Page 93 of Season Warriors & Wolves

Then, like the world around me peeled off to an older reality, I felt phantom chains wrap on my limbs again. “No, but they’re doing well not saying anything about it.”

The brown of his eyes inked black entirely. “Do you know that the guards would speak, and I could hear your screams down there.” The hand around my arm tightened and so did every breath I took after. “How do I forget them? How did you forget them, tell me, please? I hear them all day, all around me. Nothing I do is working. How have they not taken the fight out of you the way they’ve taken it out of me?”

My stomach sank, nausea climbing up to my mouth. “I’m sorry.”

He let me go, his chest shaking with laughter—heart breaking laughter. “You never begged. Not once. But I begged for you. I begged them for you every day. I begged them to stop.”

Tears blurred the spinning world. “I’m sorry.”

He rubbed a hand over his eyes, his skin had turned so pale “You don’t remember, but they brought me to watch a few times.”

Oh gods. I couldn’t breathe. Oh gods. “Mal—”

“They threw about a hundred snakes in there with you. And I watched and watched. For forty-three days I watched them torture you. Forty-three days!”

I shut my eyes tightly. “Please.”

He laughed again. A cry slipped through this time. “Now you beg?”

“I’m sorry.”

His fingers nervously picked at the skin of his thumb until it bled. “How do you care about someone who doesn’t care about themselves? Thora said that to me once and I don’t think I understood what she meant until…until we were there. You knew how to get out of there. You’re smart like that. You’re the smartest person I know. It did not take you forty-three days to think of a way!” he bellowed, his voice quivering. “Why did you, Snow, hm? Why did you let them do that to you?”

“I’m sorry, I did not know. Mal, I didn’t know you were there.”

He struggled to breathe, backing away towards the edge of the terrace, trying to grasp something to hold onto. “I need…I need—”

Then he left.

What had I done?

What had I done?

I collapsed to the ground, digging my nails on the cold marble, trying not to close my fists again. The reflection on the white floor only stared back this time. The eyes looking back were my own. It terrified me more.

“Say something,” I whispered, hitting it. “Say something!”

You deserved it, all of it, they hissed and then went entirely silent.

Everything went entirely silent again.

The reflection settled.

My tear drops twisting its shape.

I had caught the Adriatian court meeting right at the very end. Kilian had gathered them since dawn, and even though most were bone tired, none refused to leave without welcoming me back. Cautiousness had slipped somewhere along the lines and now I was just doubtful whether they forced the pleasantries out of fear of me or my husband.

Triad and Larg still hovered over Kilian who had sprawled wide in his chair, rubbing a hand over his stubbly dark jaw.

“Can I have him now?” I asked and the two large men spun round to bow at me. I needed him so much. I needed him to hold me. Just to feel his skin against mine. To quieten the world. To quieten my mind.

My husband’s expression fell just a little the more he looked at me. The way he felt what I felt scared me so much—terrified me senseless.

“We were just about to leave,” Larg said, offering me a wide toothy grin and a grizzly old man laughter.

“Sure, we were,” Triad murmured to himself, shaking his head at the general.

“She needs to hear this,” Kilian said to the two and stretched his arm out, offering me to take his hand. He pulled me to sit on his lap and I finally breathed without restriction. He leaned in my ear. “What is wrong?”