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Pepper flitted irritably on my shoulder until I prodded her to take flight again, but the silence she left in her wake wasn’t much better. The light footsteps I was forced to use did nothing to give my anger an outlet, either.
Another couple minutes of Lina tapping her foot in my pocket is what finally did me in.
“You want to know what I’m angry about, Lina?” I barreled on, before she could answer. “I’m picking my way through the deadliest woods in the known world for a kingdom that, by all sane accounts, does not exist, and you are perfectly content, because as usual, you aren’t thinking about anyone but yourself.”
She looked stricken, her tiny fingers fisting around the edge of my pocket.
“That’s not—” she started, but I cut her off.
And I knew—I knew—she wasn’t really to blame for my foul mood, but somewhere between her indifference at leaving and my inability to shake the constant haunting of the past few months, I couldn’t seem to stop myself.
“True? Isn’t it, though? Did you ever stop to think about the impossible position you put me in, either letting you traipse off in here todie—and let’s not kid ourselves, Lina, that’s exactly what would have happened—or leave everything on a day’s notice to risk my own life for something you have no more than a hunch about?”
She closed her mouth, like even she knew she had nothing to say to that, but somehow the sight just made me more furious.
“Of course you didn’t think about me, though. You never have. You never think about the way everyone else has to cater their lives to the way you like to constantly risk yours!” I snapped my mouth shut, because I was coming way too close to saying things I was oath-bound not to say.
She stared up at me, and I realized I had stopped walking somewhere in the middle of my tirade. Her small form was being jostled a bit by the furious way I was huffing out air, but she didn’t comment on that.
When she finally did speak, it was only to say three small words.
“Put me down.”
I blinked.Does she not hear a single, damned thing I say about her risking her life?
“No.”
“I always thought you were better than a common bully, Edrich.” She sniffled after she said my name, tears pooling into her blue-green eyes, but she didn’t sound any less firm. “Don’t use your size to force me against my wishes. You don’t want to be responsible for my safety, and I don’t want your extremely begrudging assistance. So, put me down, walk away, and don’t let whether I live or die be your problem anymore.”
I laughed. I couldn’t help myself.
“It’s always my problem, Lina.Youare always my problem. And no, I won’t set you down to die. If you didn’t want me responsible for keeping you alive in this troll-begotten forest, you should have thought of that before.”
She turned a furious shade of crimson, tiny tears slipping down her cheeks and falling like dew drops onto the fabric of my pocket. Betrayal, hurt, and something else I couldn’t quite read flickered across her features and in the shade of her skin in flashes faster than I could follow.
But she wasn’t looking up at me like I was her knight in shining armor anymore.
Great. Another mission accomplished.
15
Lina
Iwas practically vibrating with fury. My skin glowed so fiercely that it illuminated his pocket. I was hurt. And angry. And also… humiliated.
Because beneath the spiteful way he’d said it, his words rang true.
Edrich let out a hiss of pain and muttered a curse about the forsaken hedgehog.
Good. I hope she bit him.
I wiped another angry tear away and tried to still my breathing. I had risked his life. I had expected him to come. But I hadn’t realized it was a burden to him… thatIwas a burden to him.
I let that thought sink deeper into my bones, practically severing my heart from my chest.
Am I only a burden to everyone I know? Is that why anyone shows me any kindness? Is it all pretend or pity?
The questions multiplied and swirled around my mind in a vicious loop. I was just Lina. The small girl with the back problems that everyone had to take care of.
