Chapter 19
Thorne
I woke wanting my wife next to me. Lying on the hard wooden floorboards, I opened my eyes in time to see the Kayan woman touch her neck – it was intimate, like a family member or a friend might touch her – and I was dumbstruck by it, by the familiarity and closeness of it. What surprised me even more was the fact that it didn’t make me angry. Those were my bruises on her skin, the marks of my fingers, my anger, my jealousy. I should be the one comforting her, but I didn’t know how. I thought about this for what seemed an age. Thought about her desire for no more violence, and about where a creature like I could fit into a life like that.
In the middle of the night we were all awake again, moving through routines in a bizarre parody of a family – we stoked the fire, boiled water, cooked food. We did everything we could so that none of us would have to talk about the wounds between us.
At one point I saw Ambrose take a bowl of soup from Roselyn’s hands, and I saw the way his touch lingered against her skin, and the smile he gave her, and the look on my wife’s face. I saw these things, and even given what we’d been through – all the real problems we had to worry about – I felt everything inside me go black. I watched them both until I was sure they were on opposite sides of the room and fixated on other things, and then finally, I drew breath.
The relationship between my brother and wife was certainly not the only concern I had. Each time I looked at Ava I felt a dull nausea, but I had no idea why. Her words were seared into my brain. I dream of you. I had no idea who she was or how that could be true, but the truth in her voice was like a brand.
‘I told you my story, Thorne,’ Ambrose said once we’d eaten. ‘So tell me yours. What are you both doing out here?’
I looked at Rose. She didn’t even seem to be listening, lost in some thought of hers. ‘I ordered my wife to be executed,’ I said into the silence of the cabin. I was aware that some part of me did it as a challenge – as a dare. I wanted to fight and shout and hurt. I wanted them all to hate me as much as I hated myself.
‘What?’ The Kayan girl’s voice was flat, deadly.
I met her eyes. ‘I was a dumb, bullying Pirenti pig. Right? That’s what we all are, all the time.’
Her jaw clenched at my mockery. ‘You’ve given me no reason to think otherwise.’
‘What are you talking about, Thorne?’ Ambrose interjected.
I licked my lips – I felt annoyed at having to explain myself. I decided the fate of my wife – it was no one’s business but my own. Still staring at Ava, I said, ‘My little brother knows why I lost my temper.’
He frowned. ‘Why would I know?’
I felt the beast stir. ‘Don’t lie to me. It’s beneath you.’
‘Thorne, I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
I clenched my teeth and looked over at Rose. Her head was bent over her supplies and whispered numbers drifted from her lips; she had no idea that this conversation was happening, which was a good thing. I felt my heart constrict at the sight of her, so unaware, so distracted.
‘Tell me you’ve never touched her,’ I whispered, turning back to Ambrose.
His expression changed as he began to understand. We gazed at each other. ‘Thorne,’ he said, ‘I’ve never touched her.’
‘Have you wanted to?’
He breathed out, pained. ‘Does it matter?’
‘Yes!’ I snarled. ‘Of course it matters!’
He didn’t look away from me. ‘Then yes, I’ve wanted to – usually after you’ve roughed her up or thrown her in the dungeons. I’ve wanted to touch her then, to show her kindness. To help her see that she need not be frightened of everyone in the world. If that makes me weak, or soft, then so be it.’
Humiliation washed over me. I felt sick, and small and ugly. For the first time in my life, I felt worse than the beast I shared a soul with.
‘Weak?’ I uttered, a fist taking hold of my heart. I had never hurt so much, never in my whole life. ‘You’re worried about seeming weak? What the Sword do you think of me, Ambrose? That I actually care how you look more than I care about my wife’s honour, or the betrayal you’ve wanted to commit with her? If you’ve touched her, it will destroy me, not because it makes you weak or soft, but because you’ve touched something that belongs to me, when never in a million years would I wound you in the same way.’
Ambrose’s mouth fell open slightly and I saw the shadow of pain in his eyes. ‘Thorne, I’ve never touched her and I never would.’
‘Too late,’ I whispered. ‘Too fucking late.’
I threw myself at him, a snarl erupting from my mouth. Ambrose fought like no one I’d ever seen – he was faster than lightning and skilled beyond belief – but I was the slaughterman of Pirenti, the most dangerous man alive, the man who’d taught him everything he knew. I feinted left and then right, took the punch he sent into my stomach without feeling it, and had him pinned against the wall in four seconds.
He stared at me, his eyes calm, not bothering to struggle. ‘Stop,’ he said softly. ‘I will never fight you. I’d rather die.’
I felt everything leave me, every feeling I’d ever had, so that all I knew was weariness. I stood back and dropped my hands to my sides.
‘Do you love her?’
‘No,’ he told me firmly. ‘I never have. Not as more than a brother.’
I found that I was too tired to distrust him any longer, so I turned instead to look for my wife.
At the back of the cabin there were two bedrooms. I found her in the smaller of the two, standing by the window. Her fingers were pressed to the glass, and she was watching the wind move through the long grass on the hills beyond.
‘Did you hear any of that?’
After a moment she nodded.
‘Are you …’ I didn’t know how to do this. ‘Are you hurt?’
Her eyes looked black in this light. ‘You hurt me,’ she whispered, ‘so much.’
‘Why?’
‘How could you think that?’
‘Think what?’
‘That I could ever let him touch me? I have told you before – twice now – but you still don’t believe me. You had to ask him.’
‘I asked him because he’s my brother.’
‘I am your wife.’
We stared at each other. I had no idea what to say. I didn’t feel like I’d done anything wrong. Wasn’t she the one who had fallen in love with another?
‘When will you start listening to me?’ Rose asked.
I frowned.
‘When will you hear me?’
Shaking my head, I moved to her side. ‘Stop it, Rose.’ It was the wrong thing to say, but I didn’t know what else to do. She said I hurt her, but she’d hurt me so damn much that I could barely breathe. How could she think that I would forget? That I would ever stop thinking about the two of them together? I wouldn’t – I couldn’t.
‘You’re supposed to be mine.’
‘I am.’
Ambrose
Ava wouldn’t let me touch her, and she refused to look at me. I had broken something between us, something that might never be mended. I loved, irrevocably, the man who had killed her mate. There was no overcoming that, no moving on from it, just as there would be no healing of the brands on her body – not truly.
I saw her and was faced with the mark of the wolf – my mother’s mark, my brother’s. She would never be able to look in the mirror and see anything else.
‘You need to eat,’ I told her.
She ignored me.
‘How do you expect to be able to get into the fortress if you’re too weak to move?’
Her head whipped around and she stared at me.
I shrugged. ‘It’s why you’re here, isn’t it?’
‘I don’t want your help.’
‘You’ve got no choice in the matter.’
Her eyes went red with anger and she was about to say something when Thorne and Rose moved back into the room and sat by the fire. I didn’t fail to notice how Thorne and Ava watched each other every time they were in the same room. They were like predator and prey, though I didn’t know which was which.
‘All right?’ I asked my brother.
He blinked, glanced at me, then grunted his assent. In terms of a truce, that was the best I’d get from him.
‘Are you going to help us then?’ I asked him.
‘Help you what?’
I met his eyes. ‘Take the throne for you.’
Thorne bared his teeth silently, turning back to Ava.
‘Don’t look at her,’ I ordered. ‘Look at me. Answer me.’
My brother rose to his feet, fluidly like an animal. He started to pace the small hut. ‘The throne is no longer mine,’ he said, eyes dark in the flickering light. ‘I left. I am unworthy of it.’
‘Untrue.’ It was his wife who replied. Her hair was wild and her eyes full. ‘Once that might have been so, but now I think you are the only one who is both strong enough and human enough to be worthy of ruling a country like Pirenti.’ She paused and then said, ‘You are not your mother.’
They stared at each other. ‘You all expect me to betray our Queen?’ asked Thorne.
‘Your Queen is a monster,’ Ava said flatly. She was a burning flame of rage. Her eyes had gone very white – terrifyingly white – and I realised this was the colour of hatred.
I could feel her heart beating quickly. ‘Easy,’ I murmured to her. She swallowed, and turned away from us all.
‘Why do you hate her so?’ Thorne asked suddenly, and it hit me like a blow that he didn’t know. He didn’t understand what had happened, why Ava was the way she was.
There was a chilling quiet in the cabin then. Abruptly, I wanted to be away from here – far, far away from this moment.
Ava dragged her eyes up to Thorne’s. ‘She stole something from me. With your help.’
Thorne shook his head. ‘Speak plainly.’
Ava smiled, but it was the kind of grimace that pulled at her scarred skin, making her face ugly and malicious. ‘As you wish. You’ve probably forgotten the day a young man entered your fortress and climbed to the very top, to where your mother was slaughtering innocents. You’ve probably forgotten the moment this man stole into that beautiful room and was caught by you – by your boorish hands and your savage teeth. And you’ve probably forgotten how you held him down and watched as your mother stabbed him to death on the marble floor. I’m sure you’ve forgotten, because I’ve heard how common it is for you to murder Kayans. But I have not forgotten. No, Your Majesty, I have not.’
Thorne didn’t move. He’d stopped pacing and was so still it was as though he was made of stone. ‘The black-haired one?’ he rasped suddenly. ‘The boy who threw a knife into her side? The one with the golden eyes?’
Ava’s mouth dropped open and I saw her scarred hands start to tremble.
‘Who was he to you?’ Thorne asked loudly. When she didn’t answer, he shouted. ‘Who was he to you?’
‘My mate!’ Ava hissed. ‘He was my bondmate.’
A sound left Thorne then. It was a kind of hollow sigh, like something had escaped from his soul – a wounded, weary thing. I watched, stunned, as his shoulders sagged and his eyes closed.
‘You remember him?’ Ava whispered.
‘Yes,’ Thorne murmured. ‘I remember him.’
There was a long, long silence. I waited for him – we all did. At last he gazed straight at Ava and said, without any animosity or hatred, ‘I will help you kill my mother.’
Thorne
Here I sat with his widow, his other half – a girl whose eyes changed to white because of what my mother and I had done to her. I’d killed people, plenty of them. I was aware of that, but until now it had never occurred to me that I’d destroyed someone’s soul. I’d never seen the evidence of my destruction beyond the execution room. I’d condemned this girl to a half-life, a life of emptiness, and in doing so I’d condemned my brother to the agonising task of loving such emptiness.
I ruined everything I touched, and I had the ghost to prove it.
‘What was his name?’ I asked, and was dismayed to hear how my voice sounded. It was a whisper, the hint of a voice, the echo of one.
The Kayan woman glared at me again. Her eyes had been white since the moment I’d tried to strangle her, but now, as she stared back at me they shifted to that impossible shade of purple once more.
‘Avery,’ she told me.
I felt it take root inside me, a gift and a curse all at once.
Ambrose went to my pack and pulled out a flagon of wine and some cups. He passed one to each of us, and then held his aloft. ‘A toast,’ he murmured, his voice rough.
I thought Ava would refuse to drink with us, with me, but she simply turned to Ambrose and asked, ‘To what?’
He met the girl’s eyes, and he gazed at her in such a way that it made me embarrassed to witness it. ‘To Avery,’ he said, ‘the man who brought us all here.’
My eyes were drawn to where the Kayan man now appeared beside the fire, pale and ethereal as he always was. We looked at each other, he and I, and as I returned the gaze of his golden eyes, I raised my cup to him, and spoke a toast – a promise, deep inside my soul, where I knew he could hear it best. To redemption.
I thought I saw him smile then, and I felt my heart change rhythm as I drank that cup of wine, understanding, as I did so, that Avery’s ghost was the best part of me.