Tric stomped and kicked, finally booted the fur back into the hearth, where it curled up and blackened. With another curse, Mia dashed the water across the smoldering floorboards. And though it seethed and spat and struggled, the last of the fire drowned beneath the flood.
Black smoke and sudden silence filled the room. Mia’s heart was thumping in her chest as she checked her bare skin and hair for burns. Fear rushing in to replace the lust she’d burned so brightly with only seconds before …
“ARE YOU ALL RIGHT?” Tric asked, reaching for her, eyes full of concern.
“I’m fine,” she said, backing away. “Just singed.”
“MIA, I…”
She felt suddenly cold. Aware that she was half-naked. A clarity, cool and crystalline, breaking through the rush of desire. Stooping, she grabbed her tumbled greatcoat and threw it around her shoulders. Pulled it tight against the chill. Her pulse was thunder. Her legs were shaking.
“I think you’d best go,” she said.
“MIA, TELL ME YOU DON’T LOVE ME,” he said, stepping toward her.
“Tric, don’t…”
“TELL ME YOU DON’T WANT ME.”
“I can’t!” she snarled, stepping farther back. “Because I do! But there’s a few moments of right in that, followed by a whole lifetime of wrong.” Mia shook her head, amazed to feel tears burning in her eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry things turned out the way they did. I’m sorry we don’t all get what we want. Because I want you, Tric, Goddess help me, I do. But truth is, as much as I want to have you now, I want to keep her more.”
He took another step toward her, and she, another step away. He reached out to her and she looked into his eyes and saw the agony there. Saw how unfair and fucking cruel this whole tale was. She wanted to scream it. Curse the gods. Curse the life and the fate that had brought her to this moment, this awful choice. Because no matter what she did or how she chose, someone she loved was going to get hurt.
I am fucking poison, do you see that?
I am cancer …
Someone always gets hurt.
“I’m sorry,” she said again. “But we can’t do this. I can’t do this. She means too much to me.”
“… YOU DO LOVE HER, THEN,” he whispered.
“I think…”
Mia met his eyes, tears welling in her own.
“I think I do.”
His hand fell to his side. His gaze to the floor. His shoulders slumped and his legs shook and she could almost see the heart in his chest shattering. Cleaved right in two. And her accursed hand on the blade. He closed his eyes tight, jaw clenched, shaking his head. But a single traitorous tear, black as night, still welled in his lashes. Slipping down his cheek, it trailed along the line of his dimple to his chin. Mia found herself crying, too, stepping forward with a soft murmur of pity. Wanting to make it better, to take his hurt away, to somehow make it all right.
“Don’t cry,” she said, fingertips brushing his cheek. “Please don’t cry.”
He pulled back from her touch like it burned him. Turned and walked away without a word. Not storming or stomping, not slamming the door behind him. It somehow would’ve been better if he were furious with her. But instead, he left calmly, quiet as the dark. The question of where they stood now and what might come between them, unanswered.
Mia was sure she could hear the flames in the hearth laughing at her.
She looked down at the fingers that had brushed his tear away.
Black like his eyes.
Like the night.
Like the heart in her fucking chest.
She slumped down before the hateful fire. Watching the tongues of flame consume everything before them, smoke and ashes the remainder.
Wondering if that’s what she was.
If that was all that would be left when this was done.
CHAPTER 28
HATRED
“I don’t know what the ’byss you’re worried about.”
Ulfr Sigursson lowered his spyglass and leaned forward over the railing, peering into the waters below. The wind at their back was brisk, the seas crested with whitecaps, pushing them onward. Black Banshee cut through the waters like an arrow from a master’s bow, straight and smooth toward a beautiful horizon.
“Let’s hope you don’t find out,” Mia replied.
They were two turns into the Sea of Sorrows, and the Ladies of Storms and Oceans hadn’t raised their heads since they set off from Amai. Black Banshee had put out into the blue with an appropriate level of fanfare—many of Mia’s “subjects” had gathered to see her off on