Page 42 of Unrivaled
He shook his head, a bitter laugh coming from his mouth as he stepped back.My heart lurched.I’d judged wrong.Not the resistance, but the trust.The coward comment.Too far.
“It isn’t something we resist,” he said.The kindness in the words made me feel sick.From the ceiling I watched him shove his hair out of his face.“You can’t, Audrey.”The words now were pitying, but the anger was deflating from him.“It’s my choice, much as it’s yours.You said you’d respect that?Let it be.”
I nodded.
“We both know you can’t.”The quiet acceptance, the grief, was what I heard.Not the words.
“I haven’t in the past.”Sensible.Guilty.That’s how I sounded.That’s how I felt.“I’ll get better.I’m sorry, Chay.”
“I’m not your father, Audrey,” he said, softly.“We can disagree without violence.”
But we couldn’t.My arm hurt, though it only felt like heat for now, and from far away.“I know,” I agreed.“Apologies, Chay, I’m just tired.”It was the wrong response.He tensed again.“I’m not even sure what we’re disagreeing about,” I offered, with a little bit of a laugh, beautifully sad.
“You’re nothing to me except my charge,” he told me.“I’m nothing to you except your guard.”
He didn’t want me to agree.“We’ll ride, still.We’ll train.You swore that.But I understand the difference.”
“You need Isolde.”
“Of course I need Isolde.”The laugh I let out had an edge I didn’t recognize.
“Don’tof courseme when you’re not even here,” he snarled.“You’ve got so many chinks in your amour I could have you crawling on the ground in moments, Audrey!How did I neversee?”
“Mayhap you didn’t look.”
He fell back a step.It was the right thing to say.I didn’t question how I knew that, but I did.It was true.
“Go, then,” I told him, waving a hand.His jaw tightened, but his weight shifted in the direction I indicated.“Go, and fetch Isolde.”
His shoulders dropped a little.No.You need to leave.Upset enough to leave, calm enough to leave.The balance.His pulse was too slow in his neck.
“Pretend she’ll put me back together, Chay, if you’re so terrified of me being broken.”He looked at me as if I was naked.I wasn’t.I was watching the both of us like a puppet master.“We both know who is broken, Chay,” I offered up, with infinite care.
He grabbed the table between us and hurled it at the fireplace as part of his body’s movement toward the door.His sword and sheath chimed against the frog of his belt.The pottery cup shattered against stone.The table bounced harmlessly.The door slammed.
Quickly I moved the table away from the fire.It’d survived plenty of my father’s rages.Chay hadn’t even dented it.A corner of one of the legs dug into my toe, which wasn’t where it should’ve been.Another leg dug into the rug.I was shaking.The note from Luca smouldered guiltily on the stone before the hearth, its corner glowing red.I picked up the pieces of broken cup and saucer.My hands were too quick.Too inaccurate.I sliced my palm, just shallowly.I pushed the traitorous note further into the fire.
The pain was immense, of course.I couldn’t quite feel it properly, but it was there in my gut, shredding my insides like I’d consumed fistfuls of metal shards and shavings.I discarded the cup and moved toward my room.Every step I took was agony but inaction was impossible.I needed to get there.I needed to get to my bed and curl up beneath the covers before I could feel the anguish of it properly.If I could do that, the pain would pass.Eventually.
My life stretched out before me, moons full of endless tasks and cold nights, cycles of soothing people and then retreating to my own quiet.The stairs ahead of me felt like an abyss.
I closed my eyes and forced myself to take the first step.
What had Idone?
Why had he left?
I loved him.
The wail was trying to claw its way out of my throat.I couldn’t let it.Tears burned my eyes and all I could see were the tears in his.Pressing my hand to my chest to hold the grief in, I fumbled my way up the stairs.
The wail was writhing in my chest.I struck my hand against it, but some sound crept out between my clenched teeth.Pitiful, disgusting noises, the sound of guilt and manipulation both.My hands shook so badly I struggled to close the door behind myself.Noise could echo.I didn’t want it to echo.
I must be quiet.Small and quiet.
He hadn’t betrayed me.I felt like he had, but he hadn’t, not really.I’d told him I wouldn’t take and I’d stand by that.No matter how much it hurt right now.
Hurt faded.I knew how to farewell loved ones.
