Page 38 of Autumn Queens & Shadows

I would have told her to shut the hells up and never talk to her like that, but I wanted the little bird to do it. I wanted to see her angry. I wanted her anger. Her hate. She had to give them to me. I didn’t know how I would bear to leave for Seraphim without her hating me first.

Thora blinked at the ground for a few moments. When she looked up, her smile was bright and warm and so pure. “This concerns my sister, Celia. Your queen. If you hear this, you will either have to unhear it or die. By her hand or mine if you’d like. You’re…a friend. I’d grant you that. Snow likes torture, but I appreciate instant death. It will be better if I do it.” Her face was entirely destitute of emotion, cold despite the smile. “Let me do it.”

Celia growled, unravelling from me and sauntering away along with the other women who’d already scattered at the mention of Snow.

“You lied,” I said, watching her—watching this strange ghost of hers that I’d never seen before. They always came when I desired to lose my mind entirely, they came softly and gently, quietly. They guilted me with silence.

Her smile was still on though she rarely ever kept it on with me. “It was the first thing I was taught to do. How does that still surprise you?”

“What did you come here to lie for, Your Majesty? Practise? Ruling Isjord is no easy feat for someone like you. You need all the practice you can get.”

The hurt was too obvious to miss, but she held behind her lie better than I expected her to. “I need,” she breathed, swallowing hard, “I need your help. It keeps happening again. That day repeats over and over until I can feel his blood on my hands, Malik. I can almost smell that day in my dreams, my thoughts. Over and over. I can’t sleep.” Tears gathered around her emerald eyes and her lip quivered. “I really need to sleep. It has been days. I don’t think I can keep going like this. I need sleep. Badly. Just one night is all I need.”

There was nothing more I wanted than to grab her and hold her until she realised nothing could harm her, but this was a dream, she was a dream. I wanted to shatter it. Just like I shattered every other dream of mine. I couldn’t have her in my dreams, too, asking for me and wanting my help, I’d go insane. “You’ll get used to it,” I said, the words tasting like poison.

Her lips parted and she stared at me as if I’d shattered every part of her little heart. “I only…I only need it this once,” she murmured. “Only this once. I won't ask again. I promise.”

Those words hit me like a rock. I remember using those words myself a long time ago. Just once. Just this time. It will be the last time. I will stop. I can stop. “I’m all used up.”

“Malik, please.”

I remember begging, too. Begging for the kind of relief she was begging. “I’ve told you to never beg, but it’s like you’re made for begging, little bird. You do it so well.”

She stumbled a step back. “Please.”

And I remember the desperation. Then succumbing to it.

I dropped my head back, looking up at the dented ceiling. “You’re tiring me. This is tiring me. I don’t want to do it anymore.”

She needed my comfort. It was something I could never deny this girl or myself not even in a million lifetimes. But I was holding her hostage to me, reliant on me because of it. In truth, she did not need my comfort. It just had become something for her to cope with. And it eerily reminded me of addiction.

“Don’t do this to me, please.”

“I already did.” For her. Only for her. She would get better. She had to. Without me. Without coping through something that would destroy her. Because I would. Everything I touched never lasted long.

She shut her eyes tightly, breathing out a shuddering sigh. Two stray tears dropped down her face, and she quickly wiped them away, righting herself. “Alright. I won’t come to you anymore.”

“Good. Don’t.”

“Is this goodbye?”

“I suppose it is.”

More tears fell down her face as she stepped towards me, her hands resting on my shoulders while she leaned to press a shivering kiss to my cheek. “Goodbye,” she murmured between muffled sobs.

And as she left, as her ghost disappeared behind those tavern doors, I pressed my hands to my face, feeling my entire body shake from my own cries. My heart felt raw, as if it was swimming in a pool of flames.

It wouldn’t get better. Never. It had only gotten better when it had been hers. But at least she would be better. At least she would get better. It was a small price to pay to see her happy.

At some point, I’d gotten up, dragging my feet through the streets of Amaris, desperate for just one last glance at her.

I followed after her as she left the tavern, staying in the shadows, watching as she walked through Amaris, lost in her head. I couldn’t let go of even this cruel apparition of her. Shadow, mirage, a dream, a nightmare, I wanted to hold onto her until she faded from me, couldn’t just let go.

I watched her stumble on the rocky streets and then I watched Neo’s hands catching her. The cruel illusion growing crueller. Yet, I still couldn’t let go. I couldn’t stop myself from witnessing the cruellest thing my mind had taunted me with.

I watched her looking at him…looking at him like I wanted her to look at me. I watched her throw her arms around his neck and I watched him wrap his around her waist as she cried in his arms like she had once done only in mine.

I only watched.