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“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about!” Warrose is on his feet, towering over me like a great oak tree.
“Is it true? Am I at the very least entitled to know if I’m sleeping in a cave next to men that assault catatonic women?”
“Jesus! We never took part in that!”
“No? So Dessin wasn’t the worst offender in Demechnef? Because that’s what I heard.”
“He was. Want to know why? Because any chance he got, he’d sneak into their rooms and slit their throats so they didn’t have to endure that abuse any longer! And for every woman he freed, he suffered weeks of blinding torment in the arena!” Warrose is clenching his fists, glaring at me with resentment for making him explain that out loud.
“That’s enough,” Kane barks.
The cave is speechless. No one has an answer for me. No one can give me peace for what I just went through. My jaw still feels like it’s been wired shut. My head is throbbing, my cheeks splintering with pain, and I’m so weak I could pass out and sleep for ninety years.
I push myself off the ground, brushing past Kane to put some distance between me and the others. But DaiSzek is a safe location, I plop myself down alongside him, hearing the echoes of Ruth whispering to Niles, the contrast of a whistling wind in front of us and the hissing fire from behind us.
DaiSzek smells woodsy, of wet bark from a tree and frozen rain. He glances down at me with his ember eyes, following my hand as it combs through the fur on his back. His deep, rumbling breaths level me back down to earth, extinguishing that burn in my stomach.
I don’t know what came over me.
“Will he attack me if I sit next to you?” Niles approaches from behind us.
I watch DaiSzek’s eyes flicker back and forth between the threat beyond the snow and the threat trying to sit down.
“Not sure. Maybe just sit an arm’s length away,” I advise. Niles obeys, lowering himself to the ground slowly, like a bomb will go off if there are any sudden movements.
Success. Until they make eye contact. Niles gawks into DaiSzek’s eyes eagerly. A long guttural growl slides between sharp teeth and a curled upper lip.
“And maybe never make eye contact again,” I say.
As soon as Niles darts his eyes away, DaiSzek’s growl decreases in volume and aggression until it fizzles out to an agitated sigh.
“Eventually I’m going to get on his good side.” Niles pouts.
Maybe one day.
“I wanted to ask you…” he prompts.
“I don’t want to talk about me and Kane.”
“But—”
“Ruth beat you to it.”
He straightens up, twists his head to look back at her. “She did?”
I nod.
“Not sure I like that.”
I shake my head and sigh. “I know why you want to talk about that though.”
He cocks his head.
“You’re afraid to ask me about the trauma I experienced when I was taken. But you also want to know if I’m okay,” I say. The smell of cooking meat fills the cave. “I’m okay. You don’t have to ask and I don’t want to talk about it.”
His hand clenches my shoulder. Squeezing, hard. I look up at him to find tears welling up in his sharp sea-foam-green eyes. I lean in, as if he’ll tell me his pain in whispers.
“You didn’t sound okay back there. Far from it.” His words are unsteady from the dam of a cry that could break any second. “When Dessin realized what happened, that you sacrificed your own safety for ours, he went ballistic. He began talking to himself. He went into an awful rage, bouncing back and forth between two personalities. It was devastating for us to watch. We, of course, felt our own fear, loss, and regret over you being taken. But his pain was so far on another level. I’ll never be able to fully explain it to you.”
