AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“How could I go back?” I whisper.
Zora frowns. “What do you mean, how could you go back? We’ve made it all this way. You have to go back. You have a girl to get back to, remember?”
A girl to get back to. Isn’t that what Farin had said when I’d woken on this island?
Isn’t that exactly the problem?
“Zora, I’m a monster where I come from. Where we come from.”
She crosses her arms, looking me up and down as she sticks her foot out for balance. “Yes, I’m aware of that. You’re my living nightmare, remember? A recurring one at that.”
I sigh, rubbing at the crease between my brows. “You have no idea how many people I’ve killed.”
Zora’s face goes blank. “I thought you said it was him—it was Farin who killed them.”
“Most of the time I had a difficult time distinguishing the difference. The line between him and me…it blurred over time. It’s why he couldn’t separate himself from my feelings for Blaise. It’s why, when I’m in that body, I’m so desperately hungry. It’s why I lose control.”
“Nox, you have to go back,” Zora says, resting her hand against my arm.
“There are people there…families…I’m the villain in their story, Zora. There, I hurt the innocent. I’m not good. But here…”
Zora smiles up at me, but it’s a sad sort of smile, the type that makes divots in the corners of her eyes and the middle of her brow. “In this life, you get to be the hero.”
I nod my head, and we stand in the silence for a while before Zora says, “I like them better, too. The lives where I get to be the hero. But that’s the thing, Nox. I used to think that with each life, I could only fit one role. What if that’s not how it works? What if you can be the hero and the villain?”
“I don’t think anyone gets to be both, Zora. Not at the same time, at least.”
She shrugs. “Maybe you’re right. But you’ve still got to go back. You might not be a monster here, but Blaise isn’t here either.”
We pause for a moment, and it’s the silence that frightens me most of all. The emptiness in the conversation where I don’t have a defense, where I can’t simply agree with my sister.
“What? You don’t want her?” Zora asks.
The words cut, and I shake my head. “No, of course I want her. I want her everything. Every stupid little crass joke, every bruise on her heart, every laugh. I want all of her, but…”
Zora raises a brow. “But what?”
“But I’m not sure she wants me.”
For a moment, Zora’s expression goes blank.
Then she knocks me over the head with her fist.
“OW!” I yell, and it echoes off the cavern walls. “Was that necessary?”
“Apparently!” she says. “Now listen, you have a girl who quite literally died so you wouldn’t have to choose between her life and mine. And no, don’t give me that look. You might be used to being the smartest person around, but I can read between the lines too, you know. It’s not that difficult to figure out. She quite literally died for you, and you’re standing here wondering if she wants you?”
I grit my teeth. “During the Turning, there’s something about you—something about us—that changes. In our souls. I know she thinks she wants me. I know she came back to Mystral intending to free me. But Zora, I was there. I was there, in his head, when she kissed him, and I know I should believe that she did it so he could let his guard down. So she could lure him into Gunter’s room and disarm him. I know that’s the logical thing to think. But…”
“But?”
I take in a long breath. “But…But I felt that kiss. I felt how much she wanted it. You don’t understand, the bloodsharing ritual. I could feel what she was feeling. What they were both feeling, and it was only feeding off of each other. She didn’t just convince Farin she wanted him because she’s a brilliant actor, a master deceiver. She convinced him because it was the truth.”
Zora stares at me for a long while. Long enough for my cheeks to heat, as if reliving the moment the love of my life seduced my doppelgänger isn’t humiliating enough as it is.
“What?” I ask, when her stare becomes unbearable.
“You need to get over that,” she says.
