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Abruptly, his body goes rigid, and his lips leave mine as he slowly disentangles himself from me, backing into a sitting position. Cold seeps back into every place he had touched, and the air tastes bitter, like his regret at kissing me has mingled with mine for being desperate enough to let him until the very atmosphere around us is tainted by us both.
When his expression turns to stone and several precarious seconds tick by in silence, I finally get to my feet with whatever shred of dignity I have left.
Somehow, I manage to keep my head held high while I put my slippers back on and stride out of the room.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Zaina
Irealize that no matter what I’ve been telling myself, some small, irrational part of me has been holding on to hope that Einar might forgive me, might see through the mask I’ve donned and the distance I’ve forced between us.
I replay his expression when he backed away from me, the way it had bordered on disgust before hardening into nothingness, and I cringe.
My fingertips brush against my lips, still swollen from our kisses, and my eyes begin to burn.
But then again, who am I, really, apart from the woman he felt obligated to marry for the sake of his people, the woman who betrayed him and nearly cost him the few loved ones he has left.
I find myself wondering if he ever shared my feelings for him at all, or if I was so unused to kindness that I mistook the slightest bit of compassion for something more.
I clung to every morsel of his humanity, allowing it to steady me like the anchor to a ship in a treacherous sea.
I was a foolish woman desperate for the attention of an even more foolish man.
And it hardly matters in the end, because Einar and I are entirely too similar, we’re like trying to force together the same sides of a magnet. We might get close, but we can never quite seem to meet in the middle.
Khijhana’s padding footsteps are the only sound that accompanies me as I make my way back to the passageway. He doesn’t call out. Doesn’t come after me.
And that, more than anything, convinces me that whatever semblance of a spark Einar and I had before is gone now.
I should be glad for that. It’s what I wanted, or what I told myself I needed. It’s what I have been working for.
It should be easier this way...right?
And maybe it will be, eventually...but here in this moment I am too tired of the pretense and the energy it takes to feign hating him. Not when I am alone like this.
My sodden slippers slap against the floor of the passageway, somehow leading me forward when I still haven’t decided which direction I’m headed.
The places I can go in the castle are limited, and I can’t face going back to his room just yet. Instead, I eventually find myself coming to a halt outside what was once my bedchamber.
The broken door swings open with minimal effort, shards of wood splintering off near my feet, and it just barely latches behind me. I take a stilted breath as I look over the damage I caused to the once beautiful room. The curtains and sheets are shredded. So much of the wood is covered in claw marks. Suddenly I am transported back to that fateful night and I can hear Khijhana’s keening as clearly as the moment I abandoned her.
My chest tightens as my chalyx nuzzles against my legs, her purrs growing loud enough to pull me from the memory.
I don’t deserve her comfort. I don’t deserve her loyalty. But I find myself leaning down and pressing my face into her fur, soaking up every ounce of her love like the selfish person I am.
When I finally find the strength to get back on my feet, I wander over to the carved vanity with an enormous mirror. I spent most of my life here avoiding it, avoidingme.As I stare into my own amber-colored eyes, it’s like I can physically see the weight of everything I’ve done swirling in their depths.
And my face. Flawless. Symmetrical. So at odds with all the hideousness I feel inside. Exactly the way Madame prefers. I stare at my reflection for several heartbeats before I am overcome with the urge to shatter this mirror, to destroy one of the few things in this room that remains intact just so I never have to see the features that ruined my entire life.
And Einar’s.
I wonder how long Madame had been planning to send me here, if that was why she was so obsessed with my perfection. Her voice rings in my ears, then, as clear as if she was in this room.
“Such a disappointment, Zaina,” Madame said, her haughty tone laced with frustration as she dragged me to the dungeon.
I didn’t dare resist, knowing what she would do to Aika if I did. My middle sister may have believed that she fell ill last time I took too long on a mission, but I knew that Madame was prepared to feed her poison every day until I made it home.
So, I let her sink her nails into my skin like talons, let her hurl me onto the damp stone floor.
