Page 38 of At The End There Was You

“I did not hurt her, Winter. You know that.”

She only shook her head, looking away from him and helping Miriam to her quarters. And he let her move away from him. He knew that losing her pure heart once would be losing it forever.

“You came to our prayer,” the young girl who he’d often seen with Winter called to him, keeping a good distance between them. “I saw you, by the pillars,” she said, shyly stepping closer. “I…I don’t know if you know or not, but seventeen years ago, my mother, Genevieve Arthos, died giving birth to me. Have you seen her?”

“She was the spitting image of you, Clara.” Azriel remembered every soul and every face they came with in his lands. Especially of the ones whose hands he’d held while he’d helped them step into one of his heavens.

The girl's eyes welled with tears, and she sniffled, trying to offer him a smile. “I will see her soon, won’t I? In a day I will be with her again. You’ve said that all will be together in death.”

“Yes.”

“I’ve tried to be good, you know. I've tried to do good by my name. So I could be with her in death, too.”

“I know.”

“I am glad then,” she said, wiping her face with the edge of her robes, and then her face filled with panic and horror. “Please do not tell the High Priestess of what I said, she would not take kindly to the words.”

“Your secret is safe with me.”

She turned to him just as she was about to leave. “I always thought she was right even if no one believed her.”

“Who?”

“Winter. She always said you’d have a reason.”

“And if it was not good enough?”

“Winter says no one's reasons have to be good to justify how they feel, but only how they decide to act based on them.”

“She sees good where there is none.”

“Maybe she just looks hard enough.” A sweet chuckle left her, the sound just as young and vibrant as her. “It’s not that she does anything else. She doesn’t pray either. And she ought to get down to the bottom of anything by exhausting everyone with talk until they freely give their truths to her.”

Her eyes were closed, but she was not asleep. She’d not been asleep last night either when Azriel had sat by the far corner of her room and watched her rest. But she’d let him stay there. He knew it had not been out of fear because she’d eventually gone to sleep and even whispered his name in her dreams—in dreams that he didn’t dare belong, but in which she still wanted him to be.

He could almost see his brother’s grin when he sighed and dropped his head back, tortured by even the thought of her not being able to talk to him as she once had. Azriel was about to convince himself that Gabriel had planned for this to happen after recalling their conversation. Seven days. He’d promised seven days. He’d never asked why seven or why Gabriel had directed him to the Uvralis Sanctum. He wanted to imagine himself squeezing his brother’s throat for an answer, but then his question lay in bed with her red hair all over her tear streaked face. And the more he thought about it, he didn’t care to get an answer for that one—he already had it.

Azriel reached her side and kneeled beside her bed. She trembled a little, and he hated that the most. More than anything he’d ever seen and witnessed in the long life he’d lived as the God of Death. He put a hand over hers that was clutching the blanket tightly, and she jerked it back, holding it tightly over her chest.

“I do not wish to harm you, Winter.”

Something that glistened slipped out of her eye and rolled down her cheek.

He caught her tears despite his promise last night, and her hand shot up to wrap around his wrist. “Please do not touch me.”

Azriel paid no mind to those words, his attention had gone on her naked arm exposed from the blanket. At least a dozen thin scars marred the skin over her wrist. He couldn’t think. Not one thought. He couldn't make sense of anything at all. “You have seeked me?” he asked hoarsely against the heavy weight that had settled on top of his chest. “Why have you seeked me?”

He didn’t understand.

Couldn’t understand.

Winter tried to pull her hands back, but he wouldn’t allow it. Her eyes remained tightly pressed together as more tears left them and more sobs ripped out of her.

He rested her forehead against hers. “Open your eyes, Winter.”

“I can’t.”

“Winter, it is an order.”