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Hawthorn’s wound healed within the week, but the stain of the experience clung to Juliana, haunting her nightly.
For the three days he slept, the silence nearly broke her. She’d kept to her chambers, the door open between, unable to look at him, to face him.
My fault. My fault.
His stillness crept into her bones. She wanted to go to him, had strange, foolish fancies of holding his hand, touching his hair.
But what good would any of that have done?
At one point, unable to handle the silence, she’d started to sing. Her voice broke the quiet, but it broke her too.
What was the point? He wasn’t listening.
And yet, when he’d woken, she’d wanted nothing more than to throw away her weapon and cling to him like a child.
But she hadn’t. She couldn’t trust herself not to hurt him, not to scream obscenities—
She couldn’t trust herself to let go.
And Princess Serena was in the castle again. It wasn’t right.
It was never right to feel this way.It never would be. Not for anyone, and certainly not for him.
Juliana was fine with having friends, friends that could be slotted away neatly in the past, or up on a high shelf, ready to be dusted off whenever she returned to them. Friends like wildflowers who took care of themselves.
She did not want people in her life who grew like roots beneath her, twisting into her, making her something else, making it impossible to leave.
And she needed to be able to leave.
Will he miss me, when I’m gone?
Would she miss him?
What worried her more?
She didn’t want to be like her mother, tearing up her roots when she needed to go. She didn’t want anyone to bleed on her behalf.
And Hawthorn already had.
Not like that,she reminded herself.There are worse pains, ones he’ll never feel for you.
The dream she’d had the night he woke burned through her memories.
She’d dreamed she’d gone to Hawthorn’s room and apologised for not being there. She’d dreamed she kissed him, that he’d kissed her. In that moment, she’d gone up like a matchbook, and woken scorching in the dark.
Hawthorn had woken seconds after she did, having hurt himself waking from a nightmare. It had taken all her restraint not to go to him, not to ask him if he wanted her to stay.
The boy was quicksand. She had to stay away.
Three more weeks. Just three more weeks and she’d be free of him.
You will never be free of him,whispered a voice in the dark.
“Don’t tell me what to do.”
Juliana had not yet met a foe she could not vanquish.
She would vanquish this.
