“Pain fades, but darkness lingers,” he’d said gleefully, dragging her to the Abyss and throwing her in, leaving her with no distractions from her own merciless thoughts.
Guilt, sorrow, shame — they were her constant companions as the seconds crawled by, then the minutes, then the hours. All the while, she saw the same faces over and over again: Jaren, Naari, Tipp, Caldon, Torell.
She heard Jaren’s final words to her: How . . . could . . . you?
She heard Caldon’s dead-sounding warning: You need to run.
She heard Tipp’s wobbling, tear-filled accusation: You’re a C-Corentine?
And then she saw her sister’s smug face, her moon-pale skin and honey-gold eyes laughing as her damning words repeated endlessly in Kiva’s mind: Well done, sister. I couldn’t have done this without you.
If Rooke had wanted to torture Kiva, he couldn’t have picked a better punishment than to lock her in with her own demons. The darkness only made them grow.
“I can’t do this,” Kiva whispered, trembling and rocking in place. “I can’t survive this.”
She didn’t want to survive it. What was the point, when she’d lost so much? There was nothing left for her — nothing, and no one.
She wanted the darkness to take her.
Wanted it to be over.
Wanted it to end.
But then there was a crack of light, momentary and blinding, followed by the groan of another human as they were thrown into the cell with Kiva, their body crashing onto the hard stone as the door slammed shut behind them.
“Sonofabitch,” hissed a familiar voice, weak with pain, near Kiva’s feet.
Kiva wondered if she was dreaming. Or if she was already dead. “Cresta?”
A grunt of confirmation. “Who the hell else?”
For a moment, Kiva’s mind blanked, but then another pained groan prompted her to feel through the darkness until she found the other girl, the lightest of touches causing Cresta to gasp and flinch away.
“What did they do to you?” Kiva asked, reaching more carefully. “Where does it hurt?”
A bark of strained laughter left Cresta. “The better questions are, what didn’t they do, and where doesn’t it hurt.”
Kiva halted her searching hands, not wanting to cause more damage. Hesitantly, she asked, “Is this because of what happened in the tunnels?”
“This may come as a shock,” Cresta said dryly, “but guards like Bones don’t take kindly to prisoners who talk back to them.” There was a rustling sound, followed by a string of muted oaths. When she spoke again, she was panting lightly, her voice now coming from beside Kiva, indicating that she’d managed to pull herself upright. “It was worth it, just to see his surprise.”
“It’s my fault,” Kiva whispered. “You’re here because of me.”
“I’m here because of me,” Cresta said sharply. “No man should be able to lord his power over those weaker than him. If you hadn’t stopped me, I would have taken great pleasure in turning things physical. Trust me on that.”
Her words triggered one of Kiva’s hazy memories from the early days of her withdrawal, when Cresta had shared about her own family, mentioning that her mother had sought to “survive” her father. Kiva hadn’t needed her to fill in the blanks — by the sounds of it, Cresta had endured a lifetime of abusive men, with today being no different.
“What can I do?” Kiva asked, hovering uselessly. She could see nothing — if not for Cresta’s labored breathing, she wouldn’t have even known the other girl was there.
“You can quit fussing,” Cresta said. “The only reason the Butcher tossed me in here is because he knew you’d be cut up about what he did to me, and the sadistic bastard wanted to add to your torture. But I’ve had worse — and I’ll heal soon enough.” There was a loaded pause, before she added, almost too casually, “Unless you feel like speeding it along with that magic of yours.”
Kiva pushed past her shock and said, almost accusingly, “So you do know who I am.”
Cresta was silent for long enough that Kiva wondered if she’d passed out. But then she replied, her words chosen with care, “When the riot started, I ran straight to the infirmary. I’d been told to keep Tilda alive — she was my ticket out of here. The rebels were going to take me with them when they came for her. Or so I was told.” The last was grumbled under her breath, but then her volume returned to normal. “I didn’t make it in time. The boy — Tipp — was already on the ground, barely conscious, and Tilda was —” She stopped, as if suddenly remembering who she was talking to, then went on more cautiously, “She heard me approach and reached out, using the last of her strength to pull me close. And then she said your name.”
Through numb lips, Kiva asked, “Did she — did she say anything else?”
“I told her I wasn’t you, but she just tugged me closer and said, Tell her I love her. Tell her I’m sorry. Tell her I tried to . . .”
Tears welled in Kiva’s eyes. “Tried to what?”
Cresta’s voice was uncharacteristically soft when she said, “She wasn’t able to finish.” Quickly, she continued, “I figured the boy was a goner, so I left him and returned to the fighting, furious that the Rebel Queen’s death meant I’d lost my chance to escape — and furious that I’d never figured out who you were. Not until that moment.”
“No one knew,” Kiva said quietly. “No one was meant to know.”
Another pause, and then Cresta said, “You healed the boy.”
Kiva nodded, even if she knew Cresta couldn’t see her.
“But your mother died before you could heal her, too.”
Kiva said nothing, her silence telling.
Cresta blew out a breath. “That’s rough.”
A startled — if pained — laugh left Kiva. “You could say that.” A tear fell down her cheek as she admitted in a whisper, “And that’s not even the worst of it.”
In the darkness of the Abyss, Kiva threw aside caution, realizing it hardly mattered anymore, and told Cresta the rest. Everything she’d kept bottled up for too long came pouring out, starting with how she and her father had been sent to Zalindov and the ten years she’d spent waiting for vengeance, before moving on to how she’d ended up at the River Palace living with her blood enemies — only to discover that they weren’t her enemies at all. She then shared everything that had happened at the masquerade, before finishing with how she’d been drugged and delivered back to Zalindov.
It was only then that Cresta whistled through her teeth and said, “No wonder you’re so messed up.”
Kiva saw no point in responding. It was true — she was messed up. Beyond repair.
Cresta scoffed, making Kiva realize she’d said the last part out loud.
“There’s no such thing as beyond repair,” the ex-quarrier stated firmly. “You’re breathing, aren’t you? You’re still alive — that means you can fix what you’ve broken.”
Kiva shook her head in the dark. “There’s no fixing this.”
“Gods, I forgot how stubborn you are,” Cresta muttered. “That assclown tunneler, the one I punched in the face for protecting your virtue or whatever — he turned out to be your blood-sworn nemesis, didn’t he?”