Page 58 of Trial of Thorns
RAVEN IS THERE TO GREETme on my windowsill as I enter my room and fall into the bed. I wave my hand, and she pops back into her human form, black hair disheveled, and eyes wide.
She’s quiet for a moment, watching me lie there. “What did you see? What was that?”
I shake my head. Maybe one day I’ll tell her about it, but not today. Today, I just can’t. “A nightmare.”
I crawl under the silk covers and curl into fetal position. She joins me, curling up so her chest is against my back, her arm over mine, her chin on my shoulder, breath tickling my ear. Her warmth fills me, and tears well in my eyes.
“You’re the only good thing I have,” I tell her.
“You deserve more, you know that?”
I pause. Silences stretches between us for a long while. I don’t believe that, but I love that she does, so I don’t tell her otherwise.
“So do you,” I whisper. She deserves so much more than I could give her. More than this world has given her. I don’t know how to make her life better. I don’t know how to force the world to shift under her feet the way it should. Keep her hidden from the foster system for the final year of high school? At the end of the day, even if I could set her up for life, with a career and money, it’s relationships that make life worth living.
That, she’ll have to do on her own.
“Are you going to align with the golden-haired douchebag?”
“Probably. It’s the only way I can make it through the next challenge.”
She sighs. “Why are you doing this?” Her breath tickles my ear.
“Doing what?”
“These trials. They’re awful. Those people hate you. That trial today was... cruel. Why put yourself through that?”
I swallow. “That’s a complicated answer.”
“You want these people to love you? You want them to forgive you?”
“No, I don’t deserve that.”
“Then what? What are you looking for?”
“Punishment. Pain. Facing what I’ve done so that I’ll never forget it.”
Her arms tighten around me. “Stop it,” she says, her voice breaking. “Stop punishing yourself.”
“Maybe I do want some kind of redemption. Maybe... it’s appealing to do something good for a world that I destroyed pieces of, by doing something that causes me pain.”
“Punishment veiled as reward.”
I smile. “I can’t go back to what I once was. I can’t be a leader or hero. I’m a villain, and I’ll embrace that forever, but maybe my villainy can have a form of power to it. Maybe I can alter my legacy just a little bit. So, instead of a banished murderer, I can be notorious for several things. Good and bad.”
Her soft lips press gently against my shoulder.
She stays like that, lying with me, not speaking for the entire hour it takes for my mind to finally succumb to the darkness and fall asleep.
