Lakesedge (World at the Lake's Edge #1)(3)

I have to do something. She’s going to burn him until his hands are clean. She’ll keep hurting him, unless I make her stop.

On the table is a glass idol, a candle burning at the center. I snatch it up and throw it—hard—onto the floor. It shatters into a jagged star. The sound stills the air.

Mother goes pale and her mouth draws into a sharp, furious line. Incandescent anger sparks through her eyes as she steps over the glass and grabs my wrist. Her fingers bite into my arm, marking fresh bruises over ones left from the last time she hurt me. I let the pain wash over me, glad for it, glad that it’s me and not Arien.

She wrenches me toward the floor. “Kneel down.”

“What—?”

“Kneel. Down.”

I look at the jagged glass, the splattered wax, the smoke from the ruined candle. Arien shakes his head, his expression helpless and furious all at once. There are tears on his cheeks, and his burned fingers are tucked into a twist of his sleeve.

“Mother, stop!” He falters, eyeing the candles, steeling himself to reach back into the flames again. “I’ll do it, I’ll do it.”

How can Mother think that hurting him, hurting me, will keep us safe? At this moment, if there’s anything we need to be saved from it’s not the Lord Under. Not the dark. It’s her.

I feel as fractured and ruined as the shattered glass beneath our feet. But I keep my gaze fixed on Mother’s face. Before she can speak again, before Arien can move, I kneel down. One knee, then the other.

The first cut is a bright shock. I put my hands on the floor, trying not to make a sound as I hover above the shards.

I can’t do this.

I have to.

The glass pierces my knees with a hideous pain that stings all over: my fingertips, my scalp, the soles of my feet. I flinch, but some scrap of pride holds me still. Arien is safe—safe from the candles, from being locked in the dark, from everything. For now.

Mother’s hurt us before, but never like this.

She crouches down and cups her hand against my cheek, her palm incongruously gentle over the place where she hit me. “I’m trying to protect him, Violeta. I’m trying to protect you.”

Her expression and her voice are soft, as though she’s truly sorry to see me like this. And there’s a horrible, treacherous part of me that wants to lean against her hand, to let her comfort me. Tears prickle my eyes, but I blink them away. I stare at Mother, clench my teeth and let more of the glass cut deeper into my knees.

She watches me, unmoving, then she stands up and brushes her hands over her skirts. She crosses the kitchen, and her steps go hollowly along the hall, back to her room. The latch scrapes as she locks the door closed.

Once we’re alone, Arien extinguishes the altar candles with a swift breath. Smoke wisps the air. He helps me move away from the shards, and I curl up on the floor near the hearth with my back against the wall. The room smells bittersweet from the pot on the stove, full of the cherry preserves I’ve made. On the shelf above are empty jars, ready to be filled once the preserves cool, our contribution for the village tithe tomorrow.

Arien crouches beside me. He’s uncertain, like he wants to touch me but he’s afraid. The dark has faded from his eyes now. They’re the same silver gray as my own. “Leta, I’m sorry,” he says in a rush. “I should have stopped her. I should—”

I fold back the hem of my nightdress. “Can you get me a cloth?”

While he’s gone, I bend forward to see the cuts. I take a breath and begin to pick out the splinters embedded in my skin. I put the shards one by one onto the floor. Through the blood, the glass shines, a grim mirror to my collection of polished stones.

Arien brings me some scraps of linen. He takes the kettle from the back of the stove and fills a bowl with warm water and salt. He dampens a cloth and presses it to my knee. It quickly turns crimson and his forehead creases with a worried frown. He rinses the cloth, folds it over to cover the stain, and presses it down again.

I sit very still as he wipes away the blood. Outside the kitchen window, the leaves of the apple tree shift and shiver like splotches of paint against the gloomy night sky, black over black. I feel so cold, even though it’s hot beside the stove, with warmth radiating from the banked embers.

A thought tugs, unwelcome. I wish for something stronger than me, strong enough to take away all my fear and my hurt. Something immovable, like an enormous tree that will scratch my cheek with rough bark as I lean against its trunk.

I want my mother. I want my father.

I remember my father’s large hand, warm around mine. His fingers, careful, as they swept my hair back from my forehead. My mother humming to Arien as he slept in his cradle.

I miss them with a terrible ache.

But now there is only me, numb and sad and scoured clear, like the windswept mud after a storm. And if I’m not strong enough to protect Arien, then nobody will.

Arien starts to wrap two longer strips of cloth around my knees, bandaging the cuts.

“Don’t fight her again.” His voice is small in the quiet of the room. “It only makes things worse.”

I take his hand and gently inspect his fingers. They’re blistered with raised, pale welts. I blow a soft breath over his skin and he manages a faint smile. “I’ll not let her hurt you, Arien. Not like this. Not at all. It doesn’t matter what she does to me.”