Page 73 of This Cruel Fate

“It’s ugly,” she said. Beauty—the first thing she had once the war was over. And now it was gone again.

“Many humans have scars,” Bridget said. “And they are still?—”

“But I’m not human.”

“You’re right.” Adonis grabbed her hand from her neck and laced his fingers through hers. “How many humans could have survived that? Shit, how many variants would have been able to survive that?”

Bridget brought a hand to Xolia’s shoulder, the weight of it was simultaneously comforting and cloying. “You don’t have to like it, we can get clothes that cover it, right, Adonis?”

He nodded. “What’s important is that you have the support of the church, no matter what happens. This will sway the election.”

They had a point. She couldn’t dwell on the scar, but dear Sel, she hated it so much. It was a pain that went deeper than physical discomfort. “I’m okay. Irvine wanted to see me?”

Just ignore it for now. As long as she could get through this night, she could deal with the rest in the morning.

“I’ll go find him,” Bridget offered, and she left the bathroom.

Xolia stared after the door. “She’s skittish tonight.”

Adonis didn’t answer right away. Xolia turned around to see if he had heard. His eyes were red and glassy, and it was then that she realized how clammy his hand had gotten. “Adonis—” she began, but Adonis cut her off by pulling her into a crushing embrace.

“You did it. Fuck, Xo. You might’ve given me enough faith; I thought you died. She thought you died, and she was beside herself. We weren’t allowed to see you for five hours after the ritual, and then when we were able to see you…” He peppered kisses all over her face. Xolia’s own composure slipped. “When we were able to see you, I still wasn’t convinced you would wake up, and when you did. . .I’ve never heard you cry like that before.”

Xolia kissed him. She hated Irvine and hated the church and hated Marshall for ever having brought it up to her, because once the idea had gotten into her head, there’d been no other place for her to end up than here. This had always been inevitable. The pain and the memories of those harrowing moments were the only places she could ever have gone. It wasn’t fair that she was on this path, this cruel twist of fate that made her unable to be happy with a normal, regular life.

They pulled away from each other, their quickened breaths slowly returning to normal. “We’ve made it this far. Now it’s time to finish it.”

A knock broke the moment. Xolia opened the door, and Bridget and Irvine were waiting for them. Irvine, still dressed in the blood-spattered robes and gloves, bowed deeply at the sight of Xolia. “Sel could not have chosen a better Selermine, Xolia. I’m glad to see you up and moving.”

Even though she had reneged on her earlier deal with herself to not show weakness to Adonis, she would not—could not—show weakness to Irvine. Especially not when he wore her blood like it was something to be proud of. “Thank you.”

He lifted the golden talisman from his neck and held it over Xolia’s head. She dipped her head just enough for him to lower the moth symbol around her neck. The chain rested below the scar, and while the moth was small and rested against her chest, it felt heavy around her neck, like any wrong move and she’d find herself hanging from it rather than wearing it.

“Jareth is waiting to see you home,” Irvine said. “I hope you know how serious we are about you. This isn’t something even our more cynical of congregants take lightly. I know your aims lie with leading this country, and every member of the Rheathian church will back you. Ris has been a secular nation for too long, and we’ve suffered for it. This is the only way forward.”

“Of course.” Xolia swallowed down her disdain. “This is how we unite all of Ris.”

Irvine nodded and led them back to the front of the church. True to Irvine’s word, Jareth was waiting by the door, arms crossed over his chest. After everything that had happened, a bodyguard was no longer something she fretted over. The scar was another freedom lost. The church was now her burden to bear. But if it helped Peter win again, it would be worth it.

Irvine bowed to her again. She remained standing tall even as her stomach growled and all she wanted to do was shower and sleep for the next ten years. Jareth opened the doors to the church, and rather than the cold, dead air of one in the morning, there was a swarm of reporters and cameras and microphones all being thrust into the group’s faces.

Why couldn’t it end? Xolia thought about pushing them all away, but she barely had the strength to hold herself up. There was no way she could hold onto so many people’s bloodstreams at once and still have enough strength to push them. Bridget, Adonis, and Jareth shielded her from the onslaught, and they kept yelling “no comment” but that didn’t do anything to sate the reporters’ curiosity.

Xolia pushed through her small shield and tried to single out individual voices. With her appearance at the forefront of the group, there was a rise in the chaos; cameras snapped, and voices melded together.

“Is it true you worked under Silas during the Variants’ Revolution?”

“What have you been doing the past seven years?”

“Do you think that Rheathism creates a larger divide between humans and variants than already exists?”

And on and on the questions were thrown at Xolia without a thought for how she could feasibly answer them all. Xolia couldn’t even make eye contact with a single journalist before the next one was vying for her attention. She latched onto a stray mic.

“It’s true I was directly under Silas during the rebe—Revolution, though I didn’t know of his plans to betray FAR. I fully support Chancellor Bellevue. . .” Xolia rattled off talking points that she and Peter had been discussing day in and day out for the past week. They were the foundations of what she would say at the announcement speech in another week. Xolia pushed away her tiredness and smiled at each of them. Filling the role came easily to her, the words she needed to say popped into her mind like on the night of her attack.

The smile grew forced the longer she had to hold it and the more her answers prompted further questions. Without thinking about it, Xolia touched her scar, which elicited a whole new flurry of questions about her faith and what the Selermine was. She tried to answer those questions, but they were harder. The smile fell away. She leaned further into Adonis.

Jareth started pushing the raucous crowd away from the church steps so Adonis, Bridget and Xolia could inch their way closer to the safety of the car.