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Then, I went in search of Isolde.
It was not hard to find her. She never came to my bed when she was angry with me, but as I made my way to her floor, I found Killian leaving her chamber. I stayed in the shadows until he passed, frustration heating my blood, then I entered her room. She sat at her vanity, brushing out her hair.
She did not even look at me.
“Did you have a nice chat with your commander?” I asked.
“Do not,” she said, turning toward me.
“What?” I goaded. “I saw him leave your room.”
“He came to see if I was all right.”
“Which warranted an invitation into your room?”
“Are you going to accuse me of fucking him?”
We sat in our anger for a moment, and there was something about how she looked at me that completely took my fight. I could not hold on to it now that I was alone with her.
“I know you are not fucking him,” I said, quiet.
She turned in her chair, staring up at me, with her lip—bloodied, bruised.
Carefully, I clasped her chin. “I did not mean this,” I said, whispering.
She swallowed, staring up at me, breathtaking. “I know,” she said.
I leaned forward, hesitant, but when she did not move away, I kissed her—softer than I ever had—drawing my tongue over her wound. Even as it healed beneath my touch, guilt gnawed at my gut.
How would I ever apologize enough?
I felt that I had committed so many wrongs against her in just the last few days, I would never make up for them. I had failed to be compassionate when she had shifted for the first time; I had dismissed her worries and connection to her mother’s homeland; and I had not been able to control my court long enough to prevent her harm.
I prayed for her, I begged for her—and yet, I could not take care of her.
I pulled back, running my thumb along her jaw, and we stared at one another. I could not place this look in her eyes, and her thoughts were more like static—a strange, unfocused tangle. She looked away and then stood, stepping around me to climb into her bed.
I turned to face her but did not follow.
She rested on her side, facing me.
“You hurt me today, more than you ever have before,” she said.
I swallowed hard. She did not need to say it. I knew. I would never forget the way she looked at me in the hall or how hard she slapped me.
“I understand why you did it,” she continued, her voice shaking and her eyes glistening. My heart and lungs felt like chaos, crushed and uncomfortable. I never wanted to be the reason for her tears again, and yet somehow, I knew I would be. “But in that moment, all I could hear were the screams of my sisters as they burned alive. All I could smell was their burning flesh. All I could feel were the flames licking my feet. And it isn’t as if I don’t already think of it all the time—relive it all the time—but suddenly, this nightmare that followed me into this life became a possibility as soon as Solaris spoke, and you stood there so stoic and cold and pretended that you had not watched me die because of people like him.”
I clenched my jaw so hard, it ached. “You think I did not relive it while he stood before me?”
“This is not about you,” she said, and her voice shook as she sat up. “You have never been hunted. Even now, you are hated, but no one can touch you because of your power. And then you callously reminded me that I have no magic.”
I wanted to beg for forgiveness at her feet.
“Sometimes I fear you will not value me as much as you valued her,” Isolde said.
That comment surprised me, and I felt a rush of anger that she would even say those words aloud. She had never expressed insecurity over this before, and it frustrated me that she would now.
“I valueyou,” I said. “It is not as if you are two different people.”
