Page 490 of Shadowblood Souls
Riva keeps her head above the water. Her braid trails behind her as she glides from one end of the pool to the other and then lingers by the wall.
As I drift over to join her, she cocks her head at me. “You wanted to talk about something.”
Our manacles are well under the water, but she pitches her voice low all the same. I match her volume. “It’s more that I wanted toshowyou something. But I have to explain first.”
She lifts one eyebrow as if to say,Go on.
I can’t resist tucking one arm around her bare waist. My intended goal remains at the front of my mind, but when I’m this close to her—and this close to being naked—it’s impossible to totally ignore the desire clamoring inside me.
Those heady sensations are the only feelings the guardians couldn’t condition out of me. The ones that helped me start to recover every other emotion I’ve lost.
Just by being here, by believing in me enough to let me get this close, Riva has grounded me. Brought me back at least partway to the guy I should have been.
Please, let me guide her back too.
“You’re all mixed up inside,” I say quietly. “Which totally makes sense. You don’t know how to think about anything you’ve experienced. But before Balthazar told you anything, before he put those doubts in your head—that person is who you are at your core. Whether the genetic ties affected you or not, whether he had some kind of influence over you even before, it’d be wrapped into your reactions without you knowing.”
Riva studies me, her damp eyelashes darkly black around her bright eyes. “Where are you going with this?”
The corner of my mouth crooks upward. “First, I just want you to confirm that you agree with what I’m saying. You couldn’t have been hiding or suppressing Balthazar’s influence before you had any idea it was there, right?”
She gives a slight shrug. “I guess that makes sense. But it’s not like I can tell by looking back. At the time, any decisions I made seemed totally mine, totally… true. Because I had no idea I should question myself.”
“Okay. And we can tell you how it looked like to us, Andreas can even let you see from the outside… but I can remind you how you actually felt inside yourself, in the moment.”
Riva blinks at me, confusion giving way to a dawning understanding. “You want to project emotions into my mind—how you sensed I was feeling before.”
I bow my head closer to hers. “Yeah. I—I’ve been incredibly aware of your inner state from the moment we were in the same building together again. And a lot of that time, I wasn’t feelinganythingmyself to cloud my perception. I can show you what motivated you to stand up to Clancy, how you reacted to us and to the younger shadowbloods… All those innate reactions that weren’t really under your control. Nothing could be truer than that.”
Riva stays silent for a moment. She swallows audibly. “All right.”
A flicker of fear reaches me alongside her acceptance. I stroke my thumb over her skin through the water. “Are you worried you’ll notice something that means youwereinfluenced by your connection to Balthazar somehow?”
“I mean, it’s possible. Maybe there were feelings I wasn’t even aware of nudging me in one direction or another.” She raises her hand briefly to rub her forehead before dunking it back beneath the surface of the pool. “But I need to know either way.”
That’s the woman I know. The woman who’ll defy even her own deepest fears to make sure she’s on the right path.
The urge grips me to draw her even nearer and capture her mouth with mine, butIshouldn’t be distracting her from our main purpose here either.
Inhaling slowly, I let my mind slip back to all the times Riva’s feelings struck me most forcefully. All the pangs of emotion that I locked away in my memories like little treasures, proof that she was back with me even if I didn’t know how to really reach her.
“When you were going through the facility to break out the younger shadowbloods there,” I murmur, and dredge up the intrepid determination that spurred her onward. With a nudge of my mind, it flows out of me into her.
But I don’t edit it to try to placate her. I leave in the tremors of anxiety and uncertainty, the resistance before she let loose her shriek.
She should have the chance to evaluate the full picture and make of it what she will. In my mind, the hesitations only make her commitment shine brighter.
Riva stands perfectly still in the water in front of me, taking it in. Her chest gives a slight hitch, but that’s her only external response.
I can’t pay attention to her current internal state while I’m concentrating on the past, but she’s the only one who can grapple with whatever she’s feeling now.
I shift to another moment, a little later. “When Clancy first explained his supposed goals to you, and you found out I was alive.”
Anger and frustration, shock and confusion, and woven through it all a tiny thread of hope that gleamed brighter with her early glimpses of the island.
Moment after moment, I lead her through her inner journey. The fury and betrayal when she confronted Clancy afterrealizing his ulterior motives for their first mission. Her fierce protectiveness of Zian when our captor triggered his trauma. The mix of concern and pride she felt around the younger shadowbloods.
The rush of resolve when she launched into our first escape from the island. The compassion she offered me after we were recaptured. Her bittersweet farewell to the dreams Clancy claimed he was offering us and the hardening of her emotions when she killed him.
