Old blood still coated her skin, a mixture of her own, her twin’s and the dead servant’s, but fresh blood stained her too, brighter in color, from whatever she went through when Peter rescued her.
I’d never seen him so determined, so angry, so terrifying… Peter was always light-hearted. He could turn any tension-filled conversation around, but this was different. Something about seeing what happened to Vallie changed him. He was standing still, barely moving, with a new kind of livid mask donned.
No one answered her.
“Whodo you want to see, Vallie?” Tezya asked gently. He had told me Vallie begged Peter and Dovelyn to bring Miles’ body back with them, but they couldn’t risk it. If that was who she wanted to see—
Her hands clenched into the sheets. “Kole.”
Everything stilled. It was the last person I expected her to say.
“Do you want to try to sleep first? Maybe eat something?” I suggested, trying to mask my own shock at her request. My eyes flicked up to meet Peter’s. His were narrowed, his fists clenchedat his side as his jaw ground against his teeth, but he didn’t say anything.
“No.” Her voice was firm, demanding. Her eyes finally snapped open and met mine. “I want to see himnow.”
I turned to look at Tezya who nodded once before guiding my battered friend toward the makeshift prison at the camp. She was walking slowly, a limp taking over her gait. I looked down and saw she had a twisted ankle. I inhaled sharply, but quickly cast it down. If Vallie wanted to pretend she was fine, I wasn’t about to ruin that for her. Whatever she needed to do to get through this, I’d help her.
“He’s in there,” Tezya said as he halted in front of a tent. Now that Dravenburg knew everything, he’d assigned multiple people to watch over Arcane and Kole. Four guards now stood in front of the one Kole was in.
Vallie turned on her good foot. “I want a knife.” No one moved. No one spoke. “I said I want a knife.” Her voice was breathless, but it still managed to raise an octave. Peter pulled one out and gently placed it into her waiting palm. His hand brushed against hers, and she flinched. Peter’s jaw worked as he noticed, before he took a step back, giving her space.
Vallie’s hand was shaking as she readjusted the blade before finally stepping through the tent flaps. I followed her after a second, staying out of sight toward the side of the tent, along with the guards.
Kole shifted on the ground once he saw her. He was leaning against the bars of the cage that was positioned in the center of the room. His head was resting back, his legs spread wide. One bent at the knee, the other stretched out on the grass.
Two Alluse users were standing on either side of the bars to keep his abilities at bay. Brighta didn’t believe in the use of Alluse objects, so they took shifts rotating within the tent. I was told Arcane had his own in the one next door. I had no idea what Dravenburg did with the Alluse shackles Tezya and Sieoriginally put on them, and half of me wondered if they were safer in the chains, even though I knew the process of making the objects were inhumane.
“Leave us,” Vallie ordered, not looking at either guard, but directly at Kole instead. To my surprise, Kole’s brown gaze held hers, but his face was unreadable.
“Miss, we can’t. We need to keep casting Alluse on him—”
“Do it from outside the tent. I know enough about your abilities to understand the radius in which you can cast it.”
They still didn’t move.
Tezya stepped into the tent a second later. He didn’t need to say anything before the guards looked at one another and followed him out. I turned to watch them go and saw Peter hovering at the entrance of the tent, watching the interaction.
Kole rose from the ground, his eyes intent on Vallie. He had ample room and was able to walk ten paces on either side before he was met with the metal bars of the cage. I half wished he was kept in one the size I was in at Lux.
Vallie limped toward the bars, gripping the rusty metal with one hand as she leaned into the cage. Kole didn’t say anything, just waited and watched Vallie come to him. His eyes flicked to her ankle once before he met her gaze again and held it. With the jagged lightning scars covering his entire body, he looked more menacing than before.
“How could you?” she sneered. Tears pooled in her amber eyes, but she managed to keep them down.
“Vallie, I had no idea what he was going to do to you and Miles—”
“Don’t you dare say his name,” she screamed, and Kole flinched. She was gripping the metal bar so tight that her pale hand was even more ashen.
Kole took a step toward her, closing the space between them until only the bars separated them. His eyes flicked to the blade she was holding before meeting her gaze again. My breath leftme as I watched. It took everything in me to not interrupt, to not snatch the blade from Vallie’s hand from fear that Kole would grab it and turn it on her. But I had to let her do this, whatever it was she wanted from this interaction, I had to give it to her.
“I’m sorry for what happened to your twin,” he said gently. “But I didn’t kill him. I wasn’t the one who murdered him.”
“Not doing anything to help is just as guilty as the act itself. You have his blood on your hands.”
Vallie angled the blade toward him. She was shaking profusely, all her weight supported on her right while maintaining her grip on the cage with her free hand. Kole remained still as she passed the blade through the bars, the tip of the dagger digging into his chest. He met her gaze steadily, and I realized he was going to let her kill him. The dread that filled his usually hard, menacing face was gone.
They stood like that, connected only by the sharp end of the blade, for what seemed like minutes, their eyes never leaving each other’s. Vallie’s filled with anger and hurt, while Kole’s held… grief. For some reason I could feel him. Feel that he hated what happened to her, that he was hurting because of what she went through, that he wanted to escape this prison just so he could go back to Lux and murder them all, which made no sense.
But nothing happened.
