But my Other doesn’t come.
Instead, I’m plowed with a moment.
Amemory—
I drag my fingers across Kaan’s sheets, his pillow. Gently strum the strings of his beautiful lute, struck by the baritone melody that makes me yearn for his voice, his presence …
Him.
I swallow, tighten my trembling grip on the lark heavy in my hand. Not fluttering for freedom, despite the fact that I pinched every fold in place myself—correctly. Careful and precise, with all the love the message itself does not contain.
Perhaps the lark knows I don’t want to set it free. For Kaan to read the words within.
It should say “I love you” more times than there are stars in the sky. It should tell him that he’s going to—
No.
This is the only way I can protect him. The only way I can keep him alive.
The strings are still vibrating with a droll sound as I rip my gaze from the lute, pulling Kaan’s málmr from my pocket. I don’t trust myself to so much as look at the precious carving one last time before setting it atop his pillow.
I drop the lark and turn, the sound of fluttering parchment wings stomping my heart. A flare of pain and then …nothing. Like the organ just gave up.
Perhaps I’ll never feel again.
Perhaps I don’t deserve to—
I groan, breaths coming hard and fast, making my head spin.
Or is it the world that’s spinning?
I drop to the ground and slam my back against the stone cliff, clawing my fingers down into the snow, wrestling my lungs into longer, deeper contractions. In through my nose, out through my mouth.
Repeat.
With each inhale, I focus on broadening my rib cage, trying to make enough space to swallow the memory and the surge of unsteady emotion. But every time I shove, it slips away. Like silt draining between my fingers.
I blame that fucking teardrop stone. Blame the bits of Rayne’s morbid language infesting my system, softening parts of me that were perfectly hard before. Perfectly stable.
Perfectly, securelystuffed away.
I blame my lake, now a few feet lower than it was before this latest assault from the past. Like its slowly draining away, revealing more of …everything.
I reach into the pocket of my cloak, curl my fingers around Kaan’s málmr, andsqueeze. Achingly aware of the many jostled weights still scattered about my Other’s den—this memory a mere pebble.
A single dot in a star-filled sky.
Memories I’d planned to ignore for the rest of my existence, but maybe that was wishful thinking …
Maybe Elluin’s greatest mistakes are doomed to haunt me. To rise up and beat me black and blue until I’m strong and worthy enough for the male who’s captured my cold, calloused heart.
Pyrok and Roan trail me across the courtyard, following my dimpled track through the crunching snow, exchanging verbal jabs I barely hear over the pattering fall.
I move up the stout stairway of the green wing, into the cool luminosity of a light orb hanging from the ornate eave, drop my bag, and crouch to gather some snow. Use it to clean off the blood and filth that’s all but calloused to my palms, not wanting to sully Mah’s place with the lives I’ve taken.
My hands are long since clean before I shore myself enough to push up and turn the handle … nudging the door open to the shrill tune of its creaking hinges. Heart in my throat, I grab my bag and step into the foyer, breathing stale air only faintly sweetened by the distant smell of Mah’s lullberry scent.
Guess the walls are finally forgetting her. Something that hurts more than these fucking pins in my back.
