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His soft statement brings a small smile to my face. It feels strange and stiff and quickly drops when I realize I have no right to feel any happiness right now. Not after…
Swallowing hard against the lump in my throat, I focus on Wylan.
“You’re the one he was talking about? The one he met not long ago?”
“Yes… Well…” He chuckles. “I’ve been wanting to meet you for a while.”
A while…
I get lost in my thoughts. The ones of Jarek and the smile he wore when he told me about someone he’d met. And the ones now that seem to overshadow everything else.
The dark creature. The kitchen. Blood. Visha…
A sob is wrenched from me.
“Seren? Are you okay?”
“What does it matter?” I whisper, thinking he won’t hear me, too lost in my pitiful grief. But he hears me.
“It matters because Jarek is… He means a lot to me. And you mean a lot to him. He is mine, but you are also his, and that makes you mine too. My family.”
“It’s my fault,” I tell him. And everyone. And no one. “It’s my fault.” My chest grows tight, and a heaviness settles in my stomach.
“What is?”
Cold. Why is it so cold? I glance around the cell as an icy chill works its way into my bones.
“Can you tell me what happened?” he asks.
I hear movement to my right as if he has moved closer to the wall between us.
“I let it in,” I whisper as the scene flashes through my mind over and over again.
“Let what in?” he asks, but my mind is still replaying the scene again in agonizing detail.
“Talk to me,” he pleads.
“It won’t change anything.” I can’t bring her back. I couldn’t save her.
“No, but it might help to talk about it,” he says gently.
“I killed her…” Admitting the truth out loud sends a painful jolt throughout me. “She’s dead because of me… because of…” Because of my foolish choices. Maybe if I had checked on the creature earlier or placed it somewhere else…
I frown, realizing that the only thing holding it was the iron chains. It should not have been able to escape them. But maybe I should have used more.
“How did she die?” he asks.
She would be alive without my mistake. Alive and happy, with her kindness and warmth. But…
“The dark creature,” I whisper more to myself than him.
“You brought a dark creature into the palace?” There is no judgment in his question, just a gentleness that wants to understand. And the softness in his voice eases something inside me.
So, I tell him. I don’t know why I do. But I tell him everything. About my plan to capture a dark creature and finding the hidden tunnel to keep it chained up in.
“Somebody released it,” he says, making me pause.
“The dark creatures are smart, yes, but they cannot unchain themselves from something made from iron. We’ve tested it. Someone must have set you up.”
