Page 159 of Fallacies

“What do I smell like?”

You would have thought I asked him to tell me his deepest, darkest secret with how quickly his demeanor shifts.

A second ago, he was curious, albeit a bit bored, but now he’s rigid and unnaturally still. Perhaps he’s uncomfortable telling me I smell rotten—as vile as the other sources he sniffed out today.

“Never mind.” I push off the couch. “Don’t answer that.”

He reaches across the table and snatches my wrist.

“Sweet,” he forces out. I look back at him. “You smell sweet. Not like…candy or sugar,” Salem shakes his head, “like…amber. Warm and…subtle.”

I glance down to where he’s still holding my wrist.

“You smell like evergreen trees,” Salem continues. “I thought it was rosemary at first, but it’s not. It’s lively and…”

He lets go of my arm, dropping it as if he hadn’t realized he’d been holding it. Then he laces his own fingers together instead, bracing his elbows on his thighs.

I find myself sitting, all too invested in his answer. “And what?”

“Comforting,” he admits, his shoulders falling with his reply.

It’s a compliment, one he delivers so casually that I wonder if he tells everyone that. I’m sure I’m not the first woman to inquire about her scent. But I didn’t ask for the aesthetics or for vain purposes. It’s not so much what I smell like but what I don’t want to smell like.

Salem’s silent after that, cautiously gauging my reaction, and when I’m unable to produce one, he sighs. “Rogues smell like smoke and the Sol smell like fire,” he tells me. “You carry both scents. Copious amounts of it. But you do not smell rotten, Lucina. Not even a little bit.”

“You can tell me if I do,” I assure him, attempting to lessen the sudden tension when I’m fairly certain it’s my own insecurities that caused it. Lifting my chin, I shrug. “I can take it.”

Something sinister darkens the blue in his eyes, but the second I notice it, he looks away.

“I’m sure you can.” Salem nods his agreement, knuckles turning white where his fingers are laced together. When he lifts his head again, his expression is entirely earnest. Completely natural. “But it’s the truth.”

My brows furrow. “But you said Rogues smell⁠—”

“It’s not the magic that makes these people evil, Lucina. They smell rotten because they are rotten, and that has nothing to do with the power their god granted them. Being malevolent is a choice.”

I try to absorb the words, but they reject my basic understanding of Rogues. I’ve been told it’s a sickness. An infection. A madness. “But I thought it was…”

“Dark magic corrupting them?” Salem shakes his head. “Power decides a lot of things, but what is done with that power is up to its user. You are in control of your magic, yes?” He leans back in his chair. “You could have burned down that whole forest last night if you wanted, but you didn’t. Why?”

My response comes out quiet, edged in revelation. “Because I didn’t want to.”

“Exactly.” The Hound flicks his chin to the door. “They wanted this city and its people, so they took it. The magic they used to do it was just the means it took to succeed. It’s irrelevant, really.”

The statement renders me speechless.

It’s irrelevant, really.

In the last six months I’ve been told a barrage of wild and seemingly impossible things: Diviners see dead people, Velkan are spirits that bind themselves to the living, Pirn is a hidden world protected by a sentient tree, but this…This steals all the words from my mouth.

Salem pushes the plate back in front of me. “What you have is a gift,” he exhales. “I’m guessing your reluctance to shift the color of your eyes and your loss of appetite when I mentioned our sources smelled rotten means you believe the magic makes the person, but you aren’t a monster unless you decide to be. Now,” he gestures to the plate, “are you sure you don’t want any more of this? Depending on how tonight goes, this might very well be your last meal.”

It takes a second for his words to register. I’m still caught on what he said about being a monster, but I manage to blink through my stunned silence and glance down at the plate.

Last meal. The implication makes me want to laugh. “And you chose chicken?”

The tension in the room is severed instantly, his shoulders sinking with the release of it. “Yeah,” Salem huffs. “I chose chicken. Close your eyes and pretend it's steak or something.”

I take a few more bites, realizing mid-way through chewing that he’d said: depending on how tonight goes.