Page 39 of The Vanishing Throne

Aithinne pulls back, but I don’t miss the hurt that crosses her features. ‘I’m sorry.’ She opens her mouth, and I swear she’s going to say something else. Instead, she whispers again, ‘I’m sorry.’

I draw myself into a sitting position next to her. ‘Bad dream, I take it?’ I say, my voice raspy.

‘They’re all bad,’ she whispers.

We are silent again as I contemplate my thousands of questions. The first few drops of rain splash on my nose and I pull the coat tighter around me. The mist has cleared, making the cold more penetrating. The meadow stretches vast before us, framed by silhouetted mountains on either side. It truly feels as though Aithinne and I are the only two people in the entire world.

‘What do you dream about?’ I ask softly. She curls her fists and I grasp her hand tightly in mine. ‘I’m not asking what happened to you in the mounds,’ I tell her, trying to keep my voice calm. ‘I’m asking you what you dream about.’

She glances at me, the white of her breath visible against the dark night sky. I hopeI’m giving her a way to tell me what happened while thinking of it as a dream rather than a memory.

‘He kills me,’ she whispers. ‘In my dream. A thousand differentways. More. First just to see if I’ll stay dead’ – she’s tugging at loose threads of her trousers and they begin to fray at her knee – ‘then to make me scream.’ She tugs harder, the fabric splitting. ‘Then to break me, make me beg—’

Did he do this? Like mine?

Worse. He did worse.

I press my hand to hers. ‘It’s a dream,’ I say. When emotion almost cracks my voice, I swallow. ‘Only a dream. He’s not here.’

I recall the strike of Lonnrach’s teeth, the precise amount of pressure it took to get eighty-two perfect impressions into my skin. How he’d bury his fangs a little deeper each time so it was more painful.

After it was over, he’d look over my mark with pride. The more it bled, the wider he smiled.

I shut my eyes. Aithinne and I are quiet for what seems like hours. We both fight against our memories. I put mine away in a little compartment in my heart; I shove it in and lock it up tight. Even so, I can still hear the echoes from deep down.

That’s what prisons do to you. That’s what it means when someone else carves away a piece of your soul until the shape of him fits inside. You can bury it, but it’s always there.He’salways there.

Aithinne suddenly speaks. ‘It’s a different death every day,’ she continues. ‘Some worse than others, but all of them areagonizing. They—’

Her hand grasps mine so hard that I swear the bones almost break, but I don’t cry out. I won’t. ‘You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.’ I keep my voice calm, so she never knows how much she’s hurting me.

It’s not all right. What he did to you is not all right.

‘Then without specifics,’ she says numbly, ‘they all participated, but he did it most.’

I fight against my emotions. I try to control my reaction soshe won’t see it. But the rage within me rises, heats, and burns through my veins.

She was trapped with almost a thousand enemy fae in those mounds.A thousand.I can’t help the ache that spreads through my chest, the memories of Lonnrach that rise despite how tightly I locked them away.He did it most.

I hate him. I don’t think I’ve ever hated anyone more.

‘After,’ she continues, ‘he waits for me to heal. It always heals. Sometimes I wish it didn’t.’

It always heals. Her injuries, her deaths. No wonder she utterly froze on the path in theSìth-bhrùthwhen I asked her how she bore her memories. I swallow, trying to calm my thoughts.

I’ve pictured Lonnrach’s death a thousand different ways. The last thing I’ll say to him. The last thing he’ll say. At my cruelest, I’d always hoped he’d beg for death at the end.

‘Did they bring you back deliberately?’

‘No,’ she says. ‘Only Kadamach and you can kill me.’ I glance at her sharply. I’m about to ask her to explain, but she turns to me. ‘Why didn’t you take my offer?’

My offer.

I can help you forget. What Lonnrach did to you. The place he kept you.

My murderous thoughts dissolve. Violent Aileana fades to the background again and I can finally think clearly. I remember thedaysweeksmonthsyearsof the mirrored room, how they spanned together until they had no beginning and no end. How Lonnrach became my one constant. How I measured time by when he showed up, and by how long it took me to heal after he left. That despite everything, I became so broken that I asked him tostay.

‘I never want to forget what he did,’ I say. I can’t hold back the emotion in my voice. ‘I’ll never let anyone make me that helpless again.’

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