Reign of the Fallen (Reign of the Fallen #1)(33)

My hand is on the door when he says roughly, “Odessa. Wait.”

I turn, and he drops his arms to his sides. I’ve never seen him like this, standing with his head bowed, his whole body shivering slightly as he struggles to raise his eyes to mine. Looking like I could wound him with a single word.

After a long and heavy moment of silence, he murmurs, “I miss him, too.”

“I know.” I have a strange urge to brush his hair out of his face. And maybe it’s the soothing potion wearing off, but I’m shaking as I reach up. My hand gets lost on the way to his hair, sliding over the roughness of his cheek and cupping the back of his neck.

We stare at each other, frozen like that until I find my voice. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with—”

“The same thing that’s wrong with me,” he growls as he grabs me by the waist and pulls me against him.

Together, we fall onto the bed. He searches for my lips for a hopeful moment, nuzzling my neck, but I shake my head even as I cling to him. He wraps his arms around me, clutching me against his chest as he clumsily strokes my hair with his bloodied hand.

We douse the torchlight, and Jax groans a little as I turn and press my back against his chest. “No,” I whisper as his straying fingers curl around the hem of my snug tunic. He returns his hands to holding me.

This isn’t love. I know this. But in Jax’s arms, I don’t feel completely alone. I can breathe better with his weight pressing against my back, with my legs twined around his, our hot skin separated only by the thin layer of our necromancer’s uniforms. I wrap my body in his copper skin stretched over hard muscle, wearing him like a shield against the rest of the world, and it makes the thought of living bearable again.

This isn’t love. This is just two people, shaking and sobbing together in the semidark, breathing hard in each other’s ears as we try to forget our worst nightmares.

This is survival.

*

I’m not sure how I got back to my room last night. All I know is that the noon sun hurts my eyes, and Princess Valoria looks like a fiery spirit silhouetted against the merciless blaze.

“Get up,” she says cheerily, like she’s talking to a child or a puppy. She pulls back my blankets and wrinkles her nose. “What’s that awful smell? Oh, Sparrow. That’s it. You’re coming with me.” She gives my hand a firm tug.

I bolt upright, suck in a breath, and wrap the sheets around me like a cloak to hide my nakedness before I realize I’m still wearing my uniform.

“What’re you doing here?” I demand groggily, running a hand through my tangled hair and getting my fingers stuck halfway down.

Valoria frowns, her doe-brown eyes shining behind her glasses. “I came to see how you were faring. And as it seems you’re in dire need of a bath, I’m here to escort you to the bathing house. You can use my private chamber, even.”

“Thanks.” I flop back down on the bed and pull the quilt over my head. “But no.”

“You can’t stay in here forever, Odessa,” Valoria says gently. “When my father died, I thought I’d hide away for good. But everyone needs to eat and sleep and”—she pauses to cough—“bathe once in a while. It gets easier as the days pass. You’ll see. One morning after he was gone, I realized the sun was still shining without him. And since I was still here, I figured I’d make myself useful to other Karthians who were missing a leg like he was. That’s how I started working on my first invention.”

I shake my head under the quilt. Her words make my stomach churn, so I poke an arm out of bed to feel around for the latest vial of potion Danial left me.

But Valoria grabs my hand and gives it a firm tug, surprising me again with her strength.

“Just go. Please.” I roll over, putting my back to the princess. “There’s nothing you can do, Valoria. I’m not one of your inventions. I’m broken, part of me is missing, and you can’t fix me with copper wires or a piece of string.”

For a highborn lady of fine breeding, Valoria’s sigh is a lot like a growl. She strips off my quilt and grabs me by the shoulders.

“Your mother brought you into this world as a whole person,” the princess huffs, pulling so hard that I slide to the edge of the bed. “And last I checked, you still are one. No matter what or who you’ve lost. Now get”—she jerks on my arms—“up!”

I cling to the bed, and Valoria stumbles backward alone.

“Fine.” She straightens, smoothing her rose-patterned gown. “You win today. But I’m coming back, same time tomorrow. And I’ll bring extra muscle if need be.”

“By Vaia’s grace, why?”

“Because that’s what friends do.” She turns on her heel and strides from the room.

Once she slams the door, I drain a vial of potion in a huge gulp. I don’t know what the princess expected. I can’t be anything to anyone right now, which she’d know if she’d bothered to listen to me. I hurl the empty potion vial at the wall and watch it shatter.





XI




The bells on the apothecary door jingle merrily, making my head throb as I step inside. Worse than the noise is the smell, which is somewhere between a musty attic and a healer’s closet full of pungent herbs. Mysterious spicy fumes leak from spilled bottles.