By the time she finished recounting her tale, River had drawn her knees up to her chest. She hugged them, resting her chin in the gap between them, and stared at the blanket. The color green had never been so interesting.
“They both died, and it was my fault,” she whispered, her voice cracking on the last word. The ache in her heart was back, and she’d had to keep taking breaks to reinforce the walls of her dam. “I had one job: keep them alive. And I didn’t do that. I failed them.”
She’d reached that heart-stopping conclusion yesterday when she declared Mrs. Valois’s time of death. It had been the last straw, the final attack that destroyed her defenses.
For years, River had been afraid of failing. She’d worked so hard at school to be the best, learned every surgical technique, and studied every book she could get her hands on to avoid being a failure.
And now, two people were dead because of her.
A sharp inhale of breath came from beside her, but she didn’t look up. She couldn’t. It was cowardly, but she wasn’t ready to see the disappointment she was certain was reflected in Nikhail’s eyes.
River wasn’t sure how much time had passed before a large hand cupped her knee. He was so much bigger than her that it was practically impossible to ignore him. He squeezed her kneecap, and even with the blanket between them, the heat radiating off him warmed her.
“Look at me, princess.” The command was soft but firm.
Even though every part of her yearned to obey his order, she studied the embroidery with even more intensity. Were the trees swaying in the wind? How apropos.
Thinking about the embroidery was better than paying attention to the name Nikhail called her.Princess. He had said it last night, too, but she’d been so lost in the dark call of her curse that she thought it had been a dream.
Well, that was no longer the case. She’d heard him loud and clear.
River wasn’t sure what to make of the nickname—she certainly wasn’t a princess, at least not in the traditional sense of the word—but she couldn’t muster up the energy to ask him about it.
The fingers squeezed herknee.
“River,” he repeated, his voice firm and commanding and making her feel things that she had no business feeling. “Eyes on me.”
This time, she had no choice but to obey. The same part of her that strained for Nikhail had her lifting her head and dragging her gaze over to his. She couldn’t ignore him any more than she could ignore her magic.
His lips twitched as if he was pleased with her, and he rubbed the corner of his mouth with his thumb. River was filled with the insane urge to replace his thumb with hers, but since that would cross a plethora of boundaries, she clenched her fists instead.
He continued, “Listen to me carefully, okay?”
Shewaslistening, but the problem was, no amount of words could fix this. There was no easy solution for dealing with the power running through her veins, short of wearing prohiberis manacles for the rest of her life.
The magic-blocking substance was mined in the Northern Region of the Republic and worked on every magic wielder, including fae. The problem was, wearing prohiberis long-term had dangerous side effects.
Back in the time of the Four Kingdoms, the High Lady of Death had been famously locked away and forced to wear prohiberis manacles for over two centuries. By all accounts, her mind had never truly recovered, even after the cuffs were removed.
The hand gripping her knee tightened. Nikhail was so much bigger than her, his fingers spread from the middle of her thigh down past her kneecap.
“Death is a part of life, River. One cannot exist without the other.” His thumb swept up and down, the slow, steady movement mesmerizing. “We can try to outrun it, try to outpace it,but even long-lived beings like fae cannot escape death. Gods, even vampires are subject to its cold embrace.”
His words rang with truth, but they didn’t wipe away her pain. She was fairly certain nothing would do that.
“Lila was thirteen, Nik.” Her bottom lip quivered, and tears welled in her eyes as she drew in a shaky breath. “A child in every sense of the word.”
“I know, and it’s horrible that she died. Sometimes, death has a way of claiming the most innocent of us all. The youngest. The ones most deserving of long lives are often the first to leave.”
“Why?” she breathed.
That was the question of the hour. The day. The one that had been haunting her since she learned of Lila’s death.
Nikhail shook his head. “Maybe they’re too good for this world.” The sweeping continued, a steady, grounding sensation. “I don’t know, but it isn’t fair.”
“No, it isn’t.” Lila’s face flashed through River’s mind. Strawberry-blonde hair, blue eyes, and a smattering of freckles across her nose. Her perpetual smile, despite her circumstances. “If I hadn’t gotten in trouble, I could’ve been there for Lila. I could’ve helped her.”
I could’ve saved her.