Page 102 of Her Cruel Redemption

‘I may never have your forgiveness,’ I murmured into her hair. ‘And you don’t owe it to me. But I’m going to spend every breath I have left in my body trying to find a way to earn it. And if you never give it to me, then I’ll love you anyway. You can hate me until the day you die, and I’ll love you anyway.’

She showed no signs of hearing me. She slept on.

Chapter Forty-Seven

When I woke, this time I wished for that persistent draw of unconsciousness that had seemed so determined to pull me down before. I fought against waking even in a state of half dream, knowing the dilemma I would face when all my faculties were engaged again. I pretended for as long as I could that I couldn’t feel the weight of an arm around my waist, the warm brush of breath stirring my hair, the solid presence of a body curled around mine. Whenever my consciousness skirted close to any of that, a wave of something that felt dangerously close to tears rose in my chest and pressed against my eyes. So I just dove back into sleep, let myself rest where no rest should be found.

Eventually, though, I had to wake. I lay very still, eyes squeezed shut, feeling the rise and fall of Draven’s chest against my back. I wanted him to sleep on forever. If he never woke, he would never be dangerous. He would never kill or burn or trick or betray me, and I would be able to lay here beside him without ever having to confront who he was and what he’d done. But it wasn’t long before his breathing changed, becoming shallower, and he shifted slightly, breaking my temporary illusion. I drew a slow breath, readying myself for what would happen next. Opened my eyes. Pushed up to sit with my back towards him, staring at the cave wall as I waited for him to speak. He didn’t for a long time. His fingers danced lightly up my thigh, found the small of my back, drew secrets against my skin. I wondered what he was tracing. It felt like words.

He spoke first, his voice quiet, husky with sleep. ‘You could stay.’

What a fool thing to say. My heart throbbed with sorrow at it. I rose to my feet, feeling the loss of his fingers against my skin echoed in the hollow of my stomach, so deep and cavernously empty. Crossed the cave to where I’d laid out my clothes to dry and plucked them up, quickly donning first the leather pants, then the tunic, then the vest. I still hadn’t looked at him. I didn’t know how to.

I heard him moving, getting up, footsteps in the sand. Tried to steady myself so that when I turned to him I wouldn’t remember him gripping the belt, tightening it around my wrists.Is that better?

Fingers brushed along my spine. A shiver ran through me at the touch. ‘Please don’t,’ I whispered. The touch left me. And I felt bereft without it. When I faced him, the sight of his tousled hair brought that feeling up again, the one that pressed against the walls of my chest until it felt like I was about to break. Everything guarded had fallen away from his expression; all the mockery, all the arrogance, all the wicked intentions. He looked at me with raw, vulnerable regret etched into his every feature.

And for a moment, just a moment, I considered whether Icouldstay. Whether I could close my eyes and pretend to forget everything that had come before this cavern.

But he raised his hand, gesturing at something behind me. ‘That’s the quickest way to the surface,’ he said, tone inflectionless. Resigned.

My heartbeat seemed so loud. So heavy. ‘What will you do?’

‘Go back to the shore the way we came in. Hope one of the Morwarian ships is still near enough to flag it down. If not, I guess I’ll steal a boat.’

‘Unless I get out first and send soldiers after you.’

‘Unless you do that.’ He didn’t make a move towards me, no sign he’d stop me. He said it so matter-of-factly, like he hardly cared either way.

‘I don’t believe you’ll just let me go,’ I said, prodding for signs of life. I didn’t know why I was still pressing. Stalling. Daring him to be the monster I needed him to be. Just that I couldn’t take the way he was standing there, the fight gone out of him.

A smile wavered at the corner of his mouth. Just a shadow of it, a phantom of my taunting adversary. ‘There’s only one way to find out.’

And I couldn’t find any more reasons to stay. Any more reasons to delay my escape to the surface. What was I waiting for? The two of us stood like a couple of wolves too wary to make the first move. I drew a few steps back, keeping my eyes on him as I picked my way across the stony floor, telling myself I didn’t trust what he would do if I turned my back. Really, I just wanted to drink him in, wanted to trace every line of his face, engrave it into my memory. Sharp jaw, dark hair dishevelled with salt and sea, lips I’d kissed, that had kissed me, had trailed over every inch of my body, had caressed and devoured me over and over again. And those eyes that had haunted my dreams and my nightmares. Deep set. Shadowed. As grey as the storm clouds that stalked Port Howl. Watching me.

‘If I could go back to that night, I would kill them before they ever had a chance to touch you,’ he said, so quietly I almost missed it as I paused on the threshold of my escape, wavering another moment. ‘I didn’t know what I was giving up when you walked out that door.’

I touched my fingers to the scars on my face, feeling the roughened surface, the hot, inflamed places where the magic I’d been applying had worn off and begun to cause further damage. I wondered if that would have led us down a different path, or if we would still have ended up where we were now. How much had that night, these scars, changed me? Would that woman feel as I did now, or would we have simply passed each other by like two ships at sea? ‘There’s no going back,’ I replied. A tear escaped, and I let it roll down my cheek unchallenged, let it glimmer so he could see what I would never say. I could waste away with fantasies about what could have been, if things had been different, if he’d made different choices or I had. But it was all just a fantasy. ‘This was all over before it even began.’

Finally, I forced myself to turn away, stumbled towards the tunnel. Ran for the darkness, ears straining for a sign that he was going to follow me. But I heard nothing. Nothing but the endless, whispering song of the sea.

It didn’t take as long as I thought it would to reach the surface. I was still weak from my fever, slow and unsteady on my feet, but I broke free of the dark tunnel and met the filtered grey light of another cloudy day sooner than it seemed possible, after all that had happened.

And then there was the city gates. And Leela and Mae crying and patting at me and demanding to know what had happened, where I’d been. I gave a few vague answers about being washed ashore. And then there was Daethie checking me over, her expression guarded, her eyes wary.

‘Goras?’ I asked her quietly.

‘Alive,’ she replied. I allowed myself a heavy sigh of relief. ‘They don’t know,’ she added, eyes flicking to where Gwinellyn had entered the room.

It took me a moment to realise she meant they didn’t know it had been me who struck him.

Then there was food and a bath and so much care and relief from everyone around me and the whole time it felt like I was still in the cavern. Still sobbing. Still hearing Draven tell me he was sorry. And I didn’t even know if it mattered that he was sorry. But it did matter that I’d fallen into the sea.

And that he’d jumped in after me.

Chapter Forty-Eight

The list was long. Too long.

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