Page 64 of The Devil In Blue
Visions of Briar’s tearful eyes when I ripped her necklace off of her burned inside my head. The way I treated her… it was unforgivable.
On Lucien’s bottom jaw, I saw a glint of gold drowning in the pooling blood. A gold tooth.
I might not have been able to recover the necklace I’d destroyed, but I would give Briar another gift. Something more meaningful. Whether or not she accepted it would be up to her.
All I knew was that I would not live long enough to eradicate the blame I felt for not finding her sooner. She was my everything. I encouraged her to fly and then I had let her fall.
I soaked in that bath until the water had turned to ice, listening to the palace. The creaking of its wooden beams. The wind shaking the windows. The occasional droplets that fell from the faucet and into the tub. The palace was indeed alive in some way. Part of me wanted to ask it if it remembered me like everyone else evidently did. But, if the palace said yes, it would only wound me further.
Why couldn’t I remember?
I managed to wash most of the blood off my body and dunked my hair into the scented bath, doing my best to finger-comb the knots and twigs out of it. All the while, I kept replaying Father Eli’s confession in my head. None of it was news to me. I knew all that they’d done to me at Southminster. But now I was seeing it all through a different lens. None of it was to help me. Not a single moment of torture was for my benefit. It was to collar me. Wreck me. Ruin me so I was so beyond repair that I could not fight back.
And I never did once I was broken. I was made to think I was mad. I was treated as if I was until I had been pushed beyond my limits. I really was mad. What little bits of my sanity I had left had been torn out of me by some doctor whose face I couldn’t even see.
When I was sick of seeing Father Eli’s burned corpse in my head, I let my mind venture past it to the clearing where Rune had appeared and slayed the beast. I saw it in much greater detail. His strong wings. His harsh grip as he pulled me away. The swing of his long sword and even the way he shielded me from the creature’s lethal blow and took it upon himself.
I wondered if he was alright.
Even if my life meant little to me in that moment, he’d saved it. He put himself between me and something monstrous. Something out of my nightmares. A kelpher. I didn’t know what it was, but it was horrifying. Everything past the courtyard was horrifying.
Shivering, I realized just how cold I’d let the bath get. I slowly rose out of the water, letting it slide off my naked skin a bit before stepping out and taking a thick cotton towel off a wall hook. I patted my hair dry first before looking up at a full-body mirror mounted on the wall. Seeing myself sent another shiver right through me. My eyes were puffy, whether from lack of rest or from all the chaos that had transpired in the last few hours, I didn’t know. My skin was too pale and my expression too heavy. I looked dead.
Maybe I was in all the ways that counted. I couldn’t tell anymore.
I was about to pull the towel up around my body when I paused again, my eyes dropping to my hips. I hesitated for a long moment before slowly turning to glimpse the very specific scar on the back of my hip in the shape of that damn handle Rune had shoved me against. It made no sense and yet it made all the sense in the world.Hisworld.
My eyes panned upward and I turned my body as far as I could without pulling my gaze away from my reflection. There, between my shoulder blades, a place I hadn’t looked at for years, were two rigid scars. Father Eli’s sickening confession was salt on a very old wound and I wondered what had been there that they’d stolen. What else did he cut away besides pieces of my mind?
I couldn’t look at myself for long. I was ashamed of the body I’d allowed to get battered, bruised, and violated. I couldn’t recall the fight I put up completely, but I wanted to think that I would have fought to the death if I had been able.
I remembered some of my attempts to retaliate at least. I tried to starve. I tried to hurt myself. I tried to end it all by ending myself.
How hopeless of me…
Naeve had brought me fresh clothes before she and Lura left me in the bath to soak. She had draped it over the back of a sofa that sat near the wall. When I picked it up, I saw a beautiful green dress with long sleeves. It was nothing fancy and I was thankful for that. Remembering the corsets and bustles and hats Lucian always dressed me in made me cringe. Not only because they were uncomfortable, but because he was no longer my self-sacrificing guardian but a sick, demented, villain.
How could I have been so stupid? How could I have let myself get so twisted and out of shape? I was used to shame but not like this. Not so deep and penetrating and infectious. I wanted desperately to remember my past. My real past. But the more I thought about it, the further it got away from me.
I slid the new dress on and braided my hair over my shoulder and out of the way before quietly leaving the bathing room and heading down the hall to my bedroom. I knew being alone would allow so many voices in, but I also didn’t feel fit to be around anyone at the moment. I slid into the room, locked the door behind me, and curled under the blankets of my bed.
I wished Petris was there.
Of everyone in that palace, he had treated me with the most respect. The most humanity. And even if I had nothing to say to him, the memory of his body curled against mine urged me to close my eyes. Slowly, I drifted, losing myself to exhaustion.
I rose from my bed and curled my legs beneath me, feeling exposed and cold despite the layers of blankets. I was starting to sense a difference in the times of day even if there wasn’t a sun. There was a certain stillness to the nighttime hours and I was feeling it at the moment. I woke up much too early and wanted to go back to sleep, but the shadows were creeping in on me like my madness demon knew I’d shed blood and it smelled it on me. The darkness that always haunted me was reminded I existed and now it was taunting me, proud and vicious.
I felt cornered despite the size of my room. I felt like there were hands reaching out from every dark corner where I couldn’t see. From under my bed. From behind the curtains.
I killed Father Eli. I did it out of wrath and I did it without thinking, but after the fact, I hoped it would alleviate some of the pressure I was feeling over the years. A pressure to be a certain way. To let foreign hands shape me and dictate my thoughts. My emotions. My everything.
It hadn’t. I was glad he was gone, but it didn’t heal the wound he’d opened up. Not by a long shot.
Standing, I headed for my bedroom door, eager to get some air. My mind and body were too restless to stay in one place if I could not go back to sleep. When I opened the door, a tall, masked figure was looking down at me, hand poised in a loose fist by his head like he had been about to knock.
Petris.
I knew I wanted to see him. I didn’t know how badly until he was standing in front of me.
