Chapter 40

Chapter 40

M ariah lay on her back in a small clearing in the game park woods; eyes closed as she soaked up the warm spring sun. The soft grass tickled her bare arms as her fingers curled around the delicate strands.

As she lay there, her mind drifted.

And as her mind drifted, she forced herself to feel .

She started with the sun. Then turned to the blades of grass. With some reluctance, she turned inward, toward her soul.

That wrecked, broken little soul of hers, curled in the hollow space beneath her ribs. A soul that once wished desperately for escape, for adventure and freedom, but now only craved safety. Comfort. Familiarity.

Things it would never know again. Things that were cleaved from her with the lash of a steel-studded whip and by the touch of unwanted, taking hands. Things that were stolen from her by starvation and betrayal and feelings too confusing and twisted to process.

A coiled and gnarled mass of panic burst through her body, roots that burrowed deep and strangled her lungs. She wanted to run from those things. To retreat into her surface-level self, to lose herself to a run or a fight or a bottle of wine. It was what she’d always been good at: using the world around her to create a life she could live with.

But something forced her to stay.

It wasn’t anything she recognized. Not a force she could name or one she’d known before. But it filtered in and held her there within herself, forcing her to lie with the smoking ruins of her soul.

And as she stayed, her heart stopped hammering so heavily beneath her ribs, and her lungs stopped squeezing the air from her chest. Her hands unfurled, clumps of grass falling out as her fingers loosened, bits of dirt buried beneath her nails.

She allowed herself to sit with her brokenness and did not run from it.

Mariah didn’t know how much time passed as she lay there beneath the rustling trees. Birds sang in the canopy above; a cricket chirped from its place in a bramble bush; a curious rabbit peeked its nose out from behind a fallen log, its heartbeat racing, sending vibrations through the forest floor. Her pain and grief and rage wrapped around all that she heard, and her panic and fear slowly and slowly ebbed away.

“M? Are you … are you sleeping ?”

A familiar voice cut through her reverie. Mariah pulled herself from those deepest parts of herself, her mouth spreading into an easy smile as she cracked open her eyes. Bright light blinded her, but she knew who’d disturbed her peace.

“Well, Quentin, if I was , I’m definitely not anymore.”

She’d heard his footsteps start a few minutes before he spoke, felt the steadily increasing tremors beneath her hands. She had opened their bond, just a fracture, guiding him to her little clearing.

She’d had enough of being alone.

“Oh, please. I’m quiet as a mouse.” Quentin grinned, his movements easy and casual as he slipped his baldric from his chest. He cavalierly tossed the leather leaden with throwing knifes to the side before sliding to the ground a few feet from Mariah. He leaned back against the trunk of a smooth birch tree, kicking out his feet before him.

Mariah huffed a chuckle. “Yeah, sure,” she quipped, sitting up and leaning back on her hands. “If mice were the size of an Idrixian Ephalant.”

Quentin barked a laugh. “Gods, M.” His bottle green eyes shone with mirth. “Do you think the Ephalant’s are real? I always thought they were just myths, but I also didn’t think shifters could exist, so …”

“I don’t know,” Mariah said with her own answering laugh. “But I think it would be fun to find out for sure one day, don’t you think?”

“If this is you telling me I get to go to Idrix, then say no more.”

Mariah picked at a single blade of grass, still smiling, but her humor settled in her chest. “Maybe one day.” She turned to the sky. “Onita has spent so long in solitude, who’s to say what the world is really like beyond its borders?”

Quentin didn’t answer her right away. Some of their early lightheartedness faded, washing away with Mariah’s question. Instead, he studied her, head cocking to the side, an errant strand of wild ginger hair falling across his freckled forehead.

“Have I ever told you about where I came from? Where I was … before I was Marked?”

Mariah whipped her head to Quentin. He’d lost the usual blithe gleam in his eye, replaced by an uncharacteristic seriousness. She blinked at him once, slowly, before shaking her head, straightening her back, and crossing her legs in the soft grass.

He shifted against the tree, clearing his throat. “Well, I was born here, in Verith. But not in the shiny streets of the mountain district.” He picked at his fingers. “My mother … she worked at a brothel. Told me my father was a rich pirate lord from the Kizar Islands who had slipped past the blockades and made it to shore. Which, come to think of it, fuck those pirates.” His fist met his leg as a frustrated sound tore from his throat. Quentin breathed deeply, rolling his neck.

“I lived with her, for a time … until a few men decided they didn’t want to pay for the goods and took from her instead. They left her there in that dirty alleyway for me to find. She was so pretty, with her honey hair and crystal blue eyes … but whenever I try to recall her face, all I can picture is the way she looked on the day she died. Bloody and bruised and broken.”

All the sounds of the forest faded away. Mariah stared at her brave and fierce Armature, usually so full of exuberant fire, and saw who he really was, hidden beneath it all.

Someone who wasn’t much different from who she was now. Someone damaged and starved and broken. Someone who’d seen the worst in humanity but had come out on the other side stronger for it.

“Quentin …”

“After that,” he forged on, ignoring her and reaching for his baldric, “I was left to the streets. Not a great place for a five-year-old boy, but we make do with the hands we are dealt.” He withdrew one of the knives and flipped it over in his fingers.

“That first night, I found a drunkard, passed out on the side of the street. He was covered in vomit and piss, but he also had a dagger on his belt. I stole it and used it to keep myself alive and fed for the next few years. I …” He swallowed, flipping the knife again. “I did some things I’m not proud of. But, one day, when I was eight, I was woken up by the Mark. Someone told me to go straight to the palace, and the rest is history.”

One final flip before he re-sheathed the blade into its leather holster.

Mariah gaped at him, her mind reeling.

“Quentin,” she repeated. He lifted his gaze to her, the pain from his memories still flickering in the bottle green. “You … five-years-old , Quentin. You were a child . A boy. I am … I am so sorry for what you?—”

“Why? Why are you sorry? You didn’t cause my piece of shit father, whoever he was, to fuck my mom and then abandon us. You weren’t those men who dragged her out into an alley, raped her, then beat her to death when they were finished with her.” He leaned forward, urgency bright in his expression. “You, Mariah, you were the one who saved me. Your Mark got me out, got me into a gods-damned palace. Even if you had never Selected me, I would’ve been forever in your debt. There is nothing more you could ever do for me.”

Mariah didn’t know she was crying until Quentin smiled softly, reached across the distance between them, and wiped the tears from her cheek. She sniffed, brushing the back of her hands across her face.

“Why?” she asked. “Why tell me this?”

“Besides the fact that you are my queen, and I thought it was about time you knew?” He shrugged, growing serious once more. “I know you likely went through some things back there in that hellhole. I know it was no vacation, and I know what it’s like to have to trade your life for your soul. What it’s like to do anything you must to survive, even if it means changing yourself irrevocably. And I wanted you to know that if you ever need someone to talk to, I’m here.”

Mariah stared at him, at one of these men that she’d somehow been blessed enough to have bound to her for the rest of her life. They were all strong, just not in the same ways.

She’d always thought Quentin was chosen for her—by Zadione’s magic, no less—because Mariah needed his lightheartedness.

Now, she knew that was but one facet. Somehow, those beautiful threads of magic saw the broken soul beneath the fire and knew Mariah would need its heat to reforge her own.

She planted her hands in the grass, pushing up and scooching over until she sat beside him against the tree. She extended a hand and he placed his baldric in her waiting palm. With deft fingers, Mariah withdrew one of the sharp silver knives, gripping it tight.

“How did you survive it? How did you move past it?”

“Time. Time was the greatest healer. But I never moved past it. I simply decided, after coming to the palace, that what I had done was a part of me, but it didn’t have to define me. I alone was the master of my fate, and only I could decide what was next for me.”

Mariah flipped the dagger in her hand. “Who knew you were such a poet, Quentin.”

He chuckled, shoulder brushing hers. “Yeah, well, don’t get used to it. After this conversation, I’ll be sucked dry of wisdom for the next year.”

Mariah couldn’t help herself. She raised an eyebrow, turning her head just slightly to meet Quentin’s gaze.

And then burst out laughing, Quentin’s hysterics echoing her own.

Mariah wiped a tear from her eye as her laughter slowly died. “Well, Quentin, I’m happy to suck you dry of wisdom any day.” She tossed him a wink, slipping the dagger back into its sheath. Quentin nearly choked, before he roared in laughter again.

“I know you’re joking, but on the off chance you’re not …”

Mariah slapped his arm, chuckling again, before shoving to her feet. “C’mon,” she said. “I want to train. Join me?”

Quentin grinned before jumping to his feet and slipping his baldric back over his chest. “I thought you’d never ask.”