Chapter 44: Apologies.
Ash did not let go of me. I should have pulled away. I thought of it. I thought of it again when the silence stretched past the comfortable silences between us, and then again when I became aware of the sound of my own breathing, which was not as steady as I would have liked. I thought of it a fourth time when the trembling had not yet stopped and I realized that the warmth pressed against my back was the only warmth in the room.
I did not pull away. Ash was very warm, and I was very cold. Her arms stayed where they were. I could feel her heartbeat against my shoulder blade. It was steady while mine was not. That was no matter. The trembling started to slow. By the time it stopped, I had stopped counting the reasons to pull away.
"Are you okay?" Ash asked again, quietly, from somewhere just behind my ear. Her breath moved against my hair.
"I am always well." Ash said nothing to this. She had the decency, at least, not to argue. "But perhaps," I said, and my voice was lower than I intended, "I am slightly less well today."
She nodded. I felt her look past my shoulder at the book where I had set it down, its pages still open, the ink still wet from where I had- from where the page had gotten wet. "It’s because of that, isn’t it? What is it?"
I considered not answering. I considered several things I might say that were not answers. "Those are just the musings of a fool."
Ash was quiet for a moment. Then she shifted, and her arms loosened, and the cold rushed in to fill the space she left. She reached past me. Her fingers hovered above the cover. "May I?"
I did not say yes and I did not say no, though surely I could have said one of those two things. Ash waited for an answer, and when it became clear none would come, she picked up the journal and sat on the bed. I should have berated her and demanded it back. I did not. Slowly, I moved to sit beside her. We sat close enough that her shoulder pressed against mine. Not that it mattered.
She read. I watched her read from the very beginning. I watched her eyes move across the enormous handwriting, and I wondered if she could even decipher it, and then I watched her lips press together and I knew she could. I should not have let her see this. She was the one who had killed Zarvok. Had killed Zera. Had killed the others. I did not know why I had not yet snatched it from her, nor why I did not want to. No, I knew why. This Hero had been guided by the System as all of my Generals had. As I had.
I was quiet. I let her read. Time passed, and at some point, Ash’s hands began to shake. It was a slight tremble. I might not have noticed if I had not been watching so closely, which I should not have been. I might not have felt it, if we hadn’t sat so close, which I should not have been. She turned a page and stopped on an entry I knew well. I could see the shape of the words from where I sat.
"Zarvok was…the big one, wasn’t he? I didn’t think even the Kraghul could get that big," she said. Her voice had changed. "I remember him. He had a very…odd way of talking." She said this slowly, as if it might offend me.
I nodded slowly. "Yes. He did. I always wondered if it was some secret [Skill]."
She turned more pages. She read in silence for a time, and when she spoke again it was of Malrath.
"I remember him too. He was…hard to forget," she said. "He sought us out when we’d barely even stepped inside your castle. We all thought it was strange. That we’d walked into some kind of trap," She paused. "I thought he would be strong. He…wasn’t, and yet he came first anyway."
I said nothing. Malrath had always been an orator. The one I sent to pacify a place that needed something more subtle than the hammer. He had never been strong. He had only ever been loud. Even at the time, I had thought it strange that he fought first, and fell first. I had thought it was him believing his own legend. I wish I still thought that.
Ash kept reading. The pages turned. Ash’s hands were every still. "Zera…she was…an odd one. She was very strong. Fighting her was like fighting a second army. She almost killed us a few times. We might not have beaten her at all," she said. Her voice was barely above a murmur. "Orvyn was still recovering, you see. After Zarvok. I was injured. And this Zera was…she was so angry. I didn’t know they were siblings."
She stopped. I waited. “We only survived because of Ronan, you know,” she said. "He landed a blow against one of the strange creatures she’d brought with her. It was a small and…sickly creature, I don’t know why she brought it at all. One of his stray attacks hit it and Zera…she stopped fighting. She left herself open, tending to it." She swallowed. "That was why we won."
I looked at the far wall. Thoughts came, and I forced them all back. I had told her to stop leaving her strange finds outside my door, and she had never listened. The fool. Ash was quiet again. She read for some time more. When she spoke next, her voice was different. Softer, in a way I had not heard from her before.
"Orzathiel," she said. "He was…very brave. I thought he was immortal, you know. Because he never showed fear. No matter how many times we struck him down. He would get back up. Honestly, I thought it was hopeless a few times." She stopped, took a breath, and started again. "He was brave even the fifteenth time. I still thought he’d get up. He never did."
She turned another page, and then she closed her eyes and set the book down on her knee, still open. "I didn’t understand," she said. "In my stupidity, I- at one point I gave them all the chance to run, you know. We only needed to kill you and…anyway, even when the others in my party argued with me, but I offered." She looked at me. "None of them took it. They sounded furious I’d given them the choice at all." Her voice had gone very quiet. "I think I understand now."
"You don’t understand as much as you think, Hero. As if their [Class] would let them abandon me." It was a rebuke. It was the softest rebuke anyone might have ever made.
Ash looked at me. And then she reached out, and she pulled me toward her, and her arms wrapped around me again. I went rigid. "Yes," she said into my shoulder. "I don’t understand anything."
I did not move. Her arms were tight around me and she was warm and I was aware of every place where her body pressed against mine, which was more places than I had expected, and I could feel her breathing, and it was not steady either. We were both unsteady. If this was an attempt at comfort, then it was a poor one. I still felt something inside me settle.
"I’m sorry," Ash said. "For killing them, I mean. I didn’t know, and even if I knew I would have had to anyway, but…I’m sorry."
Something inside me broke along a line I had not known existed. One I had been holding. I had not known I was holding it. My arms came up before I could stop them, and I was holding her too, my hands against her back, my fingers pressing into the fabric of her shirt. I had done this one other time. In the pouring rain. It felt different this time. Warmer still.
We stayed like that. I do not know how long. Long enough that the lantern flickered and steadied and flickered again. Long enough that I stopped counting. Long enough that the words had time to claw their way up from wherever I had buried them. I had to force them out past my throat. I had been circling them for some time.
How long? Since the campfire? Since Hamel? Since that night when this stupid Hero had stood over that battered and bloody body for my sake? I had not been able to make the words reach my throat then. Now, I forced them past my lips. "I’m sorry too," I said. "For Ronan. For your friends."
Ash went still. She did not pull back nor did she pull away. She stayed exactly where she was and for a long moment neither of us breathed. "You better be," she whispered. And she held me tighter.
I closed my eyes. The core hummed low in my chest, and the ache was still there, but it was different now. The humming was slightly softer. When we finally pulled apart, the distance returned, but it was not the same distance as before. Something had changed in the shape of it.
Ash looked down at the journal in her lap. She picked it up gingerly, as though it were something fragile, and held it out to me. "It wasn’t your fault," she said.
I shook my head. "Do not forget what I said back then, Ash. It was my fault. I will not be a coward who hides from herself," I took the journal from her hands. My fingers brushed hers and I did not linger on this. "I…burned the world, and now it seems I abandoned those who would never…." The rest would not come.
"Did you have other choices?" She asked.
It was the same question she had asked once before. The same thoughts came in response. Different words left my lips. "I had choices," I said. "None of them were very good. I chose the ones that would lead me here."
Ash nodded slowly. She was looking at the wall now, and her expression was something I could not quite read. "I’m starting to think none of mine were good either."
We were quiet for a time. The lantern burned low. "You were lucky, you know," Ash finally said.
I looked at her. She did not look like someone who was about to say something foolish, but one could never be certain with these Heroes, even if I was starting to think Ash was different. "Lucky?"
"You had people who cared for you." She said. "Even if they couldn’t say it."
"What would I know of something like that?" I snapped. The words came out harsher than I wanted them to. Ash did not flinch. "What would they?"
Ash pointed at the journal in my hands. "You have that, don’t you? I don’t think…it was just for him. That’s not the feeling I got from those pages."
I stared at the cover. Two simple shapes. Zarvok’s sigil, pressed into leather by hands large enough to crush stone. I said nothing.
"Maybe there are more," Ash said. "Things like that. Out there, somewhere. More proof of their service…and their gratitude. Whatever you want to call it. From what I’ve read…I wouldn’t rule out all hope."
"That is very unlikely. Objectively." I said. “The odds of that are-”
"Finding this at all is unlikely, isn’t it?" I was quiet. "You told me about the pull," she said. "You made it sound like it always had to bring misery. What if it didn’t? Is it that crazy that it brought you this? And if there are other things out there…is it that crazy that you could find them too?"
I held the journal against my chest. The Hero was getting better at argumentation. I did not entirely dislike it. "I suppose not," I murmured.
We sat in silence for a moment longer. It was not uncomfortable. It was the first silence in some time that had not felt like something waiting to be filled.
"Where have you been all day?" I asked. The question had more edge to it than I had intended.
Ash groaned and pressed her hands to her face. She leaned back against the wall, and when she did, the collar of her tunic shifted, exposing the line of her throat. I noticed this. There was no reason to notice this.
"The moment you left," she said through her fingers, "I was surrounded by every damn Inker in this entire place and half the students in that hall. They all shouted their names at me, like they were trying to fill my head before anyone else could claim that space. They kept prodding at me too, making me use my marks over and over. They kept asking strange questions. Stupid questions. I tried to brush past them but…." She dropped her hands. A strand of her hair had caught against the side of her neck, pressed there by the wall. "Then the Inkers started inviting me to their offices. They were tripping over each other to get to me first. One of them did trip."
I could see it in the way she spoke. She had not liked the attention. It was in the way her shoulders drew inward, the way her voice thinned. These were the kinds of things I had always noticed about Ash. Her hair had gotten longer in the time I had been with her. That was why I had noticed the strand. Whatever mild annoyance I had felt at her lateness was no longer a thing that existed inside me.
"The weak always do," I said, "when there is something to gain. You should have seen the ones who fought over me, at the beginning."
Ash sighed. It was a deep, weary thing, and it moved through her whole body. "Honestly, I did not think I would ever get out of there. It was Edda who saved me, actually."
I paused. "The blue-haired girl? She saved you?"
"There was a bang from somewhere outside. I still don't know what it was. Everyone looked, and a hand grabbed me and hauled me away." She shook her head, and the strand came loose. "She's damn strong. Must be something to do with her mark."
I snorted before I could stop myself. "That seems a bit much for the stoic girl."
"Right?" Ash looked at me, and there was something close to delight on her face. I was not prepared for the sound that came from me, because it was laughter. Ash laughed too. This did feel rather childish.
The laughter faded. The quiet that replaced it was warm. Ash told me about the rest of her day, and I explained mine in turn. Including everything the Archon had said. She found him as inscrutable as I did, which was either a good thing or a very bad thing.
She was disappointed she had not yet seen the Athenaeum. Good. I would take her there myself.
“And…in your day….” I interrupted Ash. She had been telling me about some strange room Edda had shown her. “Did you enjoy your day’s…festivities?” The question came out strange.
Ash stopped. She looked at me. "Enjoy what?"
"Your day." I folded my arms. “Everything it was composed of with this…Edda."
Ash looked at me. She seemed to consider it. “Yes,” she said. The thing inside of me pulled tighter. My jaw tightened. I looked away, at the far wall. “But I wish we had not separated. It…I would have enjoyed it more, had you been there.”
My gaze came back to her before I could stop it. Ash’s cheeks had faint color to them. Mine felt strangely warm. She had answered my question, and yet she had answered it strangely. That was the reason for this warmth. Damn her.
"You should have come to find me, then," I said. My voice came out quieter than I intended it to. Quieter than a Queen's voice had any right to be.
We were silent for a time. The lantern flickered and I watched it. The core hummed inside me, and I ignored it. Ash shifted next to me. I looked at her, and saw her expression changed. She was looking at her own hands.
"There’s something I need to tell you…and something I want to ask," she said. "It’s…about someone. He’s a demonblood. His name is Corin."
I studied her face. "Corin. Who is that?" I was sure I had not heard that name before.
"You’ve seen him before. He was at the resonance chamber. The one that Ren kept hovering around." I had not seen the girl hovering around any-
Ah. Something clicked into place. That boy. The one who hadn’t glowed at all. I blinked, and something else clicked into place. The child I had run into in the hallways. The one who had given me directions to the mess. They had been one and the same. My memory for faces had always been excellent, but it had failed on him. He had been rather unremarkable. “That boy," I said. "I recall him now. What about him?"
"There’s something broken in him," Ash said. "Edda told me about him today. He’s…well, he might get kicked out of the Academy soon because of it."
She trailed off. She looked at me, and in her eyes was something careful and uncertain, which were not qualities I associated with this particular fool. "They’ve seen healers. Healers who could heal a lot but couldn’t do anything about him. It’s like….” She did not say ‘Marin’, but I heard it anyway. “It seems like this Archon wants us to not draw attention but…I was just…wondering if…if you could…." She hesitated. "Could you take a look at him? I don’t know if you can help, but- I’m sorry. I’m sorry for asking."
I stared at her. She had dropped her gaze. Her chin was tilted down, and she looked as though she expected to be refused. She was right to expect it. What she was asking from me was too much. I did not know the precise shape of this new world or the powers within it, but the Archon’s reasoning had been sound. Every practical consideration told me to say no. And yet.
The sight of her looking down did something sharp to my chest that I did not care for. I did not like it when she looked small. My slayer was many things, but I would not permit her to be small.
I reached out. My fingers found the underside of her chin and I lifted it, gently, until she was looking at me again. I had miscalculated the distance.
Her face was very close to mine. Close enough that I could feel the warmth of her breath against my mouth. Close enough that I could see things I had never been close enough to see. There was a faint scar along her jaw. It was so old that it had faded to a thin line that was barely lighter than the skin around it. It curved just slightly, following the bone. I had not known it was there.
The lantern caught in her eyes. I had always thought her eyes merely blue. They were not. There was grey in them, at the edges. I held her chin and I could feel her pulse beneath my fingertips. It was fast. I did not understand why. Nor why mine was fast too.
Her lips were parted. They were full. The lower one was slightly more full than the one above it. These were facts.
"I do not want an apology after a request.” My voice came out lower than I had tried to make it. “It is the job of a retainer to make a request to their Queen," I said."I have received too many of them in my time."
Especially not from you. I did not know where the thought came from. I was still holding her chin. My thumb had shifted, and it rested now against the edge of her jaw, where the scar began. I had not told it to move there. I let go. My hand fell to my side, and I could still feel the warmth of her skin on my fingertips.
Ash sat exactly where I had left her. The color in her cheeks had spread down past her collar. Her eyes were wide, and blue, and that slight grey. The room was very warm, and suddenly very small. We were quiet again.
Ash let out a long breath. “Okay,” Ash said. Her voice was barely above the breath. “I won’t apologize.”
Then she looked at me, and her expression shifted into something I could name now, on her face. Concern. "Are you okay?" she asked.
It was the third time she had asked this night. It was the first time I did not understand why she was asking. I nodded. I did feel…lighter, perhaps. Save for an odd ringing inside my chest, which was surely her fault. A strange thing. It seemed our foolishness had led to something after all. "Yes."
"I’m not talking about…that."
I looked at her. She was not looking at my face anymore. She was looking at my chest, at the place that had been humming for a full day now. Her eyes were sharp. Her jaw was set. "Do you think I can’t feel that?" she said.