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“Noa,” Gabriel said. “What’s happening? Why didn’t you tell us he was this way?” Diel didn’t like the edge in Gabriel’s voice as he addressed Noa. It wasn’t her fault. She had kept him here. She had kept him grounded.
“He’s been having dreams,” Noa said. “Nightmares, I suppose.”
“For how long?” Sela asked.
“A while,” Noa said. “They’ve gotten worse of late. But this week … This week, they’ve been debilitating. Disabling.”
“Nightmares?” Uriel asked. “What kind? What are they about? You should have told us.”
Noa was quiet. “I think they’re memories.” She met Diel’s eyes, as though it was only the two of them in the room and she was talking only to him. It was the first time she had ever said anything like that, the first time she’d told him why she thought he was having the nightmares.
“I think it’s your mind taking you back to who you were before Purgatory. And I think you’re resisting it because you’re afraid.” Her eyes shone. “Like your monster shielded you from the Brethren and their punishments, I think your collar, all of it, shielded you from the truth of your past too.” She squeezed his hand. “Because it was too painful … because maybe there’s grief there, agonies you’re avoiding letting into your heart. And I think they’re tired of being ignored.”
Diel’s breathing increased in speed. Noa lifted her head and looked at Gabriel, then each of Diel’s brothers. “I thought the nightmares would eventually reveal the past to him, organically, like drizzling rain rather than a monsoon. Be less painful. I thought that without the collar, he would be more open to revealing that part of himself.” Noa faced Diel again. “But I think you’re too conditioned to shielding yourself.” She cast him a sad smile. “Learned self-preservation.” She sighed. “All of us in this room will have developed our own form of that.”
Noa put her free hand on his cheek. “But you need to let those memories in. They are plaguing you, baby, like a cancer left untreated. You must marry the two together—the Diel of old and the one you became in Purgatory. I think it’s how we finally get you free.”
Diel’s heart beat a fearful soundtrack to Noa’s words. Because he was scared. Who was he before? Did he have family? Had they been killed like Noa’s family had been, like he suspected all of the Coven’s families had been?
He felt his body tremble and his hands shake. “How?” he asked Noa, more of a plea than a question. He wanted the pain to stop. He wanted the fogged-up thoughts to stop, the eternal black pit of nothingness to leave him, to stop haunting his every night, every day.
Noa kissed his hand that remained clutched in hers. “I might be wrong,” she said, so quietly he knew it was meant for him only. “I might be wrong about it all.”
In that moment, Diel’s heart swelled and it was filled with nothing but her; it beat only her name, bled only her voice. He shifted his body until he was pressed against her and he could feel the heat from her skin permeate his.
“I can’t leave you,” Diel whispered, and Noa’s eyes closed as if he’d spoken words directly from a heaven they believed neither of them would ever enter. With the pad of his thumb, he caught a falling tear that was escaping down her cheek. “I won’t leave you.”
He guided her face to his and kissed her lips. They shook against his, and he tasted salt from her tears. “Help me,” he whispered against her mouth. “Please …”
Noa’s back straightened and he saw determination written on her face. She pulled back as Diel sank back into the bed. He felt a hand land on his shoulder and looked at Sela, who was still by his side. His brother’s face was haunted, worry deep in his furrowed brows. But he was beside Diel. Showing him he would always walk beside him. All his brothers would.
“Naomi?” Noa said, an odd cadence to her voice. The mute redheaded healer’s eyes widened at her name being called. Naomi never spoke. Noa had told Diel that some of her tongue had been removed by the Witch Finders as a punishment. She had rarely spoken since, and if she did it was only ever to her sisters. Naomi’s face paled and she shook her head profusely. “Please …” Noa’s voice cracked, as did Naomi’s terrified expression. Even in his weakened state, Diel could see pure fear reflected in Naomi’s face as her eyes scanned the room.
“Please, Naomi,” Noa begged. Diel didn’t know what she was begging her for, but he trusted Noa as much as he did any of his brothers.
“We’ll leave the room,” Gabriel said to Noa and Naomi, “if it will help things. If it makes things better for you.”
