Page 104 of A Throne of Blood and Ice

Of course he can; he told me as much.

I remember everything.

“Did it still hurt when you woke up?” I mean his burns, whether his immortal flesh healed before he woke to the agony, but when the words slip out, they seem to take form in the stale air between us.

They’re a low grunt, and a soft scowl, and the patches of mismatched skin.

Of course, it still hurts.

The wound that will linger and fester, regardless of the smoothness of Nox’s skin.

“Not as much as I deserve,” is all he says before he returns to work.

When I pad my way over to him at the workbench, he doesn’t turn to acknowledge me.

“Please look at me,” I ask. Beg. Because he hasn’t yet, and I can’t bear it. Can’t bear for the last memory of his eyes to be the ones that didn’t belong to him.

His jaw bulges, as if he’s resisting turning toward me, and there’s something about his shame that stings all over. In my gut and my lungs and my throat and my soul, and I’d take his teeth in my neck before I’d take this.

But then his eyes settle upon me. They’re pale and hollow and utterly empty.

But they’re unmistakably Nox’s.

So I decide I’ll take them.

“Do you hate me?” The question slips out of my mouth, hangs in the stale air between us that refuses to budge.

A notch forms between his eyebrows. The vial doesn’t clatter when he sets it on the table.

“How could you even ask me that?” he asks, his voice as empty as his eyes.

A lump forms in my throat, and my vision begins to blur as tears sting at the rims of my eyelids. “Right. Of course you do. I didn’t mean to say you shouldn’t…I just…”

“Why would you think that I hate you?”

Confusion sweeps through me. “Because it’s my fault Gunter is gone. It’s my fault. It should’ve been me, not him. I was the one who was supposed to die.”

The muscles in Nox’s face go lax, and something like understanding coats his pale eyes, causing them to shimmer. “I don’t blame you, Blaise. I’m the one who killed him. I’m the one who…” He swallows, then places both hands on the counter and leans over it, steadying himself as he lets out a strained exhale. “You need to get away from me.”

This time, it’s not hurt that punctures my throat. Just sorrow. Sorrow for my friend. So I steel myself and grind my bare heels into the cold stone floor and say, “I’d rather not.”

His sharp exhale straddles the line between a laugh and a scoff. “I’m going to hurt you.”

I shrug, then slip my hand into his. “If you do, I’ll just burn you again.”

The exasperation that lines his eyes is the closest thing to looking like Nox that I’ve seen yet, so I sidle up next to him and tuck myself between him and the workbench, pressing my cheek to his chest.

At first he goes rigid and his arms remain plastered to the counter, pinning me against it.

But then he starts to shake.

“Please. Let me be here for you,” I beg.

I give him a gentle squeeze, and his warm hands respond in turn, sliding up my back and pulling me close.

He doesn’t bury his face into my neck. He just sets his chin atop my head and shakes for a good long while, tearless sobs convulsing his chest.

We’ve been silent for what feels like hours when he finally says, “How are you not afraid of me?”

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