Page 150 of Season Warriors & Wolves

Mal tapped at his shoulder. “Let me have a spin, brother. Quit hoarding her.”

The moment Kilian handed me to him, the younger brother spun me round a few times till I got dizzy.

I would have said something, if only it hadn't made him smile.

“You look dashing today,” I said, patting his chest and smoothing the black fabric of his suit.

“I know you’re regretting your choices,” he said, spinning me one more time. “But I did get a friend out of it.”

“You’re more than a friend to me, Mal.”

His smirk was ridiculously smug. “Ah, the sweet days when you were threatening my life morning, noon and night.”

“Why should I when you’re the worst that can happen to you?”

“Ouch.”

“It did burn a little when I was told the same by you.” I looked up at him. “We’ve never spoken of Isjord again after that day. Of what happened there and what you saw.”

That empty look fell over his face again. “I figured you would never tell me why you did what you did.”

Except that I would tell him.

“When I was little,” I started, already feeling my throat choke up preparing to tell the story I’d never told and sworn to never tell. “There were one of two ways I used to forget it all. Pain was such an easy fix. It started small, so small that I didn’t even realise I was doing it. Then soon it simply wasn’t enough. I seeked a second way. More pain, at the hand of someone who wanted my pain the same as I. The more they dished out, the more I wanted. Yet again, it grew not to be enough. I realised that all that time I craved something else entirely, but I couldn’t have it. Not when I loved those two people so much that the thought of death made me sick.”

We’d stopped moving, but the world around me spun so fast. He had to know—for him, I’d say it. So, I focused on the second button of his shirt and said, “In Isjord, it wasn’t so much about forgetting more than punishing. I believed I deserved the pain and then the pain helped me forget. I wanted it. I wanted the pain. I wanted the punishment.”

Silence.

He didn’t move or speak or breathe. Even his heart went silent.

He wiped my cheeks with the back of his hand. “Does Kil know?”

All the sound then returned at once. “He guessed. Most of it actually, but I've never told him the whole thing.”

“Why did you tell me?”

“Maybe you can see what it can do to those around you even if you don’t care what it does to you.” I looked over at Thora, still afraid to look at him. “I think you know, Mal, why she…why she hates heights. It’s because of me, isn’t it?”

He didn’t answer me. Didn’t need to. But he did round his arms around me and let me bury my face in his chest to hide me from the world yet again. His heart was so loud, and it drowned all the noises in my head along with those in the room.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, his hands shaking.

“Not your fault, Mal.”

He let out a shuddering exhale. “Not yours either.”

“Snow, it’s raining” Thora called, and Mal quickly wiped the rest of my tears away. She dragged a slightly tipsy Nia behind, pacing toward me quickly despite the heavy dress she wore. “We should dance under it. Like when we were children.” After kicking the bottom of her dress forward, she took my hand in her free one and dragged me with them outside and right under the soft start of a storm.

My little sister giggled at the skies before cupping her hands over her mouth and shouting, “More!”

Obeying her request silently as always, Eren made it rain even harder for her. I looked over her shoulder to see my brother leaning on the doorway, smiling at us. Had she realised that it had always been him? That her small piece of heaven was Eren.

She pulled us further out in the cherry blossom gardens and spun us around with her while rain completely drenched our hair and clothes. Turning my pretty pink dress, a soggy maroon.

“You’re going to catch a fucking cold, little bird,” Mal shouted.

My sister was still grinning at the skies. “I don’t catch colds. Never have.”