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That was—until she had thrown herself back into her work. Areanel was not the type of person to just sit back and do nothing. Or, that was what she told herself, her father’s words still ringing in the back of her mind.
Pathetic. Useless. Weak.
She didn’t want to be any of those things, but the thought was still there, niggling at the back of her mind—what if she was?
Areanel needed to keep moving, or else all the shit she had endured would finally break through that wall she had so carefully built—and the last thing she needed was for it to all come crashing down.
Not that she had time to deal with it, anyway. Her father had changed the meeting location with the other kingdom’s delegates to Alabasus.
The king was keeping Areanel from executing the former Chieftain of Vennedove, but why, she did not know. Aerileas wanted him dead—he’d said so himself—so why tell Areanel she was to delegate the task? He should make an example of the traitor by interrogating him—the chieftain might have information on the rebels.
Areanel might finally learn why the rebellion was using her deceased brother’s moniker and emblem.
No, it was not yet time to deal with her pain—that required time, which she didn’t have. So she stood, bare in front of her obnoxiously opulent bathroom mirror, and grasped the counter. Twisting this way and that, she examined her body.
The faintest brush of another presence pawed at the edges of her mind, trying to get in; the gentle tickle of awareness, like snowflakes falling against her skin, left a cold calm in their wake. Winter must have felt her emotions, but Areanel was not yet ready to face her bonded, so she barricaded that part of her mind, shutting them out.
Areanel’s scars were meant to show that she had survived. Not pathetic.
Her bruises were a way of saying she had taken the hit and continued standing. Not weak.
Small cuts were a reminder that she had fought back with what she could—her words. Not useless.
The large slice down her side served as a memento of her strength. She had survived. She had survived. She had survived!
But the healers were good at their jobs—too good. Every large scar, jagged mark, yellowing bruise, and small cut that had littered her body—even the callouses on her fingers—had disappeared. All the work she had put in whilst training—erased. The stretch marks she adored, that told the story of each of her children’s births—the happiness she felt with each painstakingly long, arduous labour. Gone. Vanished. Like they were nothing.
Areanel’s smooth skin mocked her. What happiness? It seemed to say.
The thought had her knuckles turning white as she clutched the rim of the sink. How could he just take them away?
Chip. Chip. Chip. A chisel struck against her mental barrier, and that already-fractured wall she had spent the last three weeks rebuilding, brick by blood-soaked brick, was being chipped away with each deprecating thought.
Areanel would bet everything she had that it was her father’s way of saying that he controls what marks her body. That he can have her body battered and bruised, then order the evidence erased.
He controlled the narrative. Always.
Her father loved to be in control.
Chip. Chip. Chip.
The chisel grew faster—more forceful—until all that was left were deep lacerations and jagged lashes, crisscrossing along her back in various sizes. An everlasting reminder of the first and only time she had ever denied her father a kill. It had taken years for her to be able to look at the scars, and when she finally showed another, Rymedur had been the first.
Areanel had hated them for a long time—they reminded her too much of her own trauma—of The Pit.
Fear squeezed her chest. She never wanted to go to that place again.
Warrior—that was what Rymedur had said when she had confessed, and her heart still clenched with raw emotion at the memory. He was proud of her strength. She was a warrior.
Her feelings were bottled and shoved so far inside for so long, and the dam she had built inside her mind broke in an instant. Rymedur had always known what to say—he had called her his desert rose, his little demon. Unbreakable. Resilient.
That was the first time she had truly cried in front of him.
Those whispered sweet nothings and the way he had kissed every scar marring her back—mapping them first with his hands, then his lips—filled her heart with a warmth she had never felt before. It wasn’t until her tears had dried and she’d believed his every word of adoration that she realised that was the moment she’d begun to fall in love with him.
And here she was again. Staring at the places where her scars should have been—where they had been mere hours ago. Areanel’s shoulders shook with the slow release of shaky breaths. Hate sank its claws deep; Rymedur had shown her how to love herself and her scars so thoroughly that she’d ordered the seamstress to cut a low back in all her dresses to remind everyone that she was stronger than them.
Areanel had earned each and every scar. How could her father order them away like they were nothing? All that was left were the remnants of the lashes she received when she was first sentenced to The Pit. Nothing remained of the other horrors she had survived.
