Page 117 of A Dagger of Ice and Intrigue
“I want you totry.” He took a determined step closer, his heat invading the coldness shrouding me. “I want you to grab a bottle and smash it. I want you to roar. I want you to scheme and make me wonder what other crazy plan I need to watch out for. I want you to dosomething.”
“Sorry I’m not in the mood to entertain you with mycrazyantics.”
“You think this is about entertaining me?” Another step. Harder. Closer. I had to tilt my head back to keep looking into his eyes. “ It’s about remembering who you are.”
I bared my teeth. He was exposing too much of me. Too raw, too vulnerable. “You don’t know anything about me.”
“I know enough,” he said, not relenting in the slightest. If anything, he finally didn’t speak with that hint of hesitance, like he was afraid I’d finally break. “I met you in a massacre where you risked your life to save your people. We exchanged our first words after you woke up in a coffin on enemy ground, when you barely stood, and you still found the energy and courage to threatenme, the Blood Brotherhood Commander. You didn’t let me kill Orion though he would have strangled you. People show their true selves during hard times. You shined through them. And now, when you’re safe, you’re dimming yourself.”
“So I should have walked out of the most traumatic events in my life unscathed? I am not made of steel."
“No, you’re human. It’s normal to grieve. But you haven’t.” We were so close now, his words brushed against my temples. “Take this time in my crater as a chance to get back on your feet. Gods know you deserve it. Recuperate. Rest. But strive for somethingafteryou’re healed. The Huntress cannot be aimless.”
“What if she is?” I yelled, tears stinging the corners of my eyes. “What if she’s been through too much to keep clawing and clinging and fighting?”
“Then she should stop and lick her wounds until they scab over and sink back into her as hard lessons and ugly memories that don’tcontrol her.” I felt his long sigh in my own trembling body. “Sleep. Cry. Curse the gods. But don’t vanish.”
His voice was as level as ever, like the gentle waves of Marea Luminaria at sunrise, lulling me awake from a fretful sleep.
“Why do you care?” I asked, words filled with rage.
Not at him.
At the world.
This world who’d pummeled me into this unhinged, weak, aimless mess.
“I’ve seen what betrayal can do to the greatest warriors,” he said, gaze darkening as our breathing turned erratic to the same chaotic beat. His face contorted, upper lip rising like a wolf ready to howl. A chink in the armor, a crack in the unflinching mask. But neither showed what ghosts he hid underneath. “It festers. It breaks you.”
“I am not some broken thing you need to put back together!”
“You are not broken,” he said fiercely. “But youwillbreak if you keep going down this route. And I will not be able to reach and yank you back to reality if you keep fading.”
“Then let me fade!”
Everyone else had.
And if fading meant the pain would go away, maybe it wasn’t such an awful fate.
Met with the Commander’s steady, attentive stare, my frantic gaze faltered and lowered to the empty dagger baldric that spanned his chest, small vials of swirling blood webbing around it on his leather armor.
Filled with fear, I’d turned into a petulant creature, raging against the wrong person.
And that made me ashamed.
I was lost and embarrassed and he was so composed and controlled, standing there in front of me like a mountain, while I shattered inside.
Worst of all,hewas witnessing it.
I’d been holding myself together by the threads of my soul my entire life, too afraid to let anyone see me anything other than strong. And when I needed to be powerful the most, I’d fractured, and every weakness had spilled out.
“No.” His hand rose slowly. Tentatively. Finally, one of his fingers ghosted underneath my chin, a gentle touch. He tilted my head up and I let him.
I sucked in a breath as our stares connected once more. His steady hand was so at odds with the maelstrom raging behind his patient gaze–and my own shaking hands, terrified they’d be dropped as all the other times before.
The sparks that flickered too suddenly in his eyes mesmerized me.
“Why not?” I whispered.
