Page 31 of A Spell of Bones and Madness
“Perhaps, but let me do this last thing for you.” She went to lift him from beneath his arms but he threw his hand out to stop her.
“I want to be alone,” he snapped, pushing himself up from the ground. “I want…to be…alone,” he rasped. Each word came out more strained than the one before.
Ander’s body pulsed and the anger flowing through his veins was uncontrollable. A wrath he had never felt before. It wasn’t directed at his crew before him, nor the woman that knelt beside him, but at the world Odessia had descended into. The hatred and sacrifice of innocents that Edmund and Khalid reveled in. The power that morally decrepit men grasped at. The abuse that each member ofThe Nostos’s crew had gone through before they were saved or spared and made their way to this unlikely family. Everylash and burn and slice and scar was still there, a constant reminder that even a god could fall. Even a god could be weak. What chance did the mere mortals have?
When he stood, even Katrin did not follow him, did not try to toss her arms around his wobbling body once more.
I am sorry, he could hear her repeat over and over again in her mind.
She was not the one that should be sorry.
Silk sheets and woven blankets were not the comfort Ander thought they would be. They smelled likeher, like Katrin, and although the illusion had broken, her scent was still a stark reminder of all Khalid and Edmund could take and had taken from him.
Pondering his existence certainly wasn’t helping either—staring at the boards of wood above his head that squeaked and roared with every step a crew member took above deck or every dipThe Nostostook against the waves. From what little Ander had inferred as they rowed out the the skiff from the shores of Alentus, the wind would be on their side, pushing them as swift as it could toward Lesathos, or Nexos, or Skiatha—wherever Katrin and Leighton decided to take him.
If he could barely face his crew here, what made them think he would be able to face the soldiers that looked to him as a leader in Skiatha, or, gods forbid, his own father?
The door to his quarters creaked open. No knock. No announcement. His crew must be truly worried he’d gone mad—broken both in body and mind—if they dared to enter without being invited. Maybe he was? Or maybe he just wanted to sleep. To lay in his bed and let himself wander into nothingness—if only for a moment. Yet, after everything, they couldn’t even offer him that.
“I said before, I wish to be alone,” Ander groaned as the perpetrator slid through the door.
“And I think that is a terrible idea.” Of course it would be her. Ander should’ve known, it’s not like he would be doing anything different—had done anything different, when roles were reversed.
“Starling, please, I just need a moment.” Ander tried to pull the blanket up over his head, shield himself from whatever was to come, but Katrin was too quick. She had already waltzed right over and snatched the thing from his hands.
“You will get your moment to rest when you stop pitying yourself. Must I remind you of the very things you told me when you first saw my scars? When I first bared every broken piece of my soul to you? None of this was your fault.” Her hand reached out and grazed along his cheek. It was as soft as he remembered, despite the dried blood and dirt she had yet to wash off. “None of it.”
“Except it is my fault—all of it.” For a brief moment he let himself sink into her touch, to let her light fill him. And then the shackles began to singe his wrists and the screaming of those who had been taken as sacrifice started again. “You shouldn’t have risked your life. Not for me,” Ander managed to say under his breath.
“How many times haveyourisked your life forme? And how many times have I taken it for granted?” Katrin chastised, pulling at his hand, but he refused to let her take hold.
“Every one of them.” Gods, Ander hated himself for saying it, especially after the way she recoiled, her glowing amber-flecked eyes dulling and her chest pulling up in a quick inhale.
Her gaze drifted to the small table beside his bed and a faint blush spread over her cheeks. Katrin wrung her fingers over each other and her teeth rolled over her bottom lip.
“That is exactly my point, Alexander,” she whispered. His name on her lips was his undoing. It was utterly intoxicating and made every angry thought slip from his mind. “I cannot count the amount of times you have protected me with little to no regard for your own safety, and it was well enough time for me to do the same. You once told me I always had a choice with you, but I don’t. It is never achoicewhen it comes to you—not anymore.”
“You shouldn’t have come for me,” he repeated that sentiment once more, refusing even to lift his head from his pillow. How callous could he be? But the voices in his head were too loud—too loud for him to think straight.
“Then you would be dead.” Katrin’s voice was not filled with emotion like his own, it was pure and matter-of-fact. If she had not risked her life—the life of every member of this crew—he would be dead.
He rolled onto his side, refusing to look her in the face any longer. It was unbearable to have the woman he loved see him like this. A broken mess of a man. Nothing left to give to the world. To her.
You would have all been better off if I was dead.
“We wouldn’t have been better off!” There was the anger, the spark, the defiance he had come to love so much about her. All it made him feel was shame.
Katrin had broken through his mind, though he shouldn’t be surprised. He had little to no power. If she knew how, she would be able to replay every memory he had in that dungeon like she had been there herself, see every moment of love and longing as well from her time onThe Nostosbefore the attack.
“Now, I am going to sit here and watch you, force feed you, and”—she paused, inhaling with a twitch of her nose—“bathe you just as you did for me, and there is nothing you can say to change my mind.”
“Alright, Starling,” he whispered, still facing away from her, “you can stay.”
There was not a world in which he deserved Katrin, but he would take what little pieces of her she was willing to give until she realized that herself.
For the remainder of the day she sat by his side, reading one of his books to herself, only breaking once to scurry down to the galley to get them both avgolemono. After she spoon-fed him the lemon and rice soup, Katrin curled up in the chair with his navy woven blanket, adjusting herself until her legs were curled up like a cat and cracked the book open once more. Not once that night did she leave, and despite his initial dismissal, Ander was grateful. For once in his life, someone had chosen to save him.
Chapter Twenty-Three
