long while, taking my time cleaning the wound with a sopping bandage. The only sounds shared between us are the hushed hisses of pain and the steady drip of water.
When I finally deign to respond, it’s with the answer to a question she hadn’t asked. “I didn’t know.”
Her gaze struggles to meet mine. “Didn’t know what?”
“Your father. I didn’t know. Not then, and certainly not until now.”
She stills beneath my touch. I take my time prepping her thigh for the bandage, swallowing as I gently push the thin pant leg higher. I quietly thank the Plague when she finally speaks, giving me something to focus on other than my current task.
Her voice is surprisingly soft, and I’m not sure whether to be alarmed or at ease. “You didn’t know who you killed that night?”
I bite back my bitter laugh. “I didn’t even know I would be killing anyone that night. Didn’t know my fate was starting so soon.”
“Don’t be cryptic,” she murmurs. “Not when it comes to this.”
I sigh and slowly begin wrapping the bandage around her thigh. “I was fourteen. Right in the midst of my… training with the king. I’d grown up knowing exactly what my future would look like, but that didn’t mean there would ever come a time when I was ready to face it.” She flinches when I tighten the bandage. “When I woke up that day, I didn’t know I’d be killing a defenseless man in cold blood. Didn’t know my father would threaten to do the same to me if I didn’t go through with it.”
“He didn’t…” She swallows, taking a deep breath. I doubt the agony on her face has much to do with the wound I’ve now finished wrapping. “He didn’t tell you why you were killing him?”
I offer her a slight shake of my head. “For the first three years of my missions, I was given no information on who I was killing. He’d call it blind obedience. Told me that the Enforcer didn’t need to know anything more. That the king’s commands are never to be questioned.”
Her eyes flick between mine, burning like a blue flame. “You could have been killing innocent people. You did kill innocent people.” Chest heaving, she turns away from me, scoffing as she stares at the wall. “And to what? Test your allegiance, your willingness to blindly follow orders?”
My eyes never stray from her. “I think you know that’s exactly why.”
She shakes her head like I knew she would. “It’s a shock no one’s thanking me for what I did.”
I stare at her, something constricting in my chest that might just be my heart. The thought of thanking her for driving a sword through my father’s chest may be the cruelest thing I’ve ever considered. And yet, each scar scattering my body sings with the memory of cold hands and hot anger. Each one of my many masks a reminder of the man who molded them.
Maybe I should be thanking her.
I don’t remember loving him when he was alive. But now? Does death divulge deep-rooted devotion? I can’t seem to differentiate grief out of love and guilt out of the lack thereof.
She bites the inside of her cheek against a wince as she beings unrolling her pant leg. “I suppose I should thank you.”
I study her, silence stretching between us. When she says nothing more, I raise my brows at her. “I’m waiting.”
“Don’t get too excited. I said I should thank you.”
I harrumph in a way that suggests I might have found that humorous, while she lifts her lips in a way that suggests she might be smiling. When she struggles to her feet, I follow, holding her stare from where she stands before me.
“Turn around,” she orders.
“Excuse me?”
“Turn around. I want to change.” She waves her hands at me, signaling for me to obey.
“I don’t know,” I sigh, crossing my arms as I lean against the wall, “how do I know you won’t jump out the window when my back is turned?”
She grabs the borrowed, damp shirt with a scowl. “The only thing I’m considering doing when your back is turned, is shoving a dagger into it.”
“You’re not helping your case—”
The pack hits me square in the stomach before I catch it. “Just turn around,” she huffs, eyes flashing with challenge.
I take my time turning to stare blankly at the wall ahead. She doesn’t bother making conversation, leaving me to listen to the rustling of clothes before they hit the floor. And now that I’ve had a taste of her lips, it’s difficult not to crave them, especially when I know I shouldn’t. So this certainly isn’t helping.
“Can I turn around now?” I ask with a sigh when the bed creaks behind me.
“Shh, I’m trying to sleep.”
I spin to see her sprawled atop the quilt, the stolen gray shirt swallowing her whole. With arms and legs stretched wide, she attempts to take up as much of the bed as possible. The sight is so unexpected that I nearly choke on a laugh. “What is—”
“Sorry,” she says, her eyes closed and lips crooked. “There’s no more room on the bed.”
“I can see that,” I respond dryly.
Her eyes fly open when I tug at the quilt she’s toppled on. “What are you—”
“I’m compromising,” I cut in. “If you get the bed, then I at least get a blanket.”
“Fine.” She nods curtly from the flat pillow her hair is fanned messily atop.
I snatch the other from beside her head, trying and failing to fluff the miserable excuse for a pillow. “And I get this, too.”
She shoots me a glance before curling onto her side and burrowing into the sheets. “Deal.”
With that, I’m banished to the hard floor beside her bed. The quilt is scratchy, the floor is rough, and the pillow is practically pointless—but I’ve slept in worse conditions.
Yet, I can’t help but think that in another life, another time, another chance to choose each other—I would be in that bed beside her.
