Page 85 of Antiletum
The simple visual of my hand in front of my face when I sink against the closed door of my room produces such a shocking sense of existential dread, bile crawls up my throat. I barely manage to swallow it down. The horror of simply being alive and knowing that I am is too much to handle.
The relatively calm shock that I experienced reading the letter informing me of the carriage robbery that ended Tabitha’s life is falling away like autumn leaves into a barren, colorless winter. Bitter with cold.
My previously hot fury directed at Val is now ice. Immediately, Iknewhe was behind Tabitha’s death. But I no longer have the energy within me to fight with Val. To be angry. To let myself feel anything at all. I don’t know how I can continue to smile at him in a crowd, pretending to be something we’re not. My arm looped through his. The heat of his body caressing mine.
Reluctantly, I peel myself from the door, not knowing what to do next. A few meandering circles are trekked through my room until Isit at my vanity before I fall out on the floor. Too dizzy. Too hot and cold. Too empty and flayed.
The ornate mirror catches my eye, and I can’t help but stare into the face of the person reflected back at me, taking in the tear tracked face and wild, messy hair. Rabid. A feral woman ravaged by grief.
All because of Val.
The luxurious thread stitched into my dress laughs in my face, the beautiful image of a barn owl. A symbol I have only just begun to wear, marking me as his.
His Lady. His wife.
Frantic, I grab my skirt, tearing, trying to pull the owl away. Eviscerate anything that reminds me of him. I yank until the seams give. My breaths are labored in my effort as the jagged piece of fabric flutters to the floor, a piece of broken wing still sitting just below my hip.
The light of a gas lamp sconce catches on my ear: a soft, cheery little glimmer taunts me through my reflection—the three diamond earrings Val personally placed in my flesh. I willingly tilted my head for him to make me bleed. Happy for the barest, most fleeting second, dreaming of what all we might be. Completely delusional. Just like him, but in a different way.
Because I am a stupid,stupidgirl.
These earrings mean a lot to Val. The intimacy of us choosing to mark each other in this way. A step beyond the public claiming of the garb we wear to match the other, or ourvinculumbands. The one decorating my finger that can never be removed. An urge to try overtakes me, despite knowing the failure I would find.
Instead of the futile attempt to remove my wedding ring, I target another piece of Val decorating my body. Impulsively, I rip a diamond out of my ear, not bothering to remove the backing first. The sting is incredibly welcome. Physical pain briefly overrides the bruisinganguish swimming around that I can’t yank out, more embedded into my soul than it is my body.
“Delaney!” I hear Val call, catching up with the situation. Scared. No—Terrified.Almost like he can sense what I’m doing in here, setting myself free in the only way I know how.
Still, I don’t fear him. I should, knowing the unprovoked violence he’s capable of. But no matter what Val does, no matter the amount of blood he sheds, I can’t seem to make myself frightened in his presence.
Not for harm he would cause my body, in any case.
His steps thunder towards my room, denying my need to run away from him this time. Denying me space and the boundary of my closed bedroom door. His desperation has reached new heights.
It’s satisfying and infuriating both, hearing him run after me. Not letting me go. The only thing in the world that matters. His love to my detriment.
It has left a hollow void in my chest, born from far more than mourning my loved ones. I want to pluck away those shards of truth that Val has forced me to see—that all the people he’s killed wouldn’t hurt for my absence the way I do theirs.
Even more than I want to free myself from the loss of the people in my life who never loved or wanted me at all, I wantValout. I want him out of my mind and the damaged little chambers of my heart that he’s managed to crawl through with his attention, his devotion, his unfailing insistence that he cares, even if only in the deranged ways he knows how.
In my effort to need a piece of him gone from where he’s integrated himself where he doesn’t belong, I pull free a second piece of his jewelry, creating another bleeding hole to leave me empty and exposed.
“Delaney,” Val says again, swinging my door wide as I pull the third and final earring free, letting it fall on my vanity with a clatter. He’sout of breath, like he just ran the length of The Citadel and not the short distance between the foyer and my room.
Manic.
He faces my back. I can see him clearly in my vanity mirror. His eyes shift to the discarded scrap of dress abandoned on my floor, silver feather threads mocking us both. He visibly swallows then brings his gaze back to mine. That beholding gleam that only Val carries when he looks at me is glossed over his black eyes, more defined and prominent tonight, on the verge of tears.
“I love you,” he says, hurried, wide eyed, wasting no time trying to make his point.
Our stares lock through the mirror. Through a non-existent plane because I can’t bring myself to face him. Not really. I use the distance of reflection to hold him at arm’s length. To keep him from looking too deep, and likewise seeing too much of him as well. If I do, I might collapse beneath the weight of his attention.
“Please. I love you.”
Though he’s said it before, the declaration is nothing short of a punch to my heart right now. Battering against the ruined organ, nothing but pulp leftover from his love.
“You are not capable of loving someone, Valledyn. You don’t know how,” I say sadly. Unable to stop myself, I add my own truth, layering it close, right next to his. “Not any more than I do.”
“I love you, Delaney,” he says again. Aggressive. More urgent. “I can know how. I can! I promise. Wearecapable. We can learn. Together.”
