Chapter 13
Ava
My first thought, upon feeling his body next to mine, was that Avery’s death had all been a horrible dream, and that he’d been next to me all along. The devastation of realising that this was not so was intense. What came after, however, shocked me even more – it was a kind of overwhelming relief. Those were Ambrose’s arms wrapped around me. It was his breathing I could feel against my body, his heartbeat I could make out, pounding in my ears, and he was every bit a part of me as Avery had been. I rolled over to look at his face – as calm and vulnerable in sleep as it never was when awake. He looked very young. His face was somehow so unfamiliar and yet I had every one of his features committed to heart – the knowledge of which was like a battleaxe smashing through my chest. It seemed impossible that my body could hold all of these feelings without collapsing from the weight of them. This was not the experience of someone who was dying. These were not the feelings of a ghost.
I slowly untangled myself from his large, warm body and the hands that held me. He made a noise and reached for me, then fell back asleep when his hands found my pillow. I stood next to the bed, staring at him. I wanted to climb back in, to wake him and kiss him and have him hold me like he’d done all night and all the day before. Instead, I focused only on the living, breathing guilt in my stomach – on the word in my mind and heart that wouldn’t stop repeating: Run. Run, run, run.
I quickly bound up my hair and pulled on the stupid linen dress I felt stupid in. Casting a last look at Ambrose, I snuck out of the room and pressed myself hard and fast down a path I hadn’t explored before. My quick, bare feet pounded over the grass as I drew deeper into the jungle. I didn’t know where I was going, but I knew I needed sun and air and movement. It was very early in the morning and I didn’t want to think about the lunacy of the night before. I couldn’t. I just wanted to run.
After about twenty minutes I came to an opening in the canopy of trees and emerged to find myself in a grassy clearing, panting hard. Dizzy, I sank to my knees and almost burst into tears. What was I doing?
With clear sky above and a stretch of empty grass, I longed for Migliori, but knew he was too far away to feel me through the bond, so I sank onto my back and moved my hands through the grass, feeling the sensations against my skin and finding pictures in the early morning clouds. The sun had not yet risen completely, so it was still chilly; I felt hyper aware of the air against my skin.
I must have drifted to sleep, because some time later, with the sun much higher in the sky, I opened my eyes to hear a deep voice. ‘Hello, pretty boy.’
He was standing above me, blotting out the sky. He was blotting out everything, as always.
I sat up, blinking blearily.
‘You ran,’ he muttered. He sprawled onto the ground next to me and we stared up at the clouds.
‘I don’t run.’
He snorted. ‘Right.’
I flushed and dropped my eyes to the ground. ‘I didn’t go far.’ But I could feel his gaze on me, and I knew he understood exactly what I hadn’t said. I didn’t go far because I’m trapped on this island and I don’t know where else to go.
Give me wings. Please, just two of them.
‘How do you feel?’ he grunted.
‘Fine. You?’
‘Fine.’ There was silence for a moment, until he sat up and stared down at me. ‘What’s going on?’
I didn’t reply, but I could feel my answer building.
‘Tell me the truth – do you regret what happened?’ he asked.
I couldn’t get any words out.
He sighed angrily. ‘Answer me, Ava.’
The guilt that had been flooding my veins since I’d woken made the response easy. ‘Yes, all right?’ I told him softly. ‘Yes.’
I’d never seen him so hurt – so vulnerable. It was strange on such strong, angular features. I took a deep breath and stood up. He stood too, and it felt oddly formal, facing each other like this. ‘You don’t understand,’ I told him as clearly as I could. ‘It will never lessen, how I feel for him. It will never fade. I’ll never grow tired of him.’
‘I know that.’
I met his eyes. ‘No, you don’t. You will always come second. You will never be my choice. If he walked through those trees right now, I would give you up.’
I watched him close his eyes. ‘How cruel you are, my love.’
I nodded. I was cruel. I wanted to hurt him. I wanted to push him so hard that he wouldn’t follow me, he’d never follow me anywhere again, because I couldn’t have his eyes on me or his skin against mine and still do what I had to do. I couldn’t have Ambrose, and still avenge Avery. There wasn’t enough space in my heart for both.
Ambrose walked to me, six foot six of muscle. He encircled my hips and lifted me to the grass beneath him, then took hold of my ankles, and his hands moved up my legs. He lifted the dress, pulling it up over my hips, over my shoulders and my head. He pressed his lips against my collarbone, my breasts, my stomach, along the whole length of me. He kissed my skin, touched my body. He cried; I felt the tears on my legs. He made love to me, right there on the grass.
Afterwards, he got up, walked to the other side of the clearing and sat down. I watched him, embarrassed and confused as I pulled my clothes back on. I’d hurt him; I kept hurting him. I didn’t know how to stop except by getting away from here.
Biting my lip, I approached. ‘You knew all along, Ambrose. You knew it would be this way.’
‘What?’ he snapped. ‘That I’d always come second to a dead man?’
I nodded mutely.
‘You tell me I’m insensitive,’ Ambrose said, ‘but you’re a million times worse.’
I blinked, staring at him. ‘Of course I am. I’ve got half a soul.’
He shook his head. ‘And what a glorious excuse that one is. I’d give anything to see what you were like before he ruined you.’
I turned away quickly, and after a moment heard him sigh. The sun peeked its way through the trees, turning the tips of every blade of grass golden.
‘I have a question,’ I said after a while, needing to change the subject. ‘You and your brother – are you close?’
His eyes were hooded. ‘We used to be. Very close.’
‘And now?’
‘I don’t know. Since when do you care about my life?’
I swallowed.
Ambrose didn’t reply for a long time, then finally muttered. ‘We’re different, that’s all. I can’t fault him for being loyal. It’s just … not really my thing – to not question things. And he doesn’t like that about me.’
I thought about Thorne, the giant man I’d seen only very briefly in the dungeon. I’d always thought Ambrose was an intimidating sort of man, but compared to his older brother, he might as well have been a fluffy kitten. Thorne had tattoos all over his arms, and I wondered, now, if any of them were Marks.
‘What of his wife?’
‘What about her?’ Ambrose asked.
‘He threw her in the dungeon next to me, after he hit her.’
‘What’s your question?’
‘Well, I guess I just want to know if she’s … okay.’
Ambrose hesitated a moment, then sighed and slumped back onto the ground. For a while he just lay there, eyes closed, and I had no idea if he meant to answer me or not. Then I realised that he was thinking about her – about the girl with the red hair and the bottomless eyes.
‘Roselyn is … strange,’ he murmured finally.
I remembered the way she’d counted non-stop instead of sleeping. I remembered the way all the life behind her eyes seemed to vanish when her body no longer interested her.
‘People think she’s stupid, but she’s not. Thorne’s the only one who understands that.’
‘And you.’
He opened his eyes. ‘And me.’
‘She’s very beautiful.’
‘Mm. It’s why he married her in the first place, but sometimes it just reveal show unbearably detached she is.’
Something about Roselyn had touched me, something about the soft fragility of her. ‘How do you mean?’
Ambrose shrugged. ‘She forgets simple things. She can’t focus her attention for more than a second. Sometimes you look at her and you catch your breath, because you know she’s somewhere else entirely and that it’s somewhere very far away. She disappears to that place all the time.’
‘Counting.’
‘And wishing.’
‘For a way out?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t think she knows there is one.’
‘Is there?’
Slowly he shook his head. ‘Not with a husband like hers. He’d hunt the world for her, and wouldn’t give up until he died.’ Ambrose seemed to shiver a little as he thought about his brother. ‘He has berserker blood in him.’
The words made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. ‘What does that mean?’
‘Real berserkers are like animals. They don’t have much intelligence, but their size and strength and battle-rage is unfathomable. Thorne has aspects of their fury and bloodlust, but he has a sharp mind too. It makes him a very dangerous man – one who cannot give up on the hunt, once he has a scent in his nose. I’ve seen him do things that no man should ever see.’
I felt a sick kind of pity for the poor girl. I could imagine what Ambrose meant – the hard-edged cruelty in Thorne’s eyes had been bewildering. ‘He’s a monster,’ I muttered.
‘Don’t,’ Ambrose said suddenly, sitting up. ‘Don’t speak of my brother. I love him. He’s just from a different world to you, Ava. He understands what he’s been taught. He has so much strength – sometimes it takes my breath away – and his patience? I don’t think there’s another man in our whole country who could deal with Roselyn the way he does.’
‘By beating her and putting her in prison?’
He frowned angrily. ‘By understanding her.’
I folded my arms over my chest. ‘She deserves more than that.’
‘Maybe so,’ he murmured, ‘but it’s a start in a country where nobody else would even try. Maybe you should think about things like that before you judge us all.’
‘And maybe if you didn’t forgive so many things so easily, we would live in a better world.’
We stared at each other. I thought about the story he’d told me of the little boy who’d walked into the ice caps alone, and I thought about how Ambrose had explained the cruelty in their family, the way their mother had abused Thorne his whole life, turning him into a beast who would kill for her.
I asked, ‘What was the warder talking about, Ambrose? A secret in your past that you’ve been running from.’
I watched him stiffen.
‘Please tell me.’
‘That is not something I will ever speak to you of. Don’t ask me again.’
I blinked, falling silent at the tone in his voice. We watched the clouds for a long time. I wondered if it would ever get easier between us, or if it would always be this strained. There was such a vast gap between us – an ocean of difference.
Eventually I climbed to my feet. I wanted to cast this shadow from us, because within it everything hurt. ‘Get up. I want you to teach me how to fight like a man.’
He looked up at me, seeming to deliberate on which mood he was going to indulge in. I could see it going either way. ‘No point.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because you’re not a man.’
I frowned, kicking the grass moodily.
‘But I’ll teach you how to fight like a woman,’ he said.
‘I already know how to fight like a woman.’
‘Not really, or else you would have done more than slap me.’
He threw a punch at me and I only just managed to dodge out of the way. ‘Ambrose!’
He grinned and threw another. This time I blocked it and threw my own. Ambrose grabbed my arm and pulled me into a headlock, laughing. Enraged, I jabbed out with my elbow and caught him in the groin. He howled in pain and sank onto the grass.
‘Is that fighting like a woman?’ I asked, smiling smugly.
‘That’s fighting like a rat!’
‘Don’t be such a baby.’
He straightened and walked towards me, reaching out.
I pulled away, heart racing. ‘Don’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘I can’t … I don’t want you to touch me.’
‘Just now? Or ever?’
‘You don’t understand—’ I tried to explain, but he interrupted me, bursting with anger.
‘That’s bullshit! If you say that to me one more time I’m going to lose it! I do understand the bond! You know I do!’
We stared at each other. Every moment I spent with him I felt like I lost a small piece of my control.
‘Come on,’ I muttered. ‘I want you to help me with something.’
When we returned to my room, I sat in front of the mirror and handed him a pair of scissors.
‘What are these for?’
‘I want you to cut off my hair.’
Ambrose stared at me in the reflection. ‘Why?’
‘I don’t want to be Ava anymore.’
Again he asked, ‘Why?’
‘It hurts too much.’
‘That’s lazy,’ he said softly. ‘You can’t just shed your hair and expect to be someone else. The world has never been so simple.’
I stood up angrily. ‘You just want me to be attractive!’
‘Oh for Gods’ sakes,’ he growled. ‘I couldn’t care less about your bloody hair! I’ll shave the whole lot off if you truly want me to, but you don’t – you just want to run.’
‘I have to hold onto Avery for as long as I can.’
He stared at me, time slowing, stretching. ‘But what about me?’ he murmured. ‘I’m the one who’s still alive. I didn’t leave you and I never would. Can’t you see that?’
‘Ambrose—’
He met my eyes. ‘When you first looked at Avery, you bonded with him. It was easy and it was simple, and it was beyond any choice you could make. But when you and I first met, we hated each other. It was slow and it was impossible, and it happened against both our wills, despite everything that was put in its way. It was like we clawed at love with every ounce of our strength, like we held our breaths for it until no air existed in the world.’ He paused, and his eyes reached inside me. ‘So tell me – which do you think more real? Something you didn’t even choose, or something you had to fight for?’
I felt unsteady on my feet. Too many dangerous things unfreezing inside me.
‘Don’t choose a memory over a flesh-and-blood man who loves you to oblivion and back,’ Ambrose implored finally, sounding tired. ‘Don’t cut your hair. You’ll never heal if you never face yourself.’
I took a shuddering breath to argue, then found that I couldn’t. I didn’t want to hurt him anymore; I never wanted him to be hurt again. But I knew exactly what I had to do.
Ambrose
That night we went down to the seashore. As the sun sank we escaped our guards and hid far from any other people, staring into the water until she worked up her courage. Slowly, as if in a dream, she pulled her engagement ring from her finger, her hands shaking. Then she sank to her knees, clasping it tightly in both hands.
She whispered something so softly I could barely hear it – I will love you for all the days of this world. Then she kissed the ring, and threw it with her strong arm right out into the water.
I said to her, ‘Let’s go back and finish what you started.’
‘You’ll help me?’ she asked, stunned.
The answer was easy. Now that eyes changed to gold and two hearts beat in my chest. ‘Of course.’
It was funny, then, what came into my mind. On the eve of betraying my country, and pledging to help to kill my mother; on the cusp of finding this girl next to me and a new path to my life; in that moment there was only one thing in my mind and my heart.
My brother.