Page 183 of Season Warriors & Wolves

I turned my attention to my brother who was still exhaling fumes of anger, demanding an explanation that came before the question. “She’d joined the ground guard in Isjord.”

Hells.

“Rora!” Snow bellowed.

The younger sister turned to me. “Tell them it is not this bad.”

“You are powerful, Thora, but all three of you most probably have a blood track on you.” I glared at Mal. “Perhaps if he had taken the time to explain to you why that was so very wrong.”

“He told me,” she said, lowering her eyes. “Fine. I was in the wrong.” Thora kissed Snow’s cheek and turned a withering glare on my brother while the two walked outside. “I hate you,” she hissed under her breath.

Mal put a hand to his chest. “And here I am, thinking that you loved me.”

Once Thora stomped away, Snow stood from the bed again and caught up with my brother, shutting the doors so I wouldn’t hear.

They were there for quite a while.

She spoke more than him from the faint whispers I heard.

When she returned to my side, she looked tired and upset, her pretty dark brows all tense. She curled to my chest. “He saw.”

“Saw what?”

“All they did to me in Isjord. I didn’t realise why they had not tortured him until he told me they’d made him watch me.”

My blood grew cold. The night grew colder. “He told you that?”

“He did. That was why he was so angry at me. I stayed.”

She put a hand over my chest as she always did when it grew loud. “Stayed?”

Her fingers curled over my heart. “In there—in the dungeons. For days. Even though I knew how to get out.”

“Look at me.”

She didn’t. Her hand slipped from my heart.

“Look at me, Snow.”

Her eyes finally lifted to mine, empty again, her hands tight around my arms as if to not close into fists. “Don’t ask me.”

“You don’t want to tell?”

“I don’t want it to hurt you.”

“Hurt me.” I rested my forehead against hers and begged, “Hurt me, please.”

So she told me. Everything. Numbly recalling the details. Her voice foreign to my ears, cold and distant.

By the end, it did hurt. So, so much. More than I had thought it would. More than I thought I could hurt. But seeing the relief in her face, I’d ask her to tell me again. I’d ask her to tell it to me a thousand times until she was relieved from the memory entirely.

I’d found what Silas had stolen from her.

Hope.

Chapter thirty-six

Black Rook to D8