Why was she doing this? Why now, when there was so much at stake, when she needed him the most? “Nadine?”
There must’ve been something in his voice, because when she spoke next, her tone softened. “You’re right. This mission isn’t over. If we’re going to survive, we need to focus on our task. Retrieve the Eye. Work out an assassination on our own. Go back to Bedmeg, to Ebron and regroup if we must.” She flicked a glance at his arm, which was stretched out on the ground between them. “And when it’s done we’ll go back to our separate lives. Just as we planned.”
Magnus drew back and got to his feet. “Just as we planned? Just as we planned?”
Nadine hobbled up, too. Even amidst the fury that was tearing through him, he longed to go to her. To steady her and keep her from hitting the ground. From enduring more pain.
She didn’t answer until she’d found her footing and could send him a proper glare. “I’m stronger on my own. It’s always been that way until you.”
Magnus closed the distance between them until he was staring directly into her face. “Liar.”
Nadine shoved her palms against his chest, buying herself a bit of space. “What do you know?”
“I know that you’re not alone because it makes you stronger. Not because it’s all life has to offer. You’re alone because it’s all you expect.” He was growling at her now, his voice as loud as he could let it get without fear of drawing attention. But surely the Nozverak were listening. Damned if he cared.
Nadine stepped forward to push him again. “Shut up.”
“That’s right, kandiri. Push me away. Like you push every good thing away, because you’re afraid.”
She struck him hard with the back of her hand.
Magnus ducked and took her off her feet. Her back was upon the ground in a blink, and Magnus had her wrists pinned to either side of her face before she could manage another hit. He pressed his nose into hers. “You have scars, woman! Your idadi would make any Dokiri proud. But it’s an illusion, isn’t it?”
She tried to headbutt him, but he was too close. She snarled. “Get off me.”
He didn’t. “Your wounds haven’t closed yet. You’re just a child. You’re still that little girl sent away to war, aren’t you?”
She bared her teeth at him. “I’ll kill you!”
Magnus shoved his body against hers and turned his voice to steel “I invite you to try. Come, kandiri. Fight me. Fight me like you did that day I put my mark on you.”
She went wild. For a moment her wrist almost slipped free, but he clenched his fist just tightly enough to hold her. She wasn’t going to get away. She bucked beneath him, wrapping her legs and kicking at the backs of his thighs. She even tried biting him like a slavering animal.
Useless. All of it.
“I won’t beg you this time, woman. If this is what we have to do, how you demand we do it, then I’ll hold you down. I’ll hold you down like I held you on that altar.” He grunted as she yanked and pulled to get loose. “It’s time to stop licking your wounds. Regna, I swear to you, I will sear them together with my own blade.”
“I hate you!” Hot tears streamed down her face.
Magnus’s wretched heart twisted in his chest. His fierce bride. Weeping. “Then hate me. But I’m not leaving you. This isn’t over.”
“Everyone leaves!”
Magnus gritted his teeth. “I don’t.”
“You will. You’ll leave me just like he did. Like everyone does.”
He wanted to pick her up and gather her into his arms. To press his face into her hair and place kisses down her neck, upon her mouth, over her swollen eyes, which still held tears. But he couldn’t. Not yet. His bride was a wounded animal caught in a snare. And if he freed her now, she’d take to the sky with broken wings, only to fall to her death at the first gust of wind. He lowered his face to hers and flattened his grip on her arms so that they pressed gently into her instead of squeezing her.
“I don’t leave people, kandiri. Why do you think I’m here? I wouldn’t leave Arvid, and sure as the sun rises, I would never leave you.”
Nadine’s tears stopped as quickly as they’d begun. Her next words came so clearly, Magnus almost released her from the mere surprise of it. The corners of her mouth pulled into a thin smile. “Oh, no?”
Magnus drew back at the glint of wickedness gleaming in her eyes. It danced with the pain there, a performance that promised nothing but misery. She seemed emboldened by his uncertainty.
“So says the man who treats his own life with the care of a rotted branch.”
What was she talking about? His face must have asked the question, because she answered.
“You say you’re here for your friend. Because you want to save him?” She gave a mirthless laugh. “Do you know what I see?”
Magnus went still and braced himself for whatever his bride was about to do. Somehow he knew it was going to hurt far more than any physical blow.
“I think you care less about saving your friend than you do about punishing yourself for his death. Or you already know he’s dead and you just won’t say as much. Because why else should a man do the things you do? You claim a woman who swears not to have you? You’re first upon the ice and you dive under it to save a man you can’t abide?”
Magnus stopped breathing as she pelted him with her words. Words edged with the cold bite of truth.
“You pit your will against that of a monster,” she jerked her head backward in the direction of Azolirum and the others where they huddled against the wall. “You drink the water first, eat the food, crawl into the vents. You—”
Her voice broke off, and she swallowed. “You jumped into that crevice after me. Jumped to your death.” She stared at him. “Are those the actions of a man bent on saving the man he left behind?”
Magnus was still upon her, but in body only. She might as well have bound him down with chains because, in that moment, her words had shackled him. He was at her mercy. The mercy of an Ebronian soldier with no pity to spare. She wasn’t even fighting him anymore. She knew the tables had turned. And as she glared up at him, Magnus saw his own misery reflected in her eyes.
“You ask for everything, barbarian. You ask for faith I don’t possess. As if I can conjure it from ashes scattered years ago. And for what? For what?”
Magnus had no answer. His heart was hammering, and cold bile roiled in his belly. The silence that ensued stung worse than the gas of the vents they’d just fled through. At last, Nadine shoved him off. He rolled away like a hollow log and tried to catch his breath. She stood over him, and it took every bit of his strength to glance up and meet her eyes.
“Speak what oaths you will, savage. But you court death. And I think you find her a finer mistress than me.”
Magnus had no words. He could barely hold her gaze. She stood with her hands on her hips, a thin façade of strength despite sagging shoulders and wobbling legs. Her tears had dried, but he could still see the paths they’d streaked upon her glowing cheeks. The pain wasn’t over. Even now, he could see the child he’d called out, weeping within her as she tried one more time to sever the connection between them.