House of Sand and Secrets (Books of Oreyn #2)(39)

I don’t want Jannik, do I? So why am I jealous of the way he has allowed himself to be ensnared by Isidro? Does Jannik turn to him because I am too awful a person to even consider? What, after all, do I have to offer? I can draw a list of my flaws: I am cold, I am fickle, there is blood on my hands. I am a coward. How many people suffered and died because I didn’t choose to let myself die in my brother’s place? I can tell myself all the lies I want – about how everything was Dash’s fault, and that he’s the one to blame. But he would never have had a War-Singer in his palm to do with what he wanted if I hadn’t run away. If I hadn’t thought myself in love with him.

What kind of desperate shallow little fool is so easy to manipulate?

My brother’s ghost laughs.

Keep quiet.

What right do I have to be angry if Jannik chooses to take his needs and affections elsewhere? After all, when we arrived in MallenIve I made it plain that Jannik and I would lead separate lives. He would have his space and I mine. We could do what we wanted provided we kept our affairs decorously under wraps. There could be no more hint of scandal associated with the Pelim name.

I assumed he took Hobs, and somehow that didn’t hurt.

So why this?

Perhaps I am scared of him falling in love.

We are halfway through the city now, and we have not spoken. The memory of Jannik and Isidro kissing under the pergola, wreathed in the shadows of vines, has snared itself in my head and I cannot shake it loose. “Harun does not like you,” I say. Keep quiet.

Jannik starts then flicks his fingers across the edges of the seat. He’s carefully keeping himself from looking directly at me, focusing rather on his faithless hands. “So it seems.”

It’s too late now. Speaking when I should have stayed silent is like tipping over a bottle of ink. There’s no way to mop up the spreading stain, to put the ink away and pretend no mess was made. “Such a very personal dislike.”

This makes him pause and glance up. “What do you know?” He isn’t angry or shocked. The resignation colours his voice ivory and grey like a calm sea in winter.

“A little.” A sharp pain passes through my chest, and I suck in a quick breath. I hadn’t expected to feel so much hurt. “Enough.”

He looks at me for a long time and for a change, his eyes are uncovered. It doesn’t feel naked or vulnerable, and I realize he’s finally learned to cut me off. “I was discreet.”

Here is the truth, admitted out loud and not just a whispering of offerings and promises overheard in the night. I’m falling down a vast emptiness, and all around me is darkness and a cold heat. I am swallowed by jealousy. “He’s–” The words seem to be impossible to find, and I talk slowly, softly. My voice is made faint by the distance between us. We are a hand-span apart. We are worlds away.

Keep quiet. Stop talking. “Married.”

Jannik shrugs. “So, apparently, are we.”

But they’re different, I want to shout at him. They’re together, properly. Not like us. We have our own rooms, separate lives that intersect only at fixed points in the day. Did he want love so much that he would break others to take it – is he like me – cruel and heartless?

I can’t even ask Jannik why he chose the way he did. Isidro is beautiful and broken, trapped in that mausoleum of a house with the drunkard Harun as his only company. I picture again their hands on each other, their white skins in the darkness, hair brushing cheeks, painting shadows. My fingers clench in the folds of my dress. How far did it go?

“Did you feed off him?” Once the words are said, I can’t believe I asked it. Especially now that I understand the intimacy that repeated act implies. No wonder Harun appears to be going insane – if he feels each second-hand kiss, if he knows the taste of Jannik’s skin through a filtered desire.

Even Jannik looks pained. “No. Of course not.”

I don’t believe him. I want to believe him. “You fed off me once.” Off Dash too, although some last vestige of empathy makes me keep this weapon sheathed. Perhaps I can start a new list, one detailing my good points – “Not That Cruel” could be at the top of it.

The white eyelids slide across. Good. This is a Jannik I can deal with. Off-balance, confused. His voice betrays nothing more. “So I did. Are you offering again?”

“Of course not!”

He smiles. “Then why bring it up?”

Why indeed. His face is a pale curve in the interior gloom of the carriage, and I study him. Not as pretty as the damnable Isidro, but he has a charm that is his own. He takes a deep breath, and I think he is about to tell me something important. Something perhaps that I do not want to hear. I want to stop him, and I hold up one hand. Keep quiet.

He leans forward; his own hand coming up as if to meet mine, and I still, my breathing rapid and nervous. “It’s skew,” he says.

“What?”

He gestures again. “Your necklace. It’s crooked.”

“Oh.” I drop my hand.

I can feel it now, how the weight of it is wrong and the pendant has worked to the left. Off-balance. “Straighten it.”

He blinks.

Heat surges under my skin, embarrassment and fear and longing and hatred. I don’t even know who it is I hate. Him? Isidro? Myself? My skin is sticky and prickly and now I want to vomit.