Page 53 of Mountain of Mirrors and Starlight
Caer followed her instruction, breathing in.
“Hold,” she whispered, “and out again. That’s it.”
Her chest rose against his back, her heartbeat thumping in time to his. It was something to hold onto, something solid and warm.
Gradually, his breathing slowed.
“Thank you,” he said.
Her hands were wrapped around his middle, close to the parting of his shirt. Not too close.
He wanted to take one of those hands and squeeze it, wanted to link his fingers into hers and not let go. It would anchor him further.
“I’m all right now,” he told her, although regretted his words a moment later when she slipped away from him.
“Are you sure?”
He nodded.
She sat in front of him, her cloak drawn around her shoulders, gleaming in the whispery, quiet light of the fire. Her seafoam eyes were locked on him, bright and brilliant, still and piercing. They held a strange quality to them, like she was trying to peer into his soul, while at the same time being calm and restrained, as if trying to tell him she was more than happy to sit in silence until he sent her away. He could not explain it another way.
“A secret for a secret,” she said eventually. “It is the faerie way.”
“Come again?”
“You feel exposed, do you not? Weakened by your confession, although you are not?”
His jaw tightened. “Yes.”
“Then you shall have a piece of my armour, too,” she said. “A trade to even the balance.”
“You don’t have to—”
“I killed my best friend,” she interrupted. “That’s… that’s actually not true. I didn’t kill her like you killed your mother. But I made the decisions that led to her death. And I had to watch her die. It was a lot more my fault than your mother was yours—my decisions led to her death, not some accident of birth or unknown power I had no hope of controlling.” She paused. “I can’t tell you that it will get better. People keep telling me that it will, that time will heal all… but I’m a faerie and they expect me to live forever. I think that might be a lie we believe. I’m not even sure I want to move past it. It feels like it would be dishonouring her. The guilt keeps her with me.” Another pause, longer and harder. “I know that’s not how she’d want me to live. I know she’d want me to kill the monster that killed her and move on with my life, telling everyone I ever met how hilarious she was and praising and cursing her name. But in the end, it doesn’t help, knowing what she would want. She’s not here to want it.”
Caer paused. Her eyes had turned away from him, turned away from everything, like she could see past branches and fire and starlight to nothing but the blackness they were made from. The tips of her fingers had seared the grass below. He wasn’t sure she was aware of it.
“And did you?” he asked, the words struggling to form.
“Did I what?”
“Kill the monster that killed her.”
Aislinn lowered her head. “Yes.”
“I can’t kill the monster that killed my mother.”
“Do you need to be told that wasn’t you?”
“I—”
“You are not a monster, Caer. I wouldn’t be able to say it if it wasn’t true.”
“You wouldn’t be able to say it if you didn’tbelieveit. That’s not quite the same thing.”
“Well, my opinion ought to count for something, at least. I’ve met a lot of monsters, and I’m very hard to impress.”
“I’ve impressed you?” Caerwyn raised an eyebrow. “How did I do that?”
