loved me…but there was just something within me that was afraid to touch anyone else. My mother was the only one I’d allowed to hug me so far.
Sadness and hurt flashed through Kiyo’s eyes at my rejection, but he seemed to understand. Awkwardly, he simply gave me a soft touch on the arm, which I allowed with only a slight flinch. We both sat down-after I’d fetched coffee-and he drank me in with those intense eyes, like he hadn’t seen me in years. Of course, these last two weeks or so had certainly felt like years to me, so perhaps that wasn’t such a bad comparison.
“How are you?” he asked. “I’ve missed you so much. I’ve been so worried.”
“I’m okay. I was in good hands.”
“How’s your shoulder?”
I gave it a slight shrug. “Stiff. But mending. I could probably go over to the Otherworld and get someone to patch it right up.”
His face instantly darkened. “I think you need to stay away from there for a while.”
“Jesus Christ. Not you too. I’m that land’s ruler. I have to go back.” A flash of the dream came back to me. It was more than some subconscious musing, I knew. The Thorn Land and I were tied. We couldn’t stay apart. I had known that being away from it would cause it to die, and now I was realizing that I might die without it as well.
“There has to be a way. I was talking to Maiwenn, and she’s going to look into it. Surely, somewhere in the pages of their history, someone gave up their kingdom without dying.”
“Is that a good idea?” I asked. “Me giving it up?”
“Of course,” he said, shocked. “You’ve never wanted it. You’ve said so a hundred times. It’d be better for everyone. The next person bound to the land probably wouldn’t transform it into a desert. You’d be free, able to go on with your life here, free of the magic….”
I narrowed my eyes. “I’ll never be free of that either.”
“Yeah,” he agreed, stiffness in his voice, “but there’ll be less temptation outside of the Otherworld. Why the hell didn’t you tell me you were learning all that stuff?”
“I did tell you! I told you about Dorian sending Ysabel.”
“What I saw you do in there…that was nothing like what you said she taught you.”
“It happened fast…I didn’t realize it half the time myself, and I didn’t want to upset you.”
“No one learns that fast,” he muttered. I remembered Shaya’s words. Storm King did.
“Well, I’m apparently not all-powerful. I lost hold of Volusian during that ordeal. He didn’t come when I called.”
“Oh. I thought you knew.”
“Knew what?”
“He’s bound to Dorian now.”
I stared for several seconds. “Oh my God. I thought that might happen…”
Kiyo stared back. “You did? Then why the hell did you send him to Dorian? Why not send him to warn me?”
“For exactly that reason! If Volusian broke from my control, I knew Dorian could probably bind him.”
“I suppose. But I feel like you’ve just given Dorian a nuclear warhead.”
I didn’t say it, but I had a feeling Kiyo was more upset that it was Dorian I’d contacted for help and not him.
“And that’s how you found me, right? Volusian told Dorian, who then told you and Roland?” I’d heard it from Roland but wanted to hear it again.
Kiyo nodded. “We’d been looking for you as soon as you disappeared after the battle. None of us had a clue what had happened. We got Roland involved a few days later to help with a hunt in this world, but none of us…” He shook his head. “None of us had any idea that that’s what had happened to you.”
Awkward silence fell, each of us thinking about the things neither of us would give voice to. My imprisonment. My rape. I lowered my eyes, playing with the edge of the coffee cup. The memories were like a rollercoaster. Sometimes they’d sink way down low into the bottom of my mind. Other times, they’d flare up sharply, pushing to the forefront of my mind and unleashing all the dizzying, horrible feelings of fear, violation, and helplessness that ordeal had caused.
I suddenly looked up sharply and met Kiyo square in the eyes. “Why didn’t you let me kill Leith when I had the chance?” With a shiver, I remembered the vengeance burning within me and the storm swirling around me.
The question clearly caught Kiyo off-guard. “What? You know why. Because of the political fallout…because you’re not the kind of person given to revenge….”
“Aren’t I?” I demanded. I was suddenly angry at him, and it occurred to me right then that I’d been suppressing a lot of it this whole week. “You have no right to talk about when revenge is right. You didn’t go through what I did.”
“I know,” he said, trying to be gentle. “I don’t doubt he deserved a horrible punishment. I can only imagine how it was for you-”
“No. There is no way you can imagine.”
“It’s more than just revenge, though. Do you know what’s happened in the wake of this? Katrice is massing her armies, Eugenie. The monarchs haven’t had an all-out war in ages. This could get very bad. People are going to die. I wanted to save you from that…wanted to save you from being her target.”
“Alright. Then why didn’t you kill him?”
Dead silence.
“What?” Kiyo exclaimed at last.
I never lowered my gaze, astonished at the coldness in my voice. “You said he deserved a horrible punishment.”
“Yeah, imprisonment or-”
“Imprisonment? Are you crazy? He’s a prince. We couldn’t have kept him without the same ‘political fallout.’ He would have walked.”
“Going to war is worse, believe it or not.”
“Then you still should have killed him,” I repeated. “Everyone keeps going on about how you’re ‘just’ a kitsune. You aren’t technically aligned with anyone. Maybe she would have put a hit out on you, but she wouldn’t have gone to war against you alone.”
Kiyo’s eyes were wide. “Are you listening to yourself? This is insane! You’re condemning me for not killing a man that was on his knees.”
“That man did horrible, awful things. He didn’t deserve to walk away unpunished.”
Kiyo’s shock had given away to anger. “I can’t believe you’re holding me responsible for this. And you know what? This is the magic talking. The more of it you use, the more it changes you. This is why you need to stay away from the Otherworld! For your own protection. Before you turn into someone you don’t want to be.”
“Oh, now you want to protect me! Look, you of all people should understand. I can’t stay away from the Otherworld. I can’t stay away from this world. I don’t belong anywhere! And yet…I belong everywhere. There’s no good fit for me. I’m split, Kiyo. I thought you’d get that. You told me before that you did. You’re the same.”
“It…it’s different somehow.”
“That’s not good enough. You’re being a hypocrite,” I exclaimed. “You make decisions for both of us based on what’s convenient at any given time. You think you can handle it one way but that I can’t. That’s not fair. You can’t make different rules for each of us.”
“I’m trying to protect you,” he repeated.
“You don’t think I’m strong enough to handle the things you can?”
He held up his hands. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m the one who isn’t strong enough to make the tough decisions.”
“Dorian is.” It was out before I could stop it.
Dead silence, round two, descended on us.
Kiyo finished his coffee. “I see. So that’s what this is really about.” He stared around, taking in the house and the cats sprawled everywhere. “Maybe…maybe it’s time I pack up my things.”
I crossed my arms. “I think that’s a good idea.”
