Chapter 16

Jealousy turned every thought inside my head to a despairing, aching roar.

Dark, malicious thoughts—I had no idea where they came from—swirled in my head, settling like crows on carrion, picking and tearing.

This wasn't even my wolf…this was something else.

I managed to hold my tongue when Anaria finally disengaged herself from DeVayne's naked body, grinding my teeth together hard enough I might have broken a molar when she took the fucking coat I'd found her and wrapped the bastard up.

All while I was fucking hemorrhaging rage. How dare she? How fucking dare she make this out like getting us to Nightcairn was her responsibility and I was nothing but…a hinderance?

I was not sick.

There was nothing wrong with me.

I was fucking fine.

I'd been tortured nearly to death by that sadist Mistress, hadn't eaten or slept properly in weeks, and before that…well, Solok had damn near broken every bone in my body. Of course I was fucked up in body, mind, and spirit.

Who wouldn't be?

She thinks you're weak. Worthless. Useless.

Blackness swirled in, biting and nipping, planting ideas—fucking images—that took root the moment I thought them. Anaria. Tristan. Laughing together. At my culpability.

"We go through the portal tonight," I decided, taking back control, not giving two shites who liked my decision. "I want this fucking place at our backs by the time we stop for the night."

Even Tristan, who looked like death warmed over, nodded.

"Tristan, you and Adele go through first. Touch nothing on the other side." His shoulders curved in beneath the heavy coat, but he nodded again miserably, as if he were beyond words. "Adele, stay on your horse. Keep moving, do not stop. The air will be cold, but you'll emerge on the other side into a chamber exactly like this one."

"Don't leave Tristan's side," Anaria warned in a soft, hesitant voice, as if she knew—fucking knew—the dangerous edge I was treading right now. Her condescending, placating tone only enraged me more, ramping up my anger and frustration like pouring oil on an already roaring fire.

The moment the blue swirling portal swallowed them up, I stuck my finger in her face.

"You have no fucking right," I hissed. "No fucking right. There is nothing wrong with me. Nothing. I have fought and bled and almost died for you, and you sit there and tell me I'm too weak to even get us back home?"

"I…" Her eyes swam with tears. Good. I wanted her to regret every fucking word. "I'm so, so sorry, Tavion. I shouldn't have said it like that…I won't ever mention it again." But something glimmered in her eyes, some terrible truth hidden behind that apology, and I exploded.

"You think you get to pity me? I'm five times your age, have seen horrors of this world you cannot even begin to imagine. You're a child," I sneered. "You know nothing. Your opinion does not matter, and the next time you feel the need to spout your opinions…keep them to yourself, princess."

Her eyes, always her best feature, went flat. Empty. I wanted to vomit.

And still that treacherous blackness spread through my head, whispering and whispering like its malice had no end.

"I'll keep my opinions to myself. I apologize."

"See that you do." I didn't know the last time I'd been this angry.

After Julian. After seeing his body in the forest, mauled and torn, barely recognizable, something had broken inside me…No. I was not fucking broken.

Before she could say anything else, before I said something I'd regret, I plunged into the portal, welcoming the cold bite of magic, the endless stillness, the thick silence that pounded in my eardrums.

Then the stillness changed, the cold grew warmer, and I closed my eyes, ignoring the tears pricking at my lids, the ache in my heart as the thin, effervescent air warmed and became steeped in the radiant scent of jasmine and amber.

As if even here, in the middle of absolute nothingness, she could make this place come completely alive with the barest touch.

Her hand, so very small, gripped mine.

"Tavion. I am truly sorry." The pale glow echoed in her eyes, turning them into pools of light. "I hate to see you hurting." Her voice was so soft, the barest whisper of sound in here, swallowed up by the vastness of this place.

"I couldn't stand your pain and I made a mistake. I see that now, and for calling your strength into question, I am truly sorry. You have always protected me. Always."

I should apologize.

I wanted to apologize, but that fucking darkness egged me on. Urging me to say something so stupid, so utterly untrue, I wanted to rip my own tongue out.

And still, I couldn't stop the vile words.

"When we leave Nightcairn…" I blew out a long breath, hot enough to melt the snowflakes spinning through the air before I lied, "You should continue on with Tristan and Adele. Dane will accompany you to the Barrens and make your introductions, since you pointed out I'd only be in the way."

Fuck.

This was like something—some shadowy phantom—was controlling me. Some puppet master making me say and think terrible, unforgivable things. I paused in horror.

Was I infected?

Had that fucking Reaper gotten into me in the Wynter Palace?

I was so wrapped up in my own horror, I completely missed what Anaria was saying.

"…if that is what you wish, then we'll find a way to manage." She lowered her head in defeat, and I wanted to scream. This girl fought against everything. Fucking every single thing, but not this time. No, she wouldn't even try to convince me to go with her to the Barrens, was perfectly happy to leave me behind…because she didn't want me.

Anaria didn't want me because I was damaged. Wrong.

Cold harsher than a long, endless Solarys winter sank deep into my bones, and I plunged my hands into my pockets to hide the shaking.

I was not sick.

There was nothing fucking wrong with me.

Really? said the shadow in my head. Because she thinks you are fucked up. She can't even stand to look at you. Can't stand being around you for another minute.

When we emerged on the other side, Adele and Tristan were waiting, Tristan looking close to collapse. Anaria gripped the reins, looking anywhere…except at me.

"You've made your point, Tavion. Now let's get through this next day without killing each other and we'll call it a win."

At middaywe rode up to Nightcairn Castle's front doors, a sorry looking, beaten down bunch, and I strode straight past a shocked looking Dane straight to my father's office where I took his very best bottle of liquor out of his desk and locked myself in with his worthless books and papers.

I drank that bottle dry.

Found a second one and started all over, until my rage had a dulled edge, until my jealousy was little more than a bunch of pathetic regrets twisted together. Fuck, I was a proud, stubborn bastard.

I always had been, but lately…lately I'd made mucking things up between Anaria and me an art form. And lately…my thoughts had been…unnatural.

Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, the sky was the color of pitch. How long had we been here? My head spun when I climbed to my feet then stumbled toward the kitchen to find food, only to be stopped by whispers carrying down the hall.

Anaria's and my sire's.

Quiet. Secretive.

I crept closer, my bare feet padding silently over the thick carpets, only the faint glow of candles coming from the otherwise deserted kitchen.

"It's started, then." Lucius's voice held a grim hollowness I'd only heard once before in my life. When he spoke of my mother, at the very end, when the healers and mages and seers had gone home and all hope had vanished.

"I think so," Anaria murmured. "I'm starting to see the signs; they've been going on for a few days now. I don't know what to do for him, Lucius. I don't know how to help him." She sounded like she was fucking crying.

Over me.

Well, all of Anaria's tears would be for naught, because there was nothing wrong.

"You brought my son back to me, home to Nightcairn. That's enough. At least…at least I can spend some time with him, try to make things right between us."

Make things right. I wanted to laugh. Since when had my old man ever given two shites about me? When had Lucius ever cared about anything but my brother or himself?

And these two…were talking about me like I'd been brought back here to…die.

I slumped against the wall and took a deep pull from the bottle.

"I'm so sorry, Lucius. If I had the right kind of magic…but I don't."

"The healers will arrive in a few hours to look after Tristan. I'll keep them here for Tavion. But if my son has the same affliction as my Celia did, they will not…"

Whatever else my father had to say disappeared into the roaring inside my head as I slid down the wall and landed on my arse, half-full bottle still clutched in my hand.

I had the same illness my mother died from. And Anaria knew.

Liar. Vicious little liar.

She'd known the truth this whole time, since the last time we were here weeks and weeks ago, and hadn't said a word. Not a fucking word.

Because she and my father were conspiring against me. Keeping secrets, like Lucius was so good at. I didn't know how long I stayed on the ground, but I finally climbed to my feet and headed upstairs. But not to my room. No, I headed for Anaria's room.

She and I would finish this tonight.

She wanted to lie to me? Spy on me for my father?

She wanted to call me weak to my face then sneak around behind my back? I chose a chair half hidden in the shadows, propped my feet on the footstool, and yanked the cork out from the bottle.

My wife and I were going to finish things between us tonight.

And since she already had such a low, low opinion of me, I didn't much care where that left us at the end.