21. Chapter 20

Istomp through the great hall, its florals long since changed into spring flowers. Not the roses that were here when I arrived.

The magic is still in the air, suffocating me. Soon, I land on the same red brick that I entered this damned place on. If I wasn"t so angry, I would have thought out my destination much more thoroughly. As I make my way to the fountain, I look behind me to see Kirian gaining distance. I circle the water that flows from a woman"s hands and into a bowl below. My body feels like it"s on fire, the anger rising up onto my face, surely making my face a deep shade of red.

Kirian stays opposite of me, the cascading water sometimes blocking out his features as we circle around in a sort of dance. He stops, I stop. "You have to let me explain," he says. Now, he takes a step to the right, I take a step, not letting him get even an inch closer to me.

"It"s been explained," I tell him, but that is not true. I was only given a hint of what the truth is. I can"t think. My head is spinning as I think of all the things that he said, all the things I felt, none of them were true. My feelings that day in the Inn, my senses so heightened to the physical world around me, I couldn"t fight his magic even if I tried. I felt the aura around him many times. Dangerously welcoming. His bidding Augustine"s words are in my head. Was I subject to that?

"You don"t get it." He pleads, and while I was thinking of Augustine"s damning words, he has taken a step to the left, his hands up as he tries to convince me to listen to him. I correct myself by taking a step as well. I wish the fountain were bigger. The more distance between us the better. He lets out an annoyed sigh "It"s not something I can turn off." He takes his hat off to run his hands through his hair. Much longer strands of blonde fall into his face than the last time that I saw him. Then he places it back on his head in a huff and takes a step to the right in another attempt. I take a step to the right.

"I get it. You were just doing your job." I point towards the many windows, one of which is my own room, although I do not look out of it often. I wonder what we look like from that view, perhaps two children playing tag. "And you did it well, I"m here, aren"t I?" I say sarcastically. My throat feels tight, and I can"t think. I just keep replaying our time together. From the beginning, when he saw me in Thorn Row, then again at House Luz, the Inn. Which words were laced in silver, and which were not? "All of it?" I ask. He just looks at me. "Was all of it a lie?" I rephrase the question.

"No," he chews on his words. "Not all," he says. Unspoken, but there, some of it was a lie. He just doesn"t know how much. Or at least he won"t tell me.

Fine, I"ll give him this one time to explain, just once. "What was he talking about in there?" I ask him, my voice barely carrying over the sound of falling water.

He sets his lips in a flat line. He doesn"t want to tell me. I can see the struggle behind his eyes. "I- I was a dumb kid." He stutters, takes a deep breath, and continues. "I had just taken The Vow. Then, joined The Guard. I began to truly understand my gift." Again, his lips press together, and I can see the pain behind his words. Damn, why do I feel bad for him? I wait for him to continue and to my surprise he does. "Once The Spent figured out how easy it was for me to… persuade people." The word persuade comes out of his mouth with double meaning, of which I know exactly the kind of persuading he means. "They moved me to Thorn Row. Gave me a job." He pauses and takes a deep breath. "To convince others to join."

I feel it in the clenching of my fists, the heat that rises to my cheeks, and the tightening of my throat. It"s steady pressure, an unbearable weight on my chest, threatening to suffocate me. It comes to the surface in pure hot anger as I recall our conversation, anything to get a taste, he said to me that day.I now know those words were placed strategically to make me believe that one day, I would be wanted, loved. As long as I joined The Spent, did as he told me, of course.

I think of that morning at The Charlie after I climbed my way out of the abyss. When this world hurt to exist in, but it hurt in all the best ways when my body was against his. When the world seemed black and white, drained of all its color. He was the only bit of color I saw. His gift was the only color I saw. Not him, I realize.

Although my anger is directed at Kirian at this moment, I know that I have felt it many times before that. With Cedric and Medla and even Adriel"s fake niceness to make herself feel better. All of it.

Just as I crack the floodgates, ready to let the rage fall out of its perfectly crafted dam within my mind, Kirian looks at me. His head cocks to the side like I am a curiosity that he is making sense of. Then a flicker of something else before he lights up with a half grin that has the gates closing back up slightly. Does he get off on seeing me this way? Angry and confused and on the verge of breakdown? The same breaking of me that he did in Thorn Row at the jail.

Kirian keeps that same grin that forces a dimple to his cheek as he speaks. "Yes, they didn"t choose me purely for my good looks" He"s cracking jokes? Now? For a split second, I think that the Shadows shift, that they have finally returned to keep their promise of making my foes disappear, but when I look past Kirian, in the shade of a well-manicured sarro tree, I see nothing. I don"t even know why I bother looking for them anymore.

Hot liquid drips past my knuckles, blood, from my nails digging into the flesh of my palms, but I don"t care. I could do much worse. "You are joking right now?" I shout. My shins hit the stone edge of the fountain, more blood spills. It"s no matter. "I"m soon to be dead. Did you not hear Lord Andres?" I throw my bloodied hands into the air. Kirian doesn"t even look me in the eye. He seems to be looking all around but never directly at me.

Satisfaction takes over his features. He wants me mad. He is encouraging it. This time I am the one moving a step closer to him, he makes sure to take a step as well, away from me, and that infuriates me further.

Before I can take another step, I catch sight of myself in the reflection of the water. When I see who looks back at me, it"s not the same girl who looked back at me from this very fountain when I first got here. Her cheeks have filled, and the hollows beneath her eyes have gone. She looks not like her Mother or like a scared child but like… me.

The sight of her has me dropping my anger like hot coal. It is replaced with something that I can"t place my finger on. My head is too filled with cluttered thoughts of my impending doom. Dead, dead, dead. Just the way it was supposed to be. I remind myself.

What may have been my magic, the Shadows, the voice that called so distantly, is now gone along with the rage that threatened to release itself upon Kirian. There are no words or shifting of the darkness. They truly have left, and for the first time, I call out to them. Come back to me. I say to that voice in my head. Just like I shouted to Kirian when I was trapped in the abyss. Nothing, nothing at all. I close my eyes. Please. I"m unsure if I say it out loud.Doesn"t matter. There is no answer.

I reach my hand gently into the water and do not realize that I have sat down upon the fountain"s ledge until a hand reaches in with mine and a curious boy with blonde hair stands next to the woman with black eyes that seem to bore holes into me. A tear escapes and makes its way down my face, swallowed by the moving water. "I"m dead, Kirian," I say so quietly that I am unsure that he has heard me.

For a moment, we say nothing at all. As I sit wrapped in Kirian"s arms, I decide that I do not care if it is a trick of the mind, the same trick that Madam Christoph plays in such a cruel manner. I do not care because if I am soon to be dead and the only comfort I receive before my end is the kind that I feel right now, real or not, that it is better than nothing at all.

Kirian walks me back to my room in silence. There are no other students around because it is half past noon, they are sure to be at training. He peeks his head inside the almost empty room but does not enter. The gentlemanly thing to do, I suppose. Women… and some men to do his bidding. I can"t seem to get the words out of my head.

I push them out of my mind for now and look about the room myself. Kirian"s Jacket lays over the mirror. Ava"s plant on the table. The schools" books stacked high. Truly, nothing of my own. I suppose it doesn"t matter now. You cannot take them with you when you die.

Before, I can think of all the things that I did not get to do, the things I did not get to experience, the life that I did not get to live, thanks to Hansel Luz. Before I can let the anger take me away again, I take a step into the room, rambling on about something that Sofie had told us earlier this week. Distracting myself from my own thoughts, thoughts of goodbye. It"s a short list. Ava and- When I turn to face Kirian a look of worry takes up his features as if he knows all too well the kind of goodbye that we are about to make as well.

"Katsia" Kirian"s voice is hushed as he scans behind him for any listening ears. "My men will be here for several days. We are staying in the south tower." He says as he takes another nervous glance down the long hallway.

I take his arm and pull him in, taking one more look around and finding no one in sight. You take more risks when you are about to die.

I only think of the consequences for Kirian after I close the door. Softly, the way I always do. When I turn back, I find myself much closer to Kirian than I intended. I take a step backward, only for the knob to hit my backside. So much for being quiet. My embarrassment apparent when my cheeks flush and my shoulders straighten uncomfortably. He takes a large step back and runs his hand through his hair as he often does at times like this.

"Did you have something to say?" I ask him in a half-whisper.

He is having one of those internal debates, the kind that makes his eyebrows scrunch together and his mouth set in a line. "You will not die here, Katsia." He tells me assuredly.

I shake my head at him. "What do you mean?"

"I mean if you do not make it to The Vow if your magic has not yet returned… you must find me."

"Forgive me if your words are less than convincing, Kirian," I tell him almost with a laugh. Mostly because I cannot understand why he would help me, why he would risk his career for someone he barely knows.

He takes away the distance that he had created only moments ago and grabs my hand, pulling it up to his chest as if I could feel a lie in counted heartbeats. "This is no magic, no trick, only if you want, I will take you away from here."

I can only stare at my hand, held beneath his. "It wasn"t just for my job that I watched you. With my bow and Arram"s dagger, I saw you, Katsia, always. That day in Thorn Row, I couldn"t believe my eyes when I saw a girl with long black hair and determination on her face walk through the gates. I tried to stay away, let you keep the secret that you and I both know. That you possessed something bigger than your Father, and your sisters, and your fucking brother."

When he releases my hand, I try not to notice the twinge of sadness caused by the absence of his touch. He reaches down to his boot. The sweet mint scent hits my senses as his forehead nearly touches my chin on his descent.

When he straightens with a flash of silver in his hand. I flinch. Until he flips it with ease so that the blade is pinched between his fingers. Then he places the handle in my palm. A.E., the initials engraved on its side. I had not known the name of its original owner until now. "I wish you had stayed away." I admit as I welcome the familiar feeling of the metal that I hold.

"Me too," he says, but I do not believe him. Especially when he runs a finger down the side of my face. I do not believe him because I promised myself that I would never again. I do not believe him because-

Kirian leans down and places a kiss on my cheek, just as he had done at The Charlie. I can"t remember what I was thinking or doing before this moment. "Goodnight, Katsia." He side steps and walks out the door before I can even turn around.