“You…” I’m almost afraid to ask. “Have you ever lost control, then? Hurt someone with your power unintentionally?”
He nods curtly, lips pressed in a thin line, but does not offer any further explanation. Instead, he pushes to his feet and begins to pace along the footboard of the bed.
I force out the question. “When?”
“A long time ago.”
“What happened?”
His head shakes—one sharp jerk of rejection. He appears to be battling inwardly, his hands clenched to tight fists. I wonder how near the surface his fire burns; how close that inferno is to breaking free at any given moment.
For a fraught stretch of time, I stare at him, summoning my courage to speak. “When I was at the Acrine Hold with Soren—”
A muscle leaps in Penn’s cheek.
The fire flares in the grate.
I hurry on before I lose my nerve. “He implied that…”
“Thatwhat?”
“That you are somehow responsible for Enid’s death.”
Penn’s stride falters—not quite a stumble, but nearly. Thick silence settles, only the sound of his booted feet against thefloorboards to disturb it as he resumes pacing. When he finally speaks, it is with a coarse rasp of self-loathing that makes my heart contract.
“What happened with Enid was the greatest tragedy of my life. And the greatest shame.”
I dare not speak.
“She was so fragile. So sheltered. For a girl like her—a girl who had spent her life under lock and key, hidden away from the atrocities of the world—to witness what she did, to live through the horror she suffered…Her family slaughtered, her home destroyed…” He swallows roughly, the apple bobbing in the broad column of his throat. “She was not equipped to deal with it. It broke something inside her. Cracked her foundation to irreparable pieces. And those cracks…they allowed her power to seep out in unpredictable ways. They made her unstable. Not only emotionally.Elementally.”
I suck in a breath.
“I thought bringing her here would help save her. I thought I could fix the damage that had been wrought. That, together, Soren and I might somehow repair the parts of her that were shattered, using our powers to keep hers in check. To soothe the raging wind within her before it swept her away completely.” He pauses. “But I was wrong. Gravely wrong. And it was Enid who paid the price for my miscalculations. Paid with her life.”
My fingers twist in the bedding, so tight my knuckles go white. “She…Then, she died because of…”
I break off, unable to ask the question. He nods an affirmation, equally unable to answer it.
She died because of him.
She died at his hands.
In the wake of my soul-deep exhaustion, the bond between us has flickered into numb silence. But I do not need a psychicconnection to know what he is feeling in this moment. The pain on his face is so sharp, so piercing, it makes my throat catch and my eyes smart. I want to fly across the room to him. To take away his agony any way I can. Yet, I know him well enough to realize any comfort I offer will be spurned.
And so I remain perfectly still, doing nothing to console him as he stands there, balanced on the sword’s edge of a particularly cutting part of his past, radiating shame and scorn in waves so thick they make it hard to draw breath. I force myself to hold his eyes, keeping my face free of the condemnation he seems to be waiting for.
He expects me to loathe him for this. To flinch back. To shy away. And there is a part of me that instinctively wants to do just that. But I push that part down, bury it deep. I match his gaze—unblinking, unflinching—until he is the one forced to glance away.
“Soren blamed me,” he says finally, staring at the red-veined wall. “Still blames me. He thought himself in love with her, you see. As if someone like him is even capable of love.”
“And you?” I ask, a tremble in my voice. “Were you in love with her?”
A biting, bitter scoff flies from his lips. “Who could not love a bird with a broken wing? Who could resist the urge to take her in, to set her bones, to keep her safe until she was strong enough to fly?”
My heart pangs in sympathy—and in something else, something I am both afraid and ashamed to feel. I chew my bottom lip, unable to say a word. I can see Penn’s face only in profile. It is carefully empty of emotion as he speaks.
“For a long time, I thought there was nothing I would not do, no length I would not go to, if only to undo it. To rewind that day. To bring her back. To make it right.” He sucks in a breath sodeep, his whole frame expands. “It is only lately, for the first time in seventy years, that I have felt my first bit of respite from those pointless longings. For if she were still here…you would not be.”