Page 173 of What Blooms from Death

Slowly, the dizziness subsided. The heaviness persisted, but I managed to get to my feet, and I paced, and I paced and I paced while Phantom slept, snoring loudly, and Aveline continued finding chores to keep herself busy with while still staying close to me.

Eventually, I found myself in front of the standing mirror in the corner, taking in my disheveled and broken appearance.

My skin was gruesomely pale, the tired circles under my eyes as dark as bruises. The entire right side of my neck was covered in bright, angry scars. The worst of it was concentrated there,but those scars stretched beyond my neck, too; ugly, jagged marks of ruined pink skin creeping over part of my face and crawling down across my throat and my chest.

I wanted to rake the scars off. To create my own to cover these, as if I could erase the memory of Lorien’s touch if I just carved deeply and violently enough. Because staring at them made me feel…dirty. Violated. Empty.

What magic had he taken from me?

And how could I reclaim it?

CouldI reclaim it?

Gingerly, I traced the paths of ruin his magic had left behind. They didn’t seem real.Nothingthat had happened in that chamber seemed real.

My bracelets rattled against one another as my hand moved. I vaguely remembered the turquoise one slipping from my wrist in the sword chamber, and the surge of magic that had followed. The ghosts of Calista and the other Shadow Vaelora…had I imagined them all? Had I been hallucinating from the pain, delirious from the loss of blood and magic? Or had I really had such power inside of me all along?

What else could I do?

All of these bracelets, binding my power so precisely, so neatly, so fearfully…

“I did what I could with your wounds, but I worry they’ll leave some sort of permanent mark, anyway,” Aveline said, gently, making her way to my side. “Magic scarring is…complicated. And I have little experience dealing with what Light magic leaves behind.”

It’s okay, I wanted to say. Because for so long, that had been my mantra. My way of surviving—pushing the pain down. Hiding it. Shackling my real fury and feelings with bracelets and smiles and a bright, never-breaking optimism.

It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay.

But I couldn’t get those words to leave my mouth this time.

And I was shaking from a sudden urge to rip my bracelets off and throw them in the trash.

“I’m sorry,” said Aveline. Then, in a tighter, colder voice: “We should have known those Lightwielders couldn’t be trusted.” Clearly flustered, she went back to her chores.

“…If I’d trusted Aleks, none of this would have happened.” I was speaking to my reflection as much as to Aveline. To this bruised and battered version of me who was finally waking up to all the things that werenot okay.

Aveline turned back to me, but I kept my eyes on the woman in the mirror.

“I love him,” I told that woman, my voice breaking slightly. “I love him so much I was afraid of something—anything—that might tear us apart, and so I closed my eyes to what I didn’t want to see. I’ve risked an entire world because I was too busy trying to pretend everything was fine, even when I knew it wasn’t, because I was afraid that digging for the truth would hurt too much. And it…it does. It hurts. It…” I trailed off. My breaths were coming in short, erratic bursts, making it difficult to speak clearly.

I moved away from the mirror, unable to look at myself any longer.

I felt Aveline watching me as I stumbled back to sit on my bed. She finished arranging the throw pillows on the couch and then came to sit beside me. Phantom woke up and wiggled his way over to my other side, dropping his head into my lap.

“It isn’t just my fear of what might become of me and Aleks,” I said, numbly stroking Phantom’s head as I stared at the ground. “I’m afraid of my power—whether it’s divining memories or waking the dead, I’vealwaysbeen afraid. And I’ve spent most of my life hating it all, focusing only on how lonely and different it made me.

“Trust yourself, Orin told me before I came to this world.And don’t be afraid of your darkness.” I held up my wrist, studying the amethyst jewels in the last bracelet he’d gifted me. “Since coming here, I’ve felt a stirring, a deeper connection to my magic than ever before. I could have truly embraced it and gotten so much stronger, if only I’d dared. I could have seen the truth so much sooner…but instead I kept shying away, kept choosing the path of least resistance, only doing the bare minimum, and now…” I trailed off, unable to put into words the crushing sense of regret settling over me.

Phantom lifted his head in concern. I buried my face against his while Aveline rubbed my back, offering a comfort I didn’t feel like I deserved.

“There’s nothing wrong with being afraid, my love,” she said, softly.

“Maybe not,” I whispered. “But fear won’t fix anything.”

She was quiet for several minutes, her hand still moving absently up and down my back, before she said, “Then it’s a good thing there is more to you than fear, isn’t it?”

I said nothing to this, but I let the words sink over me as tears ran silently down my face.

In time, I lifted my burning, bloodshot eyes to what I could see of the outside world through the partially drawn curtains. The faint orange glow of the setting sun barely cut through the shadows around us. Another day slipping away. Another day closer to Equinox—to what felt like inevitable ruin, now that Lorien was on the loose withbothswords in his possession.

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