Page 111 of Blood & Magic Eternal

"I'll take that as a no, you’re not okay, then?" He squats down beside me, careful to keep his sword over his lap and easily drawn if needed. "I see you found your girl?"

All of my blood fizzes, rising to the surface of my skin, ready to implode from sheer panic at the thought of having to explain what happened. Having to relive it.

Then I notice the trajectory of his gaze has settled on Sable. I've misunderstood him. He's not asking about the female noctis.

Not yet anyway.

Sable is safe enough territory though that I feel comfortable answering. "Couldn't leave her behind."

"Of course not," he says. "The moment that bolt flew by, I knew exactly where you'd be headed. You've had that crossbow as long as I've known you."

"That's not true. I only had it after…"

It's a painful reminder for both of us. Somehow everything always leads us back to that day.

"Right... I can't believe I forgot it belonged to your mother." The way he leans, one arm propped over a bent knee, it's too casual. Especially for him. Something is wrong, but like me, he isn't ready to broach the subject. "I've seen you with it so many times—every time I've seen you, really—I think I convinced myself it had been yours, even when we were younger."

Impossibly, he manages to makeme laugh. "Can you imagine? My father allowing seven-year-old me to wield this thing around Hulbeck?"

"In the cathedral, nonetheless."He smirks to himself, lost in a life so distant and yet so familiar. "How are you doing? With...all of it."

He doesn't specify and he doesn't have to. The past week has been a nightmarish ride, and he leaves it open for me to elaborate on all of it. Unfortunately, I don't even know where to begin. Being ambushed by the prince and his noctis friends while I was trying to save the mother of Rowland's unborn child? Being caged and starved? Abandoning my cellmates in a panic of survival, only to discover that I left one of them—the mother of his unborn child—to die?

Do I tell him about what it was like to bash a noctis' skull in, or to stab one in the belly and watch as the life faded from her eyes the same way it would any human being’s?

I can't bring myself to say any of it. Instead, I just shake my head, my hands beginning to tremble again. "You?"

His chest rises as he inhales, but I can almost see the heavy boulder pressing down on him.

"We killed the big one. But he got to Julian first. He—" The muscles in Rowland's jaw contract as he buries his face in one hand. "He ripped his throat out and spat it at me. He didn't even—He didn't even feed on him, he just—He did it to kill him. To make a point."

My own encounter with the female noctis starts clouding my mind, Rowland's words beginning to disappear behind a fog. I have to fight to stay with him. I can tell by the tremble in his voice that he needs me.

"But," I interject. "You killed him?"

He lifts his head, stares at the closed doors. "I killed him."

Slowly, I nod.

He turns to me. "And you killed the—"

I nod again, as vigorously as I can to make him stop before finishing that sentence.

If he notices my strange behavior, he doesn't say anything about it.

"Good. At least we don't have to worry about those two hunting us down while we rest a bit."

For the first time since they all came in, I'm finally able to pull myself away from my own personal bubble of misery and take stock of the others with us.

In the corner diagonal from us, Dunce stands in front of one of the shattered windows. He glances nervously from one direction to the next, his bowl-cut hair whipping his head each time he moves it so suddenly. If he's trying to keep a lookout, he's doing a poor job of it. Not only is he standing right in the open, where anyone would be able to spot him, but he's hardly looking in any direction long enough to be able to see whether there’s a threat.

My attention roams to the other corner of the room where there is more commotion.

Lewis leans back on the floor, legs stretched out. As he winces and clutches his thigh, I remember that Ursulette had shot him. Mira is crouched over his bloody thigh now, seemingly unharmed, and busy at work to patch him up.

"I never thought you'd come back here," Rowland says after a long moment has passed. At first, I'm not sure what he's talking about. The former Shadowthorn? To our group? "I returned once; you know? Not immediately. But when I turned sixteen, I had to come back. I'd been forgetting faces, names. I wanted to be reminded of home. I didn't want to lose that. So I came back to see it for myself."

Suddenly my heart is a ball of ice. Each word that leaves his mouth is a hammer that keeps clang-clang-clanging away at its fragile surface.

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