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“Don’t talk about things you don’t understand,” Zaina hisses.
Ah. There’s the response I was expecting.
She pours another vial down Aika’s throat, and this time, Aika stirs, coughing a little as she swallows the tonic.
Einar steps into the room a moment later, carrying a steaming bowl of water. He wordlessly deposits it next to the bed just as Aika opens her eyes.
“We have to stop meeting like this,” she croaks out, staring up at the giant king.
He gives her a half grin, and I’m surprised to see something like genuine fondness in his gaze.
Aika’s gaze lands on me next, and she lets out a sigh, gingerly sitting up like she’s steeling herself for an altercation. It makes sense, given pretty much all of our interactions this past year, but it’s an unwelcome reminder of who we are to each other now.
I clear my throat, asking her the question Zaina refused to answer. “What happened?”
“Nothing I couldn’t handle,” she repeats her vague response from earlier.
My lips part and I let out a breath. Her nonchalance isn’t unexpected, exactly, but it’s infuriating all the same, scraping the edge of my ragged nerves like a rusty knife against an open wound.
“And what about what I can handle, Aika?” I say her name like a curse. It feels like one, sometimes. “What happened to not letting me wake up next to a corpse?”
Aika’s eyes widen for just a moment, the low light of the lantern dancing in their depths. I wonder if she is as surprised as I am about the admission, but within a heartbeat, her expression is back to normal. Flat. Casual. Vaguely amused.
“Don’t be so dramatic, Remy.” She heaves an apparent sigh. “I wasn’t in any danger of dying. I told you, I’m more tired than anything.”
Zaina gives a disbelieving scoff, reminding me that she is in the room.
“She was never going to kill me,” Aika insists, finally breaking eye contact with me to look at her sister.
“Keep telling yourself that,” Zaina bites back, moving to adjust the pillows behind Aika.
She eases her body back to rest against them, but not before scowling at Zaina as if they’re arguing over how to fold a dinner napkin, rather than life or death.
They treat being tortured, beingkilledas commonplace.
But of course they do. They were raised in a house with her, worked for her. One of them still does, and the other…
I turn to Zaina. “So what is your role in all of this? I’m assuming if you were still living your life at the whims of a sociopath,His Majestyhere wouldn’t be quite so relaxed about it.”
Einar heaves a sigh that’s more exasperated than angry, and Zaina’s face darkens, both confirming my suspicion.
“So what?” I scoff. “You were happy to slaughter people and get your weekly dose of torture in her name until someoneyoucared about was in danger?”
Einar’s jaw tightens, and Zaina’s features are overtaken by another wave of cold fury, but it’s my wife who speaks out.
“Zaina was never happy about it.”
Zaina looks at her, and something passes between them before she finally responds in a biting tone, “And the people I cared about werealwaysin danger. You are not the only one here who has lost someone at the hands of that woman, so once again, Francis, I would caution you not to speak about things you don’t understand.”
I want to point out that I can’t possibly understand any of this, but the barest edge of raw emotion in her voice stops me from firing back.
“And I would agree,” Einar growls, fixing me with a glare before he turns to his wife. “However, you can’t expect him to understand anything when no one will explain it to him.”
“Well, perhaps we would if he would stop being achutiyalong enough to listen,” she snaps.
I don’t know what achutiyais, but I can gather it’s an insult from the way Einar’s lips curl up and Aika chokes on a laugh.
I do want answers, though, and it seems she might be willing to give them if I can play nice. So I take a deep breath and sink into the chair in the corner of the room.
