Page 153 of The Silversmith

“But I’m not her anymore.” I shook my head. “I’ll never be whoever she—whoever I was—to you.”

Though it was true, I only said it to remind him of what he’d lost and could never get back. I lashed out, needing to share this hurt. And I knew he would sit there and take whatever cruel words I delivered.

He did. He took my beating and squeezed my hand, his gentle smile infusing me with familiar, soothing heat. “You will always be my miracle.” A tear rolled down his handsome face, over his scar and beard. “Simeon erased your memories, but he could never erase you.”

I sealed my lips together, my jaw shut, to suppress the sob threatening to wrench free. I stared at his large, calloused hands as they held mine. Those hands that had sliced the blade through Phillip and Oliver Gold’s throats were attached to his body. I had also seen firsthand what Molochai could do and dared to wonder if there indeed was a part of Gavin that Molochai controlled. Because when I looked at him, I was angry, but I couldn’t tell if I was angry for me or for the both of us.

No matter how much I wanted to hate him with every morsel of my being, his touch, his voice, his presence all remained a welcome invasion. My body betrayed me. There was a pull inside me that couldn’t detach from him, and it was stronger now than it was before.

But right now, anger was the only safe feeling. It made sense, and I told myself I needed it to heal.

Weeks ago, I had been an empty canvas hidden away in my cabin, waiting for the brightest paint to stick, and now I was nothing but muddled strokes of silvers and reds and blues and golds and black. That’s what happened when you tried to fit too many colors on one canvas.

I didn’t have to speak for him to see it seething from my soul. I let the chaotic darkness bleed out so he could witness what he’d done, what they’d all done. You could only twist and pull a rope in so many directions before it snapped.

“I want you to go,” I whispered. A lie, but I forced it out.

He swallowed hard and released my hands.

“Please go,” I spoke, this time to muffle the part of me that was crying out for him. “Please.”

Agony burned in his gaze, but his unrelenting love—now freed by his truth—was stronger. Unbound. He stood to go. “I love you, Aryella.” My gut twisted when, despite the hurt my words caused him, his gentleness endured. “I have loved you since the moment you walked into my blacksmith’s shop, since the moment—” He huffed out a tearful breath that cracked my chest wide open. “I have loved you since the moment I first saw you, and I will never stop.”

He turned his back to me and stopped in the doorway, where he unearthed a note from his pocket. It looked to have been folded and unfolded multiple times.

“Damond knows everything. Anything more you need explained, he’ll tell you.” He placed the paper on the chair by the door. “Please read this before you go to those Caves.” His throat flexed with a hard swallow. “And Ella?” He met my gaze, passionate fury and plea brimming in those hickory depths. “Don’t let this world take one more thing from you.”

The door closed behind him, and he was gone.

I buried my face in my hands and cried the only weak, painful sobs my damaged body would allow. I wanted to scream. I wanted to drown everything and burn everyone until the only thing left in this barren wasteland was the truth.

But all I could feel was black.

Chapter thirty-six

Aweek passed before I healed enough to get out of bed. Whatever power had kept me alive left nothing for healing of the supernatural kind, so it was slow. It turned out being gutted and thrown a great distance into a rocky ravine really took it out of a person. Even a person blessed with the power of the gods.

The icy month of Nevelin arrived, and a new year began. Gavin never came back, which hurt more than it should have, and I let my self-loathing fuel my rage rather than my gloom. I grasped the bitterness well in the days after he left. Let the anger simmer long enough, and it began to char the good parts of me.

It made the days easier, though my fury wasn’t directed at a single person. It just was. With all I’d learned, I couldn’t decide who to blame, if not everyone.

Though I was angry with Damond for being complicit, I let him take care of me in silence. In turn, he let me be angry. The cabin was one bedroom, but there was a light-blue sofa by the hearth where he slept, as well as a small bathroom and a kitchenette where he cooked for us. He accompanied me on my slow, uncomfortable walks along the beaches of the Windcrest Sound. The nastiest glares I could muster didn’t deter him from staying by my side, and for that I was secretly grateful. I feared how far into myself I might retreat if left alone.

The cabin was hidden south of Brinnea between a thick line of trees at its back within a small inlet off the sound. The cliffs were tall enough, and we were far enough away that I couldn’t see a single part of the city. I was grateful for that. All of it was easier to process when half the time, I could pretend I had no responsibilities outside this cabin. Given how I’d been deceived by so many others, I couldn’t find it within myself to feel guilty about lying to myself in order to cope. Just for a little while.

If Simeon himself deemed it necessary to keep me from my people, life, and duty for over four hundred years, I decided they could wait a little longer for their puppet queen.

I thought of Gavin far more than I wanted to, but his lingering effect on me was too intrusive to ignore. I saw, felt, and heard him everywhere. In the warmth and safety of my bed. In the frigid breeze off the sea. In the soothing whoosh of ocean waves. In the gloom of the sky when it was gray and the heat of the sun when it shined. Sometimes feeling him made me scream and cry. Other times, memories of his protective warmth beside me were the only remedy for a restless night.

Damond told me that between the time he brought me to this cabin and I woke, Gavin didn’t eat, didn’t sleep, just drank the water Damond forced upon him and did nothing but sit at my bedside and wait. Only when I began to wake did Damond convince him to briefly leave the room to spare me the initial shock of him being the first thing I saw.

Neither Damond nor I spoke of him after that, until, three weeks later, Gavin sent me a little gift. Damond had advised me earlier that morning he needed to run into Brinnea and would return before dinnertime.

When he called my name from out front, I rose from the afternoon nap my healing body still required and paused to glance at the two silver rings on my side table. I’d become accustomed to pretending they weren’t there. This afternoon was no different.

I made my way outside, unenthused. Shoulders and neck wrapped in a plush olive-green blanket, I stopped when I saw Damond holding a rope. At the end of it was some sort of silver-furred—nearly iridescent—wildcat cub.

My mouth fell open.