“Yes—and they attack to eat, to live, to survive. Tainan might have been a predator, but nobody forced him to summon demons, to call up the darkest of magic, to torture and beat.” He hesitated, not saying the other humiliations that had been visited upon her.
But they both knew.
Her face flushed hotly red with the shame of it.
“It’s his shame,” Aryn said.
Maybe so, but she was the one who’d bear it. Her tears blinded her and she looked away.
Because she did, she didn’t see him move to her. His hands caught her shoulders.
“Irian told me if I’d spoken true that last night, you’d stay. Had I done so, you wouldn’t have left, so perhaps it’s my fault all of this happened.”
She flinched, “I don’t want to talk about that, Aryn. You did enough. I’m out of that hell. I won’t die there. It’s enough.”
“It’s not.” He pressed his lips to her temple, his breath stirring her hair. “Will you not look at me?”
She didn’t respond.
“Then perhaps you’ll listen.” He caught one of her hands and guided it to his chest. “Perhaps you’ll feel. Listen, feel…this heart, Tyriel? It beats for you, only you. It’s been that way for years, for so long, I can’t even remember when it started. I only know that its yours, as I am.”
Wrenching away from him, she moved to the log close to the fire, then opted to keep walking until she had the fire between them.
“Why?” she demanded, her voice hoarse. After months of disuse, it was a chore to simply talk, but she forced the words out. “Why are you telling me this? You made it quite clear a year ago that while you might enjoy fucking me, you didn’t want to get tangled up with an elf. So what’s this you say now? Am I so pitiful and weak that you feel a need to throw me this bone? Well, fuck you, Aryn. You can shove your pity and soulful claims about your heart right up your arse.”
“Tyriel—”
Adrenaline burst through her, giving her strength. She grabbed a rock from the ground and threw it at him.
He dodged it, but held himself warily.
“No!” She glared at him through the tears she tried to hard not to shed. “You didn’t want me when I was strong and healthy and powerful. Now that I’m broken and weak and dying…well, I don’t want you!”
Aryn’s face drained of blood. “You…”
Guilt wrapped a fist around her heart and squeezed.
He likely hadn’t known.
Cruel, maybe, telling him like that. He did care for her; she knew that. He’d only been trying to offer kindness, even if the pity was like acid on the brutalized remains of her heart.
Drained, she looked away.
“Yes,” she said hollowly. “I’m dying, Aryn. My heart fails.” She stepped over the log and sank down on it, her limbs stiff and weak, alien to her. “We’ll soon be in Eivisia. My father’s people will care for me. It’s possible one of the healers can fix the damage. Kilidare is marvelous, but animus magic can only do so much when once the heart becomes too compromised. But I have little hope they’ll be able to undo the damage. I’ve likely seen my last summer, my last autumn.”
Her eyes moved to the fading golds and oranges of the sunset. “Soon, it will be my last sunset.”
“No.”
She jerked at the viciousness of his voice. She’d only ever heard Aryn sound like that when facing a particularly vile foe, usually right before he cut them down.
He came toward her, leaping over the fire rather than circling it and knelt in front of her, shoving his hands into her hair.
“No,” he said again, the blue of his eyes turbulent. “I’m not letting you die.”
“Aryn…” The stark pain in his eyes pierced her anger and she realized it was possible that he did feel something more for her than friendship. She didn’t even have the strength to feel bitterness, though. Just sadness. She touched his cheek, thinking back to the woman she’d been before Tainan destroyed her. “It’s not up to you.”
“Are you giving up?”
“Acceptance isn’t giving up.” Her lashes fell, as if the weight of them wearied her. “I have no strength left in me, Aryn. And I…don’t care enough to change that. I’m too broken. Everything in me…it’s riddled with cracks and all the jagged edges jab into me.”
“I’ll fill the cracks. I’ll fix the edges.” His voice broke. “Just…you can’t leave me.”
“Don’t.” The whisper was ragged. “Don’t ask me to fight. I’m just so very tired.”
When he said nothing, she forced herself to look at him. Once more, shame and misery pooled in her, for the look in his eyes was awful, as if he was the one dying inside.
Hollowness filled her and she looked away.
Better, she thought, maybe, if I’d died in that hole. Then I wouldn’t add this burden to his guilt.
He settled beside her finally, saying nothing, strong thighs straddled the fallen timber. When he pulled her against him, she sank into his heat with abandon, taking the strength and comfort he offered so freely.
“Alright, love. I won’t ask. Just...let me hold you while you rest.” His voice cracked once and was a husky rasp in her ear.
Yes, she’d like it if he held her.
Sleep came soon after and she embraced it, grateful for the oblivion that awaited.
She was still sleeping when Jaren returned to find them, the camp not even half ready for the night and Aryn staring at the fire with dull eyes.
The fae’s irritation fell away fast as he approached the human. Just beyond Aryn, the spectral figure of the enchanter bound to the mercenary paced. Jaren knew of Irian, though what he knew could barely fill a thimble. They were bonded and Irian’s powerful magic had left a stamp on the human, making him something far more than he’d once been. Be he didn’t truly…understand what Irian was. Vengeful spirit, an avatar, something else all together, he didn’t know.
There was power in the enchanter though, power that had transcended life, then death, and that power crackled in the air, potent with hot anger and raw anguish.
It was the enchanter who first took notice of Jaren and he turned on the fae with a fury that roused something in the elf he’d rarely felt in all his nine centuries.
Fear.
He schooled his voice not to reveal anything as Irian bore down on him, though, offering a faint smile as he asked, “Hello, enchanter. Here to join us for the evening repast?”
The spectral form blurred and reformed, right in front of Jaren, too fast for even an elf’s quick reflexes, and he had no time to deflect the attack before Irian grabbed him around the throat with a very solid hand and hefted him into the air.
“My brother tells me that Tyriel is dying. What madness is this?” Irian demanded, his voice a booming echo that carried off in the forest around them.
Jaren grabbed the enchanter’s wrist—or tried. His hands went right through. Before he could try anything else, his mind processed what Irian had said and shock him going lax.
Irian dropped him, disgust in the darkness of his eyes. “Are we to believe you didn’t know? You can tell her mount heals her body, yet you know nothing about her heart failing?”