Page 89 of Lady of Shadows

She wore her training clothes, and she was drenched in sweat. She had trained hard this morning, likely trying to work through all her emotions. He could see it in her eyes as she stilled at the sight of him. She reached up and pulled the string from her braid, shaking out the plaits as she crossed the room to their bedroom without a word.

He waited a few minutes to see if she would come back out, and when she didn’t, he took a deep breath and followed her path. The door to the bathing room was closed. So he waited.

And she took her time. He knew she was drawing this out as long as possible. He knew her well enough to know she was dreading this conversation. She was dreading the possibility of what else would come from his mouth. She had given him pieces of herself that she’d given no one else, and with that had come a tentative trust that he had shattered in the span of a few minutes.

When she finally emerged, she wore fitted black pants with a black tunic. Her hair hung loose around her shoulders, still wet. He stood near the balcony doors,and with half a thought, her hair was dry. She didn’t acknowledge the gesture. She just crossed her arms and leaned against the doorframe of the bathing room, waiting. Her shadows slithered along her like vines of ivy, and he flashed back to a rooftop in Baylorin when he had first laid eyes on her and Nuri together. Death’s Maiden stood before him now, not the female that he had spent months convincing to take down her walls…and then watched them all spring back up in a matter of seconds. She had put on her full armor for this conversation, retreating to that predatory place inside of herself.

He’d spent hours perfecting exactly what he was going to say to her, and now that she stood before him, he didn’t know what to say to make her stop looking at him like he had ripped her heart from her chest and stomped on it.

Her eyes pinned him with a stare, gold and fiery today. “I’ve no treats for you this morning, Prince. Speak.” Her voice was as cold and dark as the shadows that adored her.

But he couldn’t. Words escaped him. He literally could not form them as she stared at him. He had expected to see hate and anger in her eyes, and while fury certainly stared back at him, he was not prepared for the hurt she allowed to shine through. This female who had always worn so many masks. Who had finally stopped wearing them around him.

Hurt. That is one mask he had never seen. Pain, yes. But this type of hurt? This was caused by betrayal. He had caused this. He had done this. There were no words to say that would make this right.

After another minute, she huffed a laugh of disbelief. “I am not going to stand here all day, Sorin. Either say something, or I will take my leave.”

He made to take a step towards her, but when she stiffened at the movement, he froze. “I am sorry, Scarlett. I am so sorry.”

“Keep going,” she said coolly.

“There is so much. I do not even know where to begin.”

“Start with one.”

“You came for me,” he said quietly.

“Of course I came for you,” she snapped. “I thought that’s what we did for each other. I thought… Of course I came for you.”

“I am sorry that I hurt you.”

“I am sorry that you knew where to strike,” she replied with a cold bite.

Sorin swallowed. “You were right, Scarlett. We are the same. You are my equal in every possible way, and I had no right to speak to you like I did.”

“No, you did not. You were in the dark, and instead of letting me in to keep you from blotting out the stars, you tried to shove me back into that river, back under the water. How ironic it is thatyouare the one who helped me realize that only I can decide who and what gets that kind of power over me. What’s even more paradoxical is that I thoughtyouwere one of two people who would never try to shove me into a damn cage.” He could see the silver pooling in her eyes. He could see her resolve to not let them fall. “I am not your godsdamned punishment,” she whispered with venom, her eyes going to the floor.

He didn’t hold back his own tears as two slipped down his face. It took every bit of self-control to keep himself from going to her. “No, Scarlett Monrhoe,” he choked out. “You are anything but a punishment. You are a bright star I do not deserve.”

“I trusted you!” Her voice cracked, and his knees nearly gave out at the sound of it. Then she was striding across the room to him, her shadows mixing with flames of bluest wildfire. “I trusted you with all of me, and you used it against me. You shut me out. You fucking took what you wanted from me and shut me out.” She shoved him at the last words with such force he stumbled backwards. His chest burned where she had touched him, from the shadows or the flames he didn’t know.

“I am sorry, Scarlett. Tell me what I need to do. Tell me how to fix this,” he pleaded.

“There is no fixing this, Sorin! You may as well have been Mikale yesterday. You all but told me you only keep me around to get what you want from me. That I was a necessary burden.”

“No! No, Love—” He reached for her, but she stepped back, interrupting him before he could say more.

“Don’t you get it, Sorin? There is no Love. There is no you and me. There is you, and there is me.” The words were stones being hurled at him. Words he had so carelessly snarled at her. Tears were flowing uncontrollably down her cheeks as she screamed at him. “You broke this! You broke us!”

And he felt it then, in his soul. He felt it splinter. His left hand burned in agony as that unfinished Mark faded slightly. It wasn’t gone, but it was definitely lighter, a faint gray color rather than the stark black of his other Marks. He was going to be sick.

Then he was sick, violently sick, as she disappeared into the air.

CHAPTER 27

SORIN

In between bouts of hurling his guts up, Sorin managed to send fire messages to his Inner Court and Briar. They appeared almost instantly in his rooms.

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