Page 97 of Commanding Scythe and Sky

SEVENTEEN

CONSIDERATIONS

AUGUST

Four months, one week, two days, nine hours since they took my wife…

Around and around, I watched the black of Renown blood tangle with crimson as it circled the drain.

Wicked.

A whisper. A forgotten thing. A voice. Some piece of me I buried every time I stepped onto another killing field.

I scrubbed harder, yanking at my fingers until they ached, watching that stain swirl into the drain as I burrowed deeper and deeper inside myself. Breathing—or trying to.

The blood beneath my nails had gone sticky—the last hours clinging to me like a second skin I couldn’t shed.

Deeper.

I scraped my thumb under each one, watching those colors funnel into the darkness.

Even here, even now, the satisfaction I expected from delivering retribution was absent. Because it didn’t matter. Every day, I felt her agony—the breaks and burns, the dislocated joints—tallying each injury, tucking it away to give to the next sick motherfucker we got our hands on.

General Steinarr Everhart was just the bastard for the job.

I took another pump of soap, lathering it generously over every inch of skin exposed below the edge of my armor. Breathing—or trying to—as I fought to rid myself of the Bellpost General.

Around and around, my sins twisted out of sight until at last the water ran clear. It wasn’t enough. Wasn’t enough to quiet the roaring in my skull or the tremors rocking through me.

The shakes were always the worst of it.

His screams echoed against the too-tight confines of my skull. He’d barely groaned when I snapped his fingers where they’d broken hers yesterday.

It was the femur that did it. That broke him. Still, his loyalty to Moros outweighed the agony I could inflict with magic, blades, boots, and metal bars.

All I could think as the seven-foot brute pissed himself was that I’d felt them put Ally through this.

Felt her leg snap.

Felt her throat ripped raw with screams—screams I drew out of the General, willing him to break. To cave as I carved into his torso where I’d felt them slice her open. To divulge anything of use as Cyrus fucking branded him—I’d assumed that was the horrific burning sensation Ally’d sent through the bond before my shields could snap into place.

But he didn’t. Neither did she, it seemed.

I gritted my teeth, scrubbing under that steaming faucet as I fought to calm my breathing, my racing pulse. Fought in vain to still the tremble in my aching fingers.

Glancing up, I found the mirror clouded with steam and realized I’d been in here far longer than acceptable. With a huff, I jerked the lever, halting the water.

A breath.

Another.

I dried my hands—nearly rubbed raw, smarting against the rough towel—and stared at the foggy mirror. Hanging the cloth back up, I tried again to pull in a full breath, the boa constrictor around my chest squeezing tighter. I wondered if I looked half as close to death as I felt, then wiped a stretch of mirror clear only to wish I hadn’t.

Empty. The man looking back at me was a shell.

Enough.

Enough breathing, enough thinking.