“Three villages. The water moved fast. I saw the aftermath. Bodies in the mud. Some of them were small.” I breathe. “The villages were supposed to be empty. They weren’t. I don’t know if my commanders lied or if they just didn’t bother to check. It doesn’t matter. I’m the one who lit the fuse.”
The hall is quiet. The fire. The wind outside. I can hear my own heartbeat.
I wait for him to stand up. To move his chair back across the hall. To look at me the way I look at myself. The silence stretches and I sit in it and I deserve every second.
“The war ended three weeks later.” My voice cracks. “Nothing to do with the dam. Nothing to do with anything I did. It was all for nothing.”
He drops to his knees beside me. His hands find my face and engulf it. I'm tiny in his grip. His palms are hot against my cheeks.
“They used you.”
“I let them.”
“You were a soldier. You followed orders.”
“I could have refused. I could have questioned. I could have looked at those villages and seen people instead of targets.”
“And they should never have asked you.” His voice drops into something low and hard. “If I ever find the men who gave you those orders. If I ever meet them.”
“Thyran.”
“They made you into a weapon. They pointed you at a target and told you to fire. That is not the same as choosing.”
“It doesn’t matter. The dam still came down. The villages are still gone.” I feel the wet on my cheeks. I don’t know when it started. “It was all for nothing.”
His thumbs move against my cheeks. Wiping at the wet.
“You stopped.” The word comes out low, strained. “You walked away. You came here to die rather than be their weapon again.”
“That’s not courage. That’s running.”
“It’s knowing what they would have made you become. And refusing.”
I close my eyes. His hands hold me steady. The heat of him reaches me through his palms, through my skin.
“The war is why I was in the snow,” I say. “They’re looking for me because I walked away. I know things. I have skills they can use. And I can identify the officers who gave the order.”
“So they want you silent.”
“They want me back. Or they want me dead. Either works for them.”
His forehead touches mine. His breath warm on my face. His hands still shaking against my jaw.
“You walked into my territory to die because of what they made you do,” he says. “I am not going to let them touch you. Not for what you know. Not for what you did. Not for anything.”
I open my eyes. He’s still bent over me. His face filling my vision.
I pull at his shirt.
He closes the last inch. Meeting me.
The kiss is my choice. I put my mouth on his and his whole body unlocks. His arm bands around my waist and he pulls me up off the floor, against his chest. One hand cradling the back of my head. The other spanning my entire back.
His mouth is hot. His teeth catch my lower lip. I feel a sound in his chest that never makes it to his throat. His hand fists in myhair, tilts my head back. His mouth moves to my jaw, my neck, the spot below my ear where I didn't know I was sensitive until his lips find it and my hands tighten in his shirt.
He pulls back. Breathing hard. Looks at me. His eyes are bright and his face is open and vulnerable in a way I’ve never seen.
“That doesn’t fix anything,” I say. “What I did. It doesn’t go away.”
