Him ...
The backs of my eyes sting, but I refuse to blink. Refuse to let my tears spill. His words are flaming barbs tossed to maim,and the old me would be nursing her wounds ...
But she’s gone.
Right now, his fire has nothing to catch on, because I’m already ash.
I slide off the windowsill and raise my hands to the back of my neck, unclasping the necklace. It drops to the rug with a heavy thud, and that tightness peels off me inch by merciful inch, leaving raw skin that feels as if it’s just taken a life-saving breath.
Baze stumbles sideways, hand darting out to steady himself against the post of my bed, all the color draining from his face as his mouth opens and shuts.
He doesn’t speak. All he does is stare, and I can see bits of my brilliant reflection in his glazed eyes ...
I hate it.
I draw deep, then ask the question that sets a noose around the neck of our life-long companionship. “Did you know?”
“Orlaith—”
“Did. You. Know?”
His shoulders roll forward, and he releases a jagged sigh that fails to sever me from the blow brewing in his beseeching stare. “Yes ...”
It hits like a boot to the chest.
Harder.
It hits so hard I’m surprised I can still breathe.
Part of me wants to hack the wisteria right off the balcony and watch it fall to the ground, because that’s what he just did to us.
I nod. “You’re dismissed.”
His eyes widen and his foot pushes forward. “Laith—”
I reach behind my back, crack the drawer of my console, and tug out the talon dagger—the hilt branding my palm as I unsheathe the weapon and stake it in the air between us.
His next step falters. “Where the fuck did you get that?”
“Does it matter?”
This talon is so muchmorethan a threat, something I know he registers by the way his eyes go flat and defeated. By the way he casts his gaze to the ceiling as if my forgiveness is etched up there on the stone.
It’s not.
I’d rather handle my worst nightmare than accept whatever placation he has to offer.
He’s lost me. Whatever I thought we had, it’s broken.
“No,” he says, swallowing. “I guess not.”
“I said leave.”
He offers a curt nod, then turns and walks from the room, head down, shoulders hunched. I wait until I can no longer hear his footfalls before I sheathe the weapon and toss it at the wall, then fall to the floor and shatter.
Seated half-way down the jagged staircase carved into the cliff, I watch Cainon’s ship cut through the choppy bay while plucking immature heads off a ridge posey bush and stuffing them in a jar.
Patience has never been my virtue, and this poor plant is bearing the weight of that.
