Page 64 of Ash and Feather

I needed to keep moving.

I tried to keep speaking, too. Tried to explain myself, but I couldn’t get my voice to work.

My knees suddenly felt weak. Despite my best efforts to pace the room with precise, purposeful steps, I ended up sinking against the door to the pantry, wrapping my arms around myself as I fought against the urge to slide down into a miserable heap on the floor.

I had to stay on my feet, at least.

If I collapsed now, I worried I’d never find the strength to get up again, so I bowed my head and concentrated on staying upright.

Moments later, I heard Dravyn coming closer. He reclined against the wall beside me but didn’t speak. I didn’t either. I didn’t even lift my head—though after a minute, I did move, leaning against his shoulder as I tried to stifle the sob building in my throat. I only partially succeeded; the cry ended up silent, but the tears came anyway, quickly drenching his shirt.

His hand found mine, holding tightly to it even as more tremors of rage shot through me.

“You don’t have to stay,” I said quietly.

“I want to stay.”

“I might start throwing things next.”

“I’ll catch them.”

I didn’t know what to say to this, so I said nothing, only let my head rest more completely against him while the tears continued to fall. I’d given up fighting those tears; I’d run out of them, eventually.

Running out took several minutes, but when it finally happened, the anger inside of me had subsided enough that I finally trusted myself to speak again.

“She used to be the one I turned to when things crumbled. Even after she di—left.” I sucked in a breath. “Even after she left, she was still my foundation. I built myself around the absence of her. Isn’t that stupid? To build everything around that emptiness. Of course it didn’t hold up. I’m a fool for thinking it could.”

“You are not a fool for doing what you needed to do to survive.”

But I am a fool for not seeing the truth sooner.

He shook his head, as if he’d heard the thought even though I hadn’t voiced it out loud. “You were lied to. Manipulated. Abused.”

My heart clenched. He was right. I knew he was right. I don’t know why I couldn’t agree with him. Maybe I wanted to blame myself because it made things feel like they were still in my control, somehow.

Maybe the God of Death had been right the other day…maybe Iwasclinging too tightly to too many parts of my old life.

I curled closer to Dravyn, burying my face into his chest. He wrapped his arms tightly around me but didn’t say anything else. There didn’t seem to be anything else to say just then, so we simply stayed that way for a while, until I found myself and my thoughts growing restless again.

“What am I supposed to do now?” I asked, hoarsely, more to myself than him. I didn’t really expect an answer.

Because what could you do, when the person who used to help you through all the hurt became thereasonyou were hurting?

Dravyn was quiet for a moment. Then his hand found mine once again, and he started to pull me away from the door as he said, “Let’s finish making this cake, shall we?”

“What?”

“The cake. What’s our next step?”

I lifted my gaze, half-expecting to see a teasing smile and laughter dancing in his eyes.

His face was entirely serious.

“Come on,” he said, continuing to guide me back toward the abandoned ingredients. “And I’ll need you to explain it to me more carefully this time; I’ve never been good at this sort of thing.”

I stared at him. And at the counter covered in flour, the splatters of batter, the broken eggshells and dirty spatulas strewn about…it all suddenly seemed so ridiculous in the midst of all we were facing that I found myself laughing at the very notion of finishing.

But he was insistent.

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