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Cristen’s eyes widen a little, then he glances down at himself as if he didn’tknow. He raises his head, and a smile spreads across his face. “Am I making you nervous, Zora Vyner?”
I narrow my eyes, and maybe I should make amends. Maybe I should try to be on his side, at least until he makes his case. But I’m too flustered, and I need to have some semblance of control when I’m around him. So, I say the wrong thing, theworstthing. “Those scars are brutal,” and I say it with too much venom. In my head, it sounded like a lead-in to get him to open up to me.
Out loud, I sound disgusted.
And the way those four words break his smile – I’ll never forgive myself.
His face pales as shame chokes him. He rubs the back of his neck, his eyes anywhere but my face, then he turns away and leaves.
Dammit. I chase after him. “I didn’t mean it like that,” I call after him, but he plows forward, the muscles along his back bunching with tension. “Cristen, wait.” I grab his shoulder, but I quickly let go as he flings himself back from me.
Cristen stumbles into a tree. He catches himself and sucks in a stuttering breath. His eyes are darker than a storm. He angles his torso away from me, drags his fingers through his hair.
“I wanted to know about them,” I say, filling the silence. I take a timid step toward him and close the distance between us. “I’m sorry. Trust me. I would never judge you for your scars. I have many of my own. Some on my body. Most on my soul.”
He lowers his gaze to mine, and the storm of his eyes lightens. “You once told me you loved scars.”
I hesitate, then I reach a hand up and push his shoulder back, forcing him to turn his chest toward me. “I have to if I want to love myself.”
His brow furrows, but he follows the flow of my push, bringing all of his scars to my attention.
Up close, each has a different depth of pain. Some were shallow cuts. Others may as well have been stabs. “You say that as if it’sdifficultto love you.” A bit of sarcasm drips off his words.
I give him a stern look. “Watch it.”
He smirks but falters as I move my hand to his chest.
I trace a finger over his scars, just as I had his illusioned ink until I reach the only tattoo that hadn’t been false.
Without the layering of the other tattoos, the design is clearer: a sphere with smaller circles dotted along it. There’s shading to make the line work blurred, and then several other circles overlap the original. If I look at it long enough, the circles move, weaving in and out of each other, every line a varied shade of black, the top-most circle the darkest and likely the most recent addition.
I wait for him to answer me, to tell me about his scars, but his body locks up. His breaths are sharp beneath my fingertips. I trace the circles. “What does it mean?” I look up at him.
He drags in a breath. “To explain that, I’d have to explain everything.”
“Good thing we made a deal for you to do exactly that,” I point out.
He swallows and takes hold of my hand against his chest. He pulls me away from him, then he turns and continues back toward the stronghold.
My fists ball, but they relax as his rich voice fills the woods surrounding us.
“Walk with me, and I’ll start with the beginning,” he says with a knowing glance over his shoulder.
I hurry to catch up, matching my stride behind his.
“I was always a Fate,” he tells me, his voice low. “Though, I didn’t know it until my mother died. You see, when a person slips from life to death, their essence flashes through them.”
“Like their soul?”
He lifts a hand, tilts it from side to side. “Sort of, but not really. Their soul passes somewhere else. I get their essence.”
“Everyone’s?”
“Yes.” He clears his throat. “I always did, I just didn’t notice until it was my mother’s. I always just thought I had a vivid imagination or was a lucid dreamer. Then she died, and I saw every path her life could have taken. I wasn’t sure at first, but there was a point in her essence where she could have chosen to not have me or Caya. But then, she also wouldn’t have been a queen.
“When I saw myself and my sister, I began to pay closer attention to my imagination but so did my father.” He stops at a fallen tree and settles onto it, rubbing his jaw. “As I got older, it was harder to deny I was a Fate. My eyes, well – ” he gestures to them “ – did whatever the hell they do, and my imagination got worse. My father had a terrible temper, and anytime I was around one of his kills, the dead’s threads would tear into me. Over time, I learned to fortify myself, to only take in the essence of those I wanted to know or needed to.”
I sit down beside him, lean my elbows on my knees. “I don’t understand. You and Caya seem to read threads when a person is well and alive.”
