Days of Blood & Starlight(70)

She wondered now: What if Akiva had never come to Loramendi, with his beautiful, startling talk—love is an element—his soft touch and sweet magic, his heat and humor and his firelight eyes, if she had never have known any suitor but the Wolf?

Had she been such a pliant thing that she would have let herself be taken by him, tasted and claimed? She wished she could believe that she would have awakened to her foolishness even without Akiva’s coming, but her shame would not subside. She might have cringed at Thiago’s touch and shaken herself awake, but… she knew that she would most likely have let the tide carry her along until it was too late.

Well. Her people would still be alive if she had. What was her own happiness compared to that?

She reached the river and slipped down to the bouldered place on its bank where she could sit hidden from view from the kasbah. She kicked off her shoes, put her feet on the cold-splashed stones, and watched the reflection of the stars pull into long, dancing streaks on the moving surface of the water. The scope of that glittering sky had a way of making her feel so small—minuscule, insignificant—and she realized she was relishing that feeling as a way of relieving herself of the pressure to do something.

After all, what can I do?

Really: What? The chimaera were loyal to Thiago, and Thiago would never compromise.

What, Karou wondered, would Brimstone do?

Her longing for him in this moment was so profound that it made her slip into hope—that malingering, wretched hope that he was not truly gone. She let herself imagine, just for a moment: If Brimstone were here, what would be different?

One thing, at least. I would be loved.

“Karou.”

It was only a whisper, but she jumped at the sound of her name. Who—? She saw no one, she had heard no approach. Only…

A draft of heat.

A drift of sparks.

Oh god. No.

And then like a dropped veil, his glamour vanished and he was before her.

Akiva.

Light coursed through Karou and darkness chased it—burning through her, chilling her, shimmer and shadow, ice and fire, blood and starlight, rushing, roaring, filling her. Shock and disbelief. And rancor.

And rage.

And she was on her feet. Her fists were clenched, her fists were stones, so tightly clenched, her whole body was taut with rage at the sight of the angel, every sinew stretched and her skin drawn tight so she felt the blood in her temples, pounding, and the fury in her fists, pulsing, and in her closed palms: the scald. Her hamsas burned and she was opening her hands and lifting them and Akiva did not defend himself.

When the magic of the marks hit him, he lowered his head and endured it.

Magic poured off Karou, and Akiva shook under the onslaught but didn’t move—not away, not toward—and Karou knew that she could kill him. She’d wished she’d done it before and here he was to give her another chance. Why else would he be here—why else?—and what else could she do but kill him?—there was nothing else—after what he had done—after what he had done—after what he had done—but… how could she kill Akiva?

How could she not?

Hadn’t he done enough without forcing yet another impossible choice on her? Why was he here?

He dropped to his knees, and the air between them rippled with Karou’s crippling magic and with memory. The day of her death, this is what she had seen, this: Akiva on his knees, sick with the weight of this same magic coursing off Thiago’s soldiers, and he had struggled to hold his head up and look at her—just like this—with horror and despair and love—and she had wanted more than she had ever wanted anything to go to him and hold him, whisper to him that she loved him and was going to save him, but she couldn’t, not then, and she couldn’t now, not because of shackles or pinions or the executioner’s ax but because he was the enemy. He had proven it beyond any horror she would ever have believed, beyond any betrayal she could ever have dreamed, and he could never be forgiven, not ever.

But… then… her hands fell to her sides.

Why? She hadn’t meant to drop them. Her hamsas were hot against her own thighs and her breath was ragged and coming in gasps and she couldn’t make herself raise her hands back up. Akiva was shaking and racked with magic, and the pair of them were again in the eye of a storm of misery—their world was a storm of misery and they were caught in its center, in the deceptive stillness that had allowed them to forget, once upon a time, that all around them was a stinging whirl of hatred that would catch them—it was everywhere and everything and they’d been fools to think they could leave their small safe place and not be caught in that vortex like every other living creature in Eretz.

But they had learned, hadn’t they?

Karou’s gasps were in danger of becoming sobs, and her legs were trembling. She wanted to drop to her knees, too, but she couldn’t. It would be as good as extending a hand to him. She stood over him. Her palms were still hot with magic, but she kept them at her sides.

“I thought you were dead.” Akiva’s voice was choked. “And… I wanted… to die, too.”

“Why didn’t you?” Karou’s face was hot and wet and she was ashamed of her tears and ashamed that she still hadn’t been able to kill him. What was wrong with her, that even now she couldn’t avenge her people?

Akiva lifted himself up off his hands, pushed back upright. He looked wrung out, pale and shaken and sick, the whites of his eyes red as they had been long ago. “It would have been too easy,” he said. “I don’t deserve peace.”