Page 36 of Daughter of No Worlds

Hours passed. The sun set. I lit lanterns. I wouldn’t go inside because I didn’t trust myself not to slap Max if he snickered at me.

I repeated those symbols over and over again, the same way I had practiced my dancing steps for hours and hours, forcing them, hammering them, shattering them and myself until we were melded together. I would do the same damn thing with these stupid symbols.

Ihadto.

I wasn't sure how late it was by the time I heard the door open behind me. By this time, I was surrounded by paper, stacked up all around me in piles, like a gate locking me in.

“Not that it’s my business, but do you plan to stay out here all night?” I heard Max ask.

I didn’t turn around. My steady hand did not waver as it traced another circle. Calm. Methodical. I had a system — combining each symbol with each type of ink. “If I must.”

“I’m exhausted just looking at you.”

I had no response to that. Anger simmered deep beneath my skin.

“Do you even know what those are?” he said.

My fingers tightened so hard around my pen that I nearly snapped it in two. “No. And I think you probably will not say.” The words came out in a low snarl.

“The Orders probably won’t ask you about them.”

Before I could stop myself, I jumped to my feet, whirling to him, the pen still clutched in my hand. “Iknow. I need to— need to—”

The Aran words eluded me, driving my frustration to thrash up against my surface. I glared at Max, who leaned against the doorframe.

I wanted to scream at him. I wanted to ask,Who has ruined you so badly that you can’t do anything but stand in the way of people who have actual importantthingsto do? Why do you feel such a pervasive, petty need to shove your petulance in the Orders’ faces? And why the hell do you need to bring me down with you, too?

Instead, the Aran words that came out sounded something like, “What so many hates do you have?”

“Huh?”

His confusion, understandable as it was,infuriatedme. I let the pen drop violently to the ground. I hammered every Aran word home, slowly. “Whydo youhatethe Orders?Whydo you hatemeso many?Whatiswrongwith you?”

“I don’t hate you,” Max replied, which made me evenangrier.

“That is not true!” I shook my head. “That isnot true. I don’t care if you hate me— hate me here.” I touched my heart. It was the only way I could think to convey what I was saying. “Or here.” I pressed my fingers against my temple. “But you hate me in what youdo. Why? What wrong did I do to you?”

“It’s not about you.” Something shifted, softened, in Max’s expression. But I was past looking for scraps of kindness.

“Itisabout me! This is my life, not only yours.” I blinked and all I could see was Esmaris’s body, Serel’s face, hands and skin of every man I danced for to earn the money to leave. “I was slave in Threll. Did you know?”

He didn’t answer. Just stared at me, with one deepening line in his brow.

“Did you?”

“No,” he said, quietly.

“I did many things to come here. Ikilledfor coming here. My friend—” I didn’t have the vocabulary to describe what Serel had done for me, given for me. “I left my most important people. Theyneedme. I cannot fail them. To help them, I need this.” I thrust my open palm down to the piles of drawings. “I have nothing without the Orders. No power.I need this. They need this.”

I didn’tmakemyself all of these terrible things — a whore, a killer, a traitor — just to be ignored and discarded before it could beworthsomething.

Max’s mouth thinned. I couldn’t read him, and I did not try. I was long past caring what he thought. In that moment, I didn’t care whatanyof them thought — all of these people who, my entire life, had used me as a part of their stories, had assumed that I was a set piece intheirlives. Like Esmaris did. Like every lord I seduced. Like Nura, using me to get under Max’s skin. And now, like Max, who saw me as a representative of some petty grudge and not an actualhuman being.

“This isnotonlyyours,”I spat. “Sotell mewhat is onstupidtest.”

Silence.

My rage receded, slightly, like a wave falling back after crashing on the shore. In that brief reprieve, I cursed myself for losing my temper, wondering if I had forever ruined the ability to mold my relationship with Max by showing him something so raw and impulsive.

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