Page 108 of The Duke and the Disciple

The command in his voice was enough to shift her gaze back to his. Her lower lip rolled inward, then out again. “And... And another with me.”

Rahn was immediately assaulted with a downpour of rain and hail. He whipped his attention up in alarm and saw the roof had been torn away. Wind thrashed trees, bowing them, making the sky whistle. The sky lit up in a pattern of bright zigs and zags, followed by a clap of thunder that shook the earth. He ducked when a tree came crashing through the window.

Aesylt lay on the strewn gowns, convulsing. Tears streamed down her cheeks as rain peppered her body. She no longer seemed in control of what was happening.

Rahn at last understood why starwalking was a danger to her.

He crawled back to her and straddled her to steady her shakes. He grabbed hold of her face. “Aesylt. Aesylt!” He grunted in desperate frustration when she was unresponsive. “Listen to me. Iknowyou’re there, and I know you can hear me. I’m not letting go, and I’m not leaving. Aesylt.” Agony clogged his throat. His thoughts were split between her crisis and the one that had shaped his own life. The crash of the stormy waves upon the Duncarrow rocks echoed in his head as the faces of Carrow’s sons, evil and pleading, peered up at him from the inky sea. “I know your pain, Squish. Please don’t go where I can’t follow.”

Lightning split the sky. Crashing thunder shattered a window. He covered her when he felt glass blow against the back of him. “You are not an abomination. Look at me. Look at me!”

“I’m acoward! I don’t want to remember any of it!” She screamed the words, arching up off the pile of gowns like she were possessed by a foreign entity. “None of it! Idon’t want to. I don’t want to face what I am... that I’m... that I’m... just like them.”

Rahn replayed her words,I killed those men and felt nothing.She was speaking of the Nok Mora, of something she’d done in self-defense. He’d heard Nik and Val whispering about it one day.She still believes that day ended when she stumbled from the keep and found us in the road,Nik had said.And if we love her, we’ll let it behad been Val’s response. “You’re a leader of people, people who were horribly and terribly wronged. Whatever you did, you did because you had to. There can be no remorse in acts of self-defense.”

“Self-defense? No, not even one of them—” Her shaking stopped. Both of her eyes narrowed as she turned them on him. “I...” Rain splattered her face, running down the sides. “I hunted them down like dogs. Iwantedthem dead, Rahn. I wanted to see the light in their eyes wink out when they realized... when they knew. They’d already surrendered. They were...” Her head tilted back as she gulped a breath. “We had them lined up.” She scrunched her face in a wince and screamed a sob. Her head whipped back and forth. “I don’t know how many. Five. Ten. More. Fez told me, but I... I should know the number, the exact number, but that’s how little their lives meant to me. They were on their knees, begging for mercy, crying... talking about their families back home, and... one by one I... took my father’s sword and I?—”

Another clap of thunder collapsed the back wall. Rahn stared at it, reeling from her words. He bowed his head to find his control again. For her. “We need to go back.”

“Youwanted to come here.” Aesylt pushed up on her hands, stretching up. “Now you know. Now you know the monster I am, the monster you’ve been sharing a bed with and?—”

He gripped her face in one hand and crushed his mouth to hers, then whispered, “I’m not leaving you, Squish, but it’s not safe here. Please?”

With fresh tears pooling in her eyes, she nodded.

The rain, thunder, lightning and mayhem disappeared. The safety of the clothier’s workshop allowed him to exhale, but Aesylt was no less distraught. Soaked to the bone, she released a heartrending wail. Her fingers moved to her throat, clawing.

Rahn grabbed her hands in his, pinned them above her head, and kissed her again, locking them together until she stopped shaking. She cried against his mouth, gradually relenting until all that was left was wearied grief raining from her eyes. “You are not a monster, Aesylt.”

Aesylt’s head shook. “I am.” She squirmed underneath him. “Only a monster could take life without remorse and then be acowardenough to forget it.”

“You werebraveenough to continue living when most of your world stopped,” Rahn pressed.

“Please, I just want?—”

“To wallow in pain, and I won’t allow it.” His grip on her hands tightened. “You’re going to talk to me. Nothing you say will drive me away.”

“Liar.”

“I haven’t lied to you yet.”

“I’ve lied to you.” Her throat moved in a rough swallow. The flesh was red and angry from the way she’d torn at it. “I can’t be trusted.”

“Trust is a thing given, and I give you my trust.” Rahn noted the defiance in her eyes, the unspoken dare to agree with her and walk away. “What happened tonight?”

Her reddened eyes rolled to the side as she groaned. “These girls... It doesn’t matter. Nyssa’s friends, they were only saying what I already knew to be true, deep down. I just couldn’t face it. I don’t know why it’s all coming back now. That day in the woods...” Fat tears slid down her cheeks and onto the gowns. “I’ve cried three times since the Nok Mora. Once when my brother finally came home. The second time, in that tree, wondering if I was going to die. And tonight.”

Rahn was beginning to see the degree of deception Aesylt had created within herself in order to survive. She’d convinced herself she was worse than the men who had murdered, raped, and defiled the people of the Cross, and then she’d buried her shame, somewhere it had quietly bred and flourished until she could no longer run from it. “There’s nothing wrong with crying. Science tells us it actually has a cathartic, therapeutic benefit.”

She wriggled under his grasp with a scornful scoff. “Even now, you’re thinking of the research.”

He leaned in, pinning her with more of his body. “I’m not thinking of anything except you right now.”

She sniffled and drew a jerky breath. “Why are you even here?”

“I was worried.Amworried.”

“So you followed me, watched me tear the celestial world apart, and now...”

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