Reubinon Palace, Pellarmus.
Six days after the attack.

The next day, Annalise did not come to my room. Neither did Isla. And so I was left to wonder if their absence was connected. The princess would be busy preparing to leave for Haniver and Annalise would be—well, I didn't know.

Perhaps they were spending as much time together as they could. Or maybe, Annalise was mad and they'd fought and they weren't speaking. Maybe their time together, which was ticking down minute by minute, would be wasted with anger.

I hoped not.

I bathed and dressed in a simple blue day dress. The pain from the bullet was still too much for me to handle putting on trousers. The waistband usually hit at just the right spot to apply pressure to the healing incision, and even the action of pulling them on was excruciating.

Most days, I didn't even bother changing clothes. I'd pretty much lived in the thin cotton night dresses for the last week and was only changing on today because I wanted to go check on Cohen. Walking was still a challenge, but I was sure I could find a guard or someone to help me get to the medical wing.

I was already trying to decide how best to call someone to the room when I hobbled out of the bathing room and came face to face with a familiar set of green eyes. My knees gave out and I had to catch onto the nearby dresser to steady myself as Hugo Dellacov stepped further into my bedroom. He pushed away from the doorframe he'd been leaning on and crossed my bedroom in a few easy steps. Then firm, calloused hands were at my elbow and waist, lifting me.

I was dreaming. Or the pain medications were messing with my mind.

I winced in pain and confusion. "Dellacov—How—?" It was all I could manage as he led me towards the edge of my bed and helped me settled onto the mattress.

He stepped back from, putting distance between us. The curt young man I'd know in Erydia seemed older, changed now. His red hair was longer, his cheeks more sallow, his eyes more sad.

I pressed a hand to my mouth and shook my head. Words—questions—suffocated me. Where had he been? How had he survived the explosion in Varos? Anxiety swelled in my chest and I had to blink back stunned tears.

For a moment, I thought Dellacov might reach out a hand to comfort me, but he paused, his fingers outstretched. A small sound escaped him, the preamble to a sob that he held back. His face changed, that apprehension and sorrow turning to anger as he said, "She's dead." He took another step back from me, those green eyes flashing as he repeated, "She's dead."

I met his eyes.

It wasn't a question, but I found myself nodding all the same.

Yes.

Yes, Uri was dead.

But he was alive and I didn't—couldn't—understand how.

My voice was no more than a hollow whisper as I said, "In Linomi—?"

"What the hell happened?" He shoved a finger towards the door. "I arrived back this morning and Darragh—He told me Cohen was here. That you were here. And—I thought—I thought she'd be here too. I looked for her. And then Britta—Britta told me..." He swallowed and ran a hand over his face. "Goddess, Monroe. What happened?"

I had so many questions, so much I wanted to know, but this...Dellacov knowing about Uri was more important. "There was a ball on Sauenmyde to celebrate Larkin's birthday. She was going to be crowned queen. The Culled planned an attacked and—Larkin saw it coming. She knew we were going to try to assassinate her and she—she changed dresses and masks with Uri. She chained Uri to the throne and—and she was shot."

His throat bobbed. "Why—Why didn't someone stay with her? Why wasn't she guarded?"

I'd asked myself that same question over and over again. After Kai's crowning, I'd spent days trying to figure out exactly what had happened. When had Uri gone missing? One moment, she was a dancing, smiling, glittering princess. The next, she'd been bleeding out on the throne. And it had been too late then.

We'd been too late.

Dellacov was shaking now, his entire body tensing as he bellowed, "Why didn't someone stay with her? Why was she alone?"

"I don't know," I admitted. "It was an accident. No one—I don't think anyone saw Uri leave the dance floor. She was just there and then gone. And by the time anyone realized what was happening and tried to get to her..." I looked away from him. "I didn't intentionally put her in danger, Dellacov. If I could go back..."

He turned from me and threaded his fingers through his red hair. His face was flushed scarlet, his ears burning with restrained emotion as he said, "I chose Erydia." When he turned back to me, his eyes were shining. "In Linomi, I chose Erydia over her. I knew—I knew I had one shot to make a difference and—and I stole a horse and I ran. Before the explosions, before any of you could stop me, I left and I came here. I got on the first damn boat I could fine and came to get help for Cohen. For the Crown. I thought—I thought I would have time. I thought—goddess—I thought she would be fine." His voice broke. "I chose Erydia."

It was my turn to resist the urge to comfort him. I wanted to stand and wrap my arms around him. I wanted to help him. I knew, far too well, the heartbreak of losing Uri. But I could not understand the depth of his sorrow.

He'd loved her.

He'd loved her for years and he'd always held back. He'd always walked three steps behind her. And now—now she was gone. Well and truly out of his reach.

I hated the emptiness of the words as I said, "I'm sorry."

Dellacov cursed under his breath and inhaled a sharp, aching breath. "I should have been there. I—She—I should have—" He bit his lip so hard I thought it might draw blood. "She—She needed me and I—I wasn't there."

I thought of that brokenness, the shell of Uri I'd found in the palace. That girl had been drugged and hurting. She'd been abused. But she'd believed with her every breath that Dellacov was going to save her. He's coming for me; she'd said to me.

Hugo is supposed to save me.

It was one of the last things she'd said. Possibly her last words.

Even as she'd been dying, she'd wanted him. She'd believed in him.

Looking at Dellacov, I knew I couldn't be the one to tell him that—not now. Not with the news so fresh. If he asked, I'd tell him the truth, but I wouldn't layer more guilt on him unnecessarily. Not when it would do nothing to help things.

He lowered himself into an armchair and buried his face in his hands.

"Dellacov, she—you know she loved you. You know that. But...you have to also know that she would have told you to get help for Erydia. You know that the choice you made...If your coming here to Pellarmus aided us in any way, Uri would have wanted that."

His words were muffled behind his fingers as he said, "The last time I saw her she—she called me an asshole and a coward. She—she told me she didn't want to see me, not for a long, long while." He shook his head. "It was a misunderstanding. I was jealous. Stupidly jealous. And I wanted—I wanted so badly to tell her how I really felt about her. But..." He leaned back in the chair; those green eyes glazed as he looked up at the ceiling. "But I didn't tell her. I thought—I thought we both needed time. She'd just lost her mother and her father and her life and I—I didn't want her to think I was..." He shook his head.

"You didn't want her to think what?"

He swallowed and turned his gaze to me. For a moment, I thought he wouldn't respond but then he whispered, "She was vulnerable and I didn't want her to think I was taking advantage. And...I thought it was taking the easy way out. She was right, I am a coward. I should have admitted how I felt about her in the palace. I wasted so many damn years wanting her. But I was afraid. Afraid to risk my position or her mother's anger—and I didn't risk anything for her. It felt cheap to tell her after she'd lost everything. After things were—after she was free. After we'd both lost everything. I figured she wouldn't want me, not when she finally had options. Not when, for the first time in her life, she could have anyone."

"She wanted you."

His laugh was bitter. "You don't know what she wanted."

"I do," I argued. "I do know what she wanted. Dellacov, she loved you. At the palace—I saw how she looked at you. She was afraid of her mother, but she cared about you. You were the only person she wanted to dance with at the Commencement Ball. And if I hadn't been there the night of the Welcome Dinner, she'd have let you walk her back to her room. I know she would've. She wanted to be with you. She told me—The day before Sauenmyde, she told me that she loved you. She was afraid she wouldn't get the chance to tell you herself."

He blinked at me, stunned.

"She loved you," I said. "You were the person she wanted. At the end, it was you."

Dellacov made a quiet sound, just a breathy little cry of anguish. "Was—I want to know more about it. What—What happened? Did—Was she...Was it sudden? Britta was with Cohen and she didn't want to discuss it in front of him and..." He met my eyes. "I need to know—I—I have to know."

And so, I told him. I told him about what had happened, how Uri had been shot and how Kai had taken the throne. He listened, his entire body rigid as I explained how she'd died—how Cohen had wept.

"She's in the royal cemetery," I told him.

Although I'd never actually seen the spot. I hadn't been allowed to attend the services. Cohen had gone to her funeral on his own, with Kai and Larkin as his only family. And while no one had told me how that had gone, I could imagine that it hadn't been comfortable for any of them. I knew it had to have been incredibly lonely for Cohen.

By the time I'd finished speaking, Dellacov was crying openly. And I hated it—seeing him hurt like this. I was used to his anger, his distain. He'd been a friend to me once, but when I'd betrayed his trust and used him to supply the Culled with palace intel, our relationship had changed.

He'd never exactly stopped seeing me as a traitor, even after he'd changed to my side. This, seeing his face running with tears, felt too personal. It felt like I was intruding on something I shouldn't see.

What I didn't tell him was about Uri's final words. How even as she'd died, she'd believed he was going to save her. I wanted to. And I thought he deserved to know. But not from me. That wasn't something he ought to hear from me.

Maybe one day, I'd have Cohen tell him. And maybe one day, Dellacov might be able to see the beauty in being her last thought. Maybe it would be a comfort to him and not something that would wreck him. Maybe.

***

Dellacov didn't stay to explain himself to me. I had a ton I wanted to know, but after reliving Uri's death, I was thoroughly exhausted. He thanked me and then excused himself, leaving my bedroom before I could muster the energy to ask any of my own questions. I heard him bump into someone in the hallway outside my room, but their conversation was too quiet for me to hear.

I went into the bathing room and rinsed my face with cool water. Looking at myself in the mirror, I saw a girl who was thinner than she'd been months ago. A girl with dark circles under her eyes and fading bruises on her arms and legs. There were small cuts on her face. White scars from burns and intentionally-placed knife cuts on her wrists and hands.

I was map of where I'd been and where I was going.

I was still standing there, my palms braced on the bathing room counter when a knock sounded at my bedroom door. I called for whoever it was to enter—it would be a healer, maybe Annalise returned to check in on me.

I hoped it was her. I hoped she and Isla were alright. Someone in our wretched tale deserved a happy ending. I wasn't foolish enough to wish it for myself, but wanted it for them.

But the healer that entered my bedroom, the one that leaned a shoulder against the door of the bathing room, wasn't Annalise.

"Nadia!" I threw my arms around her, nearly toppling the two of us to the ground. It was only her quick reflexes and her warm embrace that kept us standing.

"Hey," she pulled back from me, her brow furrowing as she ran her eyes over me. I knew she saw what I'd seen and more. Worry flashed in her brown eyes and she nodded towards the edge of the bath tub. "Sit and let me take a look at you."

"But Cohen—"

"There is nothing else I can do for him." She settled herself onto the edge of the tub and said, "But there seems to be a lot I could do for you."

I watched her face as I took up a spot next to her. She looked as ragged and broken as I felt, but she wasn't injured. What must it have been like to be an outsider to everyone else's pain? She would have returned to the palace and found it in chaos. She'd have seen me bleeding and hurting and unconscious.

And Cohen—She'd have seen him bleeding out. She would have seen death brush cool lips against his skin. She had not balked from any of it.

But there was something wild in her eyes, a sort of raw desperation mingled with her concern that had me wanting to reach for her again. It was easy to feel alone, especially being goddess-touched. So much of our lives were unique to us, our very existence was isolating. And sometimes it was okay, sometimes being alone was necessary to our survival, but just then, Nadia needed someone.

A friend.

A sister of sorts.

I opened my mouth to ask her how she was, but she spoke up before I could, her words tight—as if she knew I'd been about to shift the attention onto her. "Do you mind if I take a look at it?"

I hesitated, but shook my head. I stood up again, moving so I stood directly in front of her as I lifted the hem of my dress, stopping just above the massive bandage on my right side.

Nadia's face turned grim as she carefully pulled the gauze away and took a look at the bullet wound. I'd examined it after my bath and found that it was healing well enough. I'd probably have a scar; since the stitching had been hastily done without much precision.

I could see her taking note of how bad the closure was.

"Every skilled surgeon in the palace was needed for Cohen," I explained. "It's—I don't mind it."

Those dark doe eyes turned upward and met my own. "I'm sorry for not coming sooner. I should have—I should have healed you."

"It's fine."

She sighed. "It... It isn't, but thank you for saying so." Her voice was hoarse, filled with restrained emotion as she said, "I failed you. When it mattered, I failed you. I failed Uri too. And now Cohen."

Guilt. That was guilt shining in her eyes.

I took hold of her hand and gave it a firm squeeze. "You're only one person, Nadia."

"What good is a gift if you can't use it to save the people you love?"

I adjusted the bandage back into place and eased onto the edge of the tub again, resisting the urge to wince at the discomfort of it. "It is not your responsibility to save everyone."

She closed her eyes. "Monroe—Monroe, if he dies...oh, goddess, if he dies, I will never forgive myself—"

"You didn't shoot him. Those bullets did not come from your gun. You're not at fault for whatever happens to Cohen. You've tried. No one—absolutely no one—can blame you."

"But—But..." She shook her head. "I don't want to lose him. I—I just don't think I can bare it. And I don't know why he won't wake up. He seems fine. When I touch him...he isn't hurting. I don't—I don't know what I'm doing wrong."

"Nothing."

"Monroe—"

"Listen to me. You've done nothing wrong."

"Goddess." She wiped at the tears trailing down her cheeks. "Britta said that too."

"Britta is right."

Nadia stood up from the tub and paced to the bathing room door. When she reached it, she turned back to me, her hands fisted in her hair. "I—Monroe, what if tacet broke something in me?" I shook my head, but she continued speaking, her words rushed and trembling as she said, "It's different now. Sometimes—Sometimes it feels wrong. I—I—Sometimes I lose control of it. And it makes things worse. What if I've hurt Cohen? What if I've hurt him and I don't even know it?"

"You couldn't have hurt him."

A small whimper escaped her lips. "But—But what if I did?"

I shifted on the edge of the tub so I was looking at her fully. "What could you have possibly done to hurt him, Nadia? You didn't plan that attack. You didn't fire the bullets. You've barely slept because you're filtering every ounce of your ability into trying to save Cohen." I sighed. "You aren't being fair to yourself."

Her normally dark skin was unnaturally pale as she shook her head. "You don't understand. I—I'm ruined. Something in me is broken. My ability is broken."

"No, you aren't. You're physically and emotionally exhausted, but you aren't broken. Give yourself some grace."

She crossed the space between us and crouched in front of me. Before I could react, she took hold of my hand and flipped it, palm up. I thought she was looking at my mark, but then she ran one black-tinged fingertip along a faint, raised scar near the crease of my thumb and forefinger. Caine had done that.

A knife, from the dinner table.

Kai had stood at the other end of it, begging his uncle to stop.

He'd refused to sign a proclamation that would move the majority of Erydia's fabric weaving from Dakolt to Gazda. The smaller city was making too much money—and Caine was greedy. The Synod was greedy. If they could have the fabric produce in Gazda, then they could charge Dakolt taxes and tariffs to import it back for sewing. And outside of the Decca Market, the best seamstresses were from Dakolt. They'd have to pay the fees.

And Kai might have signed it.

But Dakolt was a city that needed the fabric production to survive. It was the middle of winter and if the factories left and moved further inland, the people who couldn't get the papers to move cities would die. They'd starve.

I'd spent all of breakfast begging Kai not to sign it. And he'd listened to me.

He'd listened until that knife cut deep into my flesh and I cried out.

Then Kai had signed the proclamation. He'd signed it as blood welled from that cut—as it had dripped on the white table cloth between us. And it was only because he'd signed it that I was allowed to see a healer.

Afterward, I'd sat there in stunned silence, tears streaming down my face, as the healer had stitched my hand closed. The cut was dangerously close to tendons, the woman had told me. It was a miracle I still had use of my hand. Any deeper and I'd have been in trouble.

Next time, it will be fire, Caine had said.

And he'd kept that promise.

Nadia was still as stone as she looked down at the cut. She didn't ask where it had come from, she knew. Even if I hadn't spoken to any of my friends about it, even if no one quite understood what my life had been like during their imprisonment—she knew.

I waited for that flood of healing warmth, but as the pad of her thumb ran across that scar a third and then fourth time, it never came. But something else grew within me—a sense of cold that spider-walked up my spine, injected itself into my veins. I tensed, unsure what was happening—and then the sensation grew, thundering past cold numbness and into searing pain.

I yelped and yanked my hand away, nearly topping into the bathtub in my hurry to separate myself from her touch. Nadia remained where she was, her large brown eyes shining with unshed tears. I swallowed, still cradling my hand to my chest as I demanded, "What the hell was that?"

She stood up and backed up a few paces, until she'd bumped into the countertop and could move no further. Then, she nodded to my hand—to the blood coating my white nightgown. She pressed the back of her fingers to her lips to stifle a sob as she said, "I told you. I'm broken."

I looked down at my hand. The cut was as fresh as it had been all those weeks ago. My gaze darted to Nadia. "How?"

Nadia let out a strangled whimper and slid down the line of cabinets until she was seated on the bathroom floor across from me. She pulled her knees to her chest and buried her face in them.

"How?" I asked again. "How did you do that?"

She lifted her head to look at me, her eyes landing on the blood still oozing from my hand. She swallowed and then pushed off of the titles, moving to kneel in front of me.

But as she reached for my hand, I jerked back—alarmed. "Don't—"

Hurt flashed across her face, but she didn't try to touch me again. She only said, "It—Sometimes it just bursts out of me. Sometimes—There are other times when I can harness it. I just...It's like my ability, but done backward. Or done wrong. I—um—I can sense injuries, even old ones. And..." She lifted one shoulder and let it drop. "Instead of healing it, I can—I can tear it open again. I can undo what's been done."

"Have—" I swallowed, trying to think past the stinging in my hand. "Have—Were you able to do this during the Culling? When—When did—"

"After. The first time I did it, it was an accident. It's usually an accident. I don't...It's hard to practice. And I haven't exactly had a ton of opportunities to use it. The first time, we were in the palace cells and there was a guard messing with Cohen and I—I wanted him to stop. But nothing—nothing I said was working. And then he—um—he started to make sexual comments about me and I knew Cohen was about to fight him or get himself hurt, so I just..." She shrugged. "I don't know. One minute he had Cohen up against the wall and the next thing I know, the guard had a nose bleed. A bad one."

"And—And—And did anyone realize it was you?"

"I think most everyone assumed it was a fluke. These things—they um—they happen."

I nodded and pressed my palm to my nightgown, trying to slow the bleeding. "So, then, who actually knows about this?"

"Cohen."

"That's it?"

Her brow furrowed as she watched blood trickle down my bare leg. "And now you."

"You—Goddess, Nadia. And here you were thinking you'd die in the arena. With an ability like that..." I shook my head. "Talk about exploiting your opponent's weaknesses."

"Can I—Let me heal it." She held out her hand, her expression nervous as she said, "I'm sorry, I just wanted to show you. It's hard to explain. And I needed someone to know. Because—Because what if I accidentally hurt Cohen and that's why he won't wake up?"

I placed my hand in hers, letting her take a closer look at the cut she'd reopened. "I don't believe for one second that you hurt Cohen."

"Maybe not intentionally, but—"

"At all."

She pursed her lips and ran her fingers over the gash. It stung slightly before that healing warmth flooded through me and the cut began to knit together—the skin like brand new, even the scar gone. "Who did that to you?"

"Caine."

Nadia's gaze darkened and sat back on her heels. "He has a lot of sins to pay for, doesn't he?"

"Countless sins."

It fell silent between us, the quiet heavy, but not uncomfortable.

I stretched my fingers out before me, my eyes locked on the smooth skin that had once been marred by a scar. Strange, I thought, how the physical evidence could be gone and yet the emotional trauma of it still lingered—the memory of what Caine had done hadn't faded with Nadia's touch. It was possible that it never would.

My mother had always been quiet about her sufferings—especially about what it had been like to lose my father. But even without her words, I knew she still lived with memories, and the lack of closure that came with never getting to bury your spouse. She'd watched him walk down the dirt pathway from our house and disappear beyond the tree line. And then he'd just been gone. Dead.

She'd gotten a letter. She'd wept. And then she'd avoided ever speaking of it again.

That was it. Done. My father, her husband, was just gone.

And she'd carried on. A widow. A mother to three young children. Alone in the wilderness of Varos. In a country where it was illegal for women to hunt. Where she could only survive by believing that tomorrow would be better than today.

I looked down at the healed cut, the place where Caine had bled me weeks ago—and I understood that I'd learned to handle my demons the way my mother had. She'd taught me a great many valuable things.

My mother had instructed me on how to survive when all you wanted to do was curl up and die. Renee Benson had taught me to love deeply—even when that love could be ripped from you, could be snatched away at any moment and forced to die in an arena. She'd taught me to fight fiercely for others who were less fortunate and for myself.

But more than that, she'd taught me to cling to tomorrow with a white-knuckled grip.

And those were lessons I was still constantly learning. They were lessons I tended to forget, to dimiss in the face of the trials I was facing—both in the arena and out of it.

But looking down at the patch of smooth skin where that scar had once been, I wondered if my mother's strength was not in her denial of her trauma and heartbreak, but could instead be found in her ability to face those things. Maybe she didn't keep silent because she couldn't bear to speak about my father's death, but because that darkness was behind her. It was her yesterday. And she was living today. She had to let go of it—to look that sorrow dead in the eye and learn to put them in her past—in order to make it to the tomorrow she craved to see.

It seemed like sometimes I could forget the things I'd done and had done to me. There were moments when I could banish the dark memories to some far-off corner of my mind. I'd feel that hurt curl into a ball, like a wounded beast, a festering wound.

And it would wait. That aching sorrow in my bones, the flood of memories I worked to suppress, would wait until my guard was down and then it would strike. Then, I relived it all again. I would see my own heartache in the heartache of others.

In Isla's having to leave Annalise. In Nadia's futile attempts to save Cohen. In Dellacov's choice to go to Pellarmus instead going to the girl he loved. In the cuts on Heidi's wrist, fading but never entirely healed. In Uri being chained to a throne. In the stain of blood on my nightgown. In the anguish on Kai's face as he'd been forced to choose between me and a people he'd only just begun to lead.

I saw myself in all of it.

And for the first time, I wasn't afraid. For the first time, I looked past it. I saw tomorrow.

One day at a time. One day at a time until I was far enough away that the sting of my past didn't blind me. I could do that. I would do that.

I balled my hand in fist, hiding my mark and the blood crusted skin of my palm.

I said to Nadia, "When Cohen wakes up, we should have a plan for what will happen next. Britta mentioned a factory producing tacet and clearly, she has a ring of spies. We should—we should meet with her. You, me, and Heidi. We've got to be done waiting."

She lifted her red-rimmed eyes to mine. "But what if he doesn't wake up?"

"He will." I swallowed and leaned over the tub, turning the faucet on. Nadia watched as scrubbed the blood from hand. "He will wake up," I said again. "And when he does, he'll be able to join the fight again." I offered her a small smile. "Between you with that ability and Cohen with his throwing knives, Caine won't know what hit him. We've got to be ready to move."

She got to her feet and offered me her hand. "Alright, but first, I think I should probably get you back into fighting shape—okay?"

I nodded and took her hand, letting her help me up from the edge of the bath tub. "Okay."

***

Thank you for your patience with my uploading last week. I've got a lot of things going on at the moment and reading over these chapters before uploading tends to be on the bottom of my list. I swear, I'll eventually get back on track and stop uploading at weird times.

Ahhh. 😩😅

Since you only got one chapter last week, I made sure this one was longer. I think this one is also kind of sad. What do you guys think?

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