Chapter 39

"Merrick, I can explain, I can—"

I never did get to say what I could do because he lashed out and I was suddenly flying backward, through the candles, through the length of the cavern itself, until I struck a stone pillar on the far wall. I hit it with enough force to shatter every bone in my body and crack my skull, but I miraculously, horribly, did neither.

"What have you done?" he demanded again, before me in a flash, picking up my crumpled form from the floor and holding me aloft by my neck.

I felt the Divided Ones' necklace snap and fall to the floor, lost to the darkness of the cavern as I squirmed and kicked and gasped for air. I searched for the right words, the words that would somehow get me out of this, the words that would not come. Black stars danced before my eyes and I could feel my muscles grow weak and limp, but before the blessed darkness could take me, Merrick cast me aside with a snarl of disgust.

"I'm sorry," I cried, trying to break an opening in the wall of fury he'd built around himself. "Merrick, I—"

"You saw the deathshead," he snapped, cutting off my pleading, and I shrank back into the ground, wary of being struck once more.

Mutely, I nodded.

"You saw the deathshead and yet you went and did that. " His arm flew back toward the king's new candle, once again lost in a sea of flickering flames. "Do you have any idea what you've done?"

Knees pressed into the rocky ground, I shook my head, tightening every muscle in my body as I tried to make myself as small and inconsequential as I could.

"That was your candle, Hazel. That was you ! Do you have any idea what I had to do to get those candles?"

I kept my spine curved low, my forehead pressed against the cold ground. "No."

Merrick released a cry of frustration, striking out and hitting the pillar. It shattered, raining shards of stone down upon us. I felt one slice my cheek, but it was only my godfather I thought of as I saw him pull back his fist, wincing.

"Merrick!" I cried in alarm.

He shook off the blow and stalked away from me, his breath hot with muttered curses. "You stupid girl," he growled. "You stupid, stupid girl."

"I had to," I whispered, my lips brushing the rocks beneath me.

His laugh was thunderous with disbelief, making my sternumache.

"I did, I…" I was at a loss to explain it. "There's a war going on, and…all the orphans…His daughter wrote him a letter, and…" Everything I said sounded small and wrong, excuses too minuscule to cover the full expanse of what I'd done.

"There will always be wars. There will always be orphans."

"Yes, but…" I faltered again. I wasn't going to persuade him to my side with the scope of the good I'd wanted to do. He didn't care about that. He cared about me, his goddaughter, the one mortal in all the world he held in his heart. "If I did what the deathshead wanted me to do, I'd have the blood of thousands on my hands. Not just the king's, but that of everyone else who died because he was not there to protect them." My voice broke. "I know I disobeyed you. You have every right to be upset with me, but I couldn't have so many souls haunting me through eternity, Merrick. I just couldn't."

His eyes narrowed to ruby slits as he considered my words. He was unquestionably still mad at me, but I could see a change stirring, softened with curiosity. "Do you feel remorseful for the lives you've taken?"

"Of course."

He frowned. "How strange."

"It's not."

"I've always been so proud of you, knowing how many lives were saved by your hands in those moments of mercy. Yet you only remember the scant number you've taken?"

I shrugged. "I don't know any of those saved, not definitively, not for sure. But the people who I…" It was so very hard to say the word.

Merrick thought for a moment. "Freed."

"Killed," I corrected him unhappily. "They were people I knew, family members and neighbors and people I was acquainted with." I thought of the dark Kieron-shaped ghost who trailed after me now like a dog on a leash. "People I loved. Those are the ones I remember, the ones I can't forget, ever."

The ones who were forever following me, always there, always wanting to be closer.

"I still see them," I confided in a hushed whisper, finally admitting my darkest secret to Merrick years after he'd saddled me with its curse.

Merrick's eyes flickered behind me, staring at the wall of tiny flames. "I…I suppose it's natural to feel that way, to want to remember them," he finally allowed. "But I'm sure with time—"

"No," I said, stopping him short. I couldn't remember ever daring to interrupt my godfather, but this was an important moment that I could not afford to let him get wrong. "I see them. All the time. They're always with me, always following me."

"Memories," he guessed.

"Ghosts."

Merrick straightened, studying me with fresh eyes. "That's not possible."

I kept my gaze steadily upon him, using silence to make my point understood.

"Hazel, I…"

Never before had I seen my godfather at a loss for words.

"They're with me all the time. My father and my mother. Kieron," I added, feeling my eyes prickle. "I have to keep them at bay with lines of salt, but it doesn't stop them forever. They're always pressing in, always seeking me out, and when my guard slips, when I forget or the wards get too weak, then they're upon me…."

A pitiful sob welled up, breaking my argument apart as I remembered their touch on me, that sticky spiderweb sensation as they pulled at my memories, pilfering the good ones and leaving me a hollowed-out shell of misery.

"I couldn't have the king join their ranks. I couldn't bear the thought of Baudouin's victims being there too. There's not enough salt in the world for that many spirits. They would have broken through. They would have smothered me. I would have drowned in them. Merrick—" My voice caught again as tears began to flow. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I didn't want to go against you, I didn't want to go against the deathshead. But I also couldn't…I just couldn't."

Merrick sighed, and I could feel the heat of his anger begin to retreat. He paced down a row of candles and I knew he was headed toward my plinth, toward my remaining candle.

After a moment of wary hesitation, I followed him.

As I approached, I saw he'd reached out, tracing the length of the last unlit candle. He kept his touch impossibly gentle, stroking the taper as if it were the full, round cheek of a newborn babe.

"Never again."

His words were low and deeply growled.

This was not something he was asking me to promise to, a request, a wish to be carried out. This was a command, plain and simple. One that would not be broken, no matter what my reasons might be. No matter how right and righteous I might think my cause.

When he turned toward me, his eyes were all rubies, flashing with dangerous warning. "I will see what I can do about the ghosts. I will…." He swallowed the promise. "But never again."

All I could do was bow my head and nod.

I kept my eyes down, studying the wafting edges of his robes, the way they disappeared into the floor. I wanted to cry beneath the full weight of his anger and expectations but knew it was my penance to bear them as stoically as I could.

"Thank you for your understanding, Merrick," I whispered, flinching as his hands balled into fists. I dared to look up and meet his eyes. "For your mercy. I do not deserve it."

"No," he agreed. "You don't. And it will not be given a secondtime."

"Of course," I agreed hastily. "I promise you, Merrick. Never again."

The Dreaded End turned away from me with a disappointed shake of his head, and before I could make any other attempt to soothe or assuage him, he snapped his fingers and sent me back toChatellerault.