This package—it’s intended forme.
Part of me wants to dive across the floor, snatch it up, unravel it. The rest of me is frightened of what I might see, conscious of the crystal dome inside my chest that’s growing more fragile by the second. Like the churning, sawing, slithering emotions trapped beneath are wearing it down.
You did this.
You fucking did this.
I reach out. Pause.
Snarling, I shove forward on my hands and knees, flattening against the floor as I wiggle beneath the bed and grab the parcel.I edge back, rocking onto my knees and holding it in my palm, gasping at the unbalanced weight of it. Top-heavy.
Familiar.
Heart thundering, I loosen the twine and unravel the cloth. It falls to the floor, a small scroll landing beside it, leaving my diamond pickaxe resting upon my trembling hand.
My eyes flame with unshed tears that distort my vision.
He got it back.
I touch my lips to the handle and breathe deep, picking up the faint residue ofhimspliced with layers upon layers of me.
A sob breaks free, and I bite down on my fist, squeezing the handle so hard my knuckles turn white.
Hehasbeen speaking … I just haven’t beenlistening.
The bluebell heads …
The sheath …
This …
Trinkets of affection passed to me with silent hope I slashed and stabbed.
I set the pickaxe on the floor, retrieve the scroll, unravel it … whimpering as I look upon the splayed masterpiece. The beautiful disaster he’s stained upon the parchment one delicate stroke at a time.
I’d know that cobbled hall anywhere, the curve of it almost calling for me to fall into its length and break myself against the stares of the many people lining one side.
Whispers.
And there—huddled in a ball on the ground, face tipped, gaze cast on the wall—is me. Unmistakably me. Like I just fell into the paper in a tangle of wrought limbs and tear-stained cheeks.
He was there that day, watching me from the darkness. He saw me disassemble myself as I finally looked upon the eyes of the brother I lost.
He saw the worst parts of me. My weakness.
My ugly secret.
He saw the full, unguarded horror of my monstrous mistake. My horrendous confession—unwittingly given from a guilty subconscious that was overflowing with all the lives I’d taken.
He sawme… yet he still came to Bahari. Stood before me and absorbed my blows. Tried to sponge my pain and stop me from hurting myself.
Me?
I took one look at his monster and murdered him.
A deep, agonized moan tears me up from the inside out. The parchment falls from my hand, curling in on itself as I tip forward, hands assaulting the floor.
Simple, Milaje. I refuse to live in a world where you don’t exist.
