‘This one’s my favourite,’ I whispered when we reached the ink on his shoulder. My breathing was starting to calm down and there were only a few, silent tears still left in my eyes.
‘Why?’
The tattoo was an intricate design, not a real picture, but it had always reminded me of an oyster shell. It outlined the muscles in his shoulder perfectly.
‘It’s beautiful.’
‘You’re beautiful,’ he murmured, tilting my chin up so I could meet his eyes in the flashes of lightning, ‘and I love it when you count.’
I felt embarrassed and overwhelmed, so I looked down at his chest again. ‘You must be freezing.’
‘I’m not – I overheated swimming all that way.’
It was quiet in the cabin, except for the rain and thunder and the slap of the water against the rocks outside.
‘Are you cold?’ he asked me softly.
I shook my head.
‘Good.’ He reached out and ran his thumbs along my collarbones, then pushed my jacket off. He leant in and kissed my neck, running his hands down to my waist and drawing me against him. As soon as he did so, all thoughts but his proximity left my mind, and I no longer felt frightened. His smell was so tangibly him that it filled me up and made this wet, dank hut feel like home.
With hands gentler and more intense than I’d ever known them to be, he touched my body not as if I was a colt he’d broken and trained and now owned, but as if I was beautiful and strong and free – things I had never been made to feel. His mouth found mine, lips gentle and warm. ‘Rose,’ he whispered. My name had never sounded that way on his lips before.
My heart hammered against my ribcage, as, for the first time, my husband made love to me. He moved over me tenderly, making me gasp, making me shiver and tremble with surprise and delight, and then with a need so deep I was overwhelmed by it.
When it was over he held me tightly, keeping me warm with his body, and he whispered a secret to me, one I knew gave him pain. ‘This cabin once belonged to Ambrose’s father. My brother and I used to come here when we were kids. My happiest memories are here. I wanted to ask if you’d like to live here with me, Roselyn, provided that Ambrose doesn’t mind.’
I sat up and gazed down at his face. ‘Thorne …’ I couldn’t find any words, so instead I kissed him – because he was my husband, and I was allowed to kiss him anytime I wanted.
Ambrose
We rode for hours through the storm, no stopping while we were over the ocean. We just had to reach the coast of Pirenti, and then we could find somewhere to take shelter, but Migliori was getting dangerously tired. Ava lay in my lap. Sometimes she slept, other times she moaned in pain, but she didn’t ever really regain consciousness. I had a terrible suspicion that she never would, but I didn’t let myself think it.
It was very late at night when we saw the coastline. It did not take me long to realise that we were only about ten minutes from a place I knew. A shaft of disquiet rocked me in my seat. I hadn’t been to this place in many years – not since it had been cleared out. Not since my soul had been cleared out. But my own ghosts could not be the reason we got lost in this storm – it was a miracle we had made it this far, and I didn’t want Migliori harmed because of my past, so I angled him towards the cove. Towards the cabin.
Chapter 17
Roselyn
I had barely finished dressing again when there was a crash on the door, and someone burst inside, making me gasp in shock. A tall figure stood, carrying a heavy burden in his arms. Thorne was off the ground in a moment, closing in on the intruder.
‘Thorne?’
He stopped, stunned. ‘Ambrose?’ Thorne went to grab him in an embrace, but stopped when he realised what Ambrose was holding. ‘Who is that?’
‘This is my bondmate,’ Ambrose answered, very clearly, and pushed inside to lay a corpse on the ground.
There was a long moment of silence, in which I stared at my husband – the expression of bewilderment on his face was almost comical – but then Ambrose said, ‘Roselyn, I need you to help me – now.’
I blinked and felt a rush of warmth at having him here safe, but his tone was one of deep desperation. ‘What has happened?’
‘She was tortured. I didn’t get there in time …’ His voice cracked as he trailed off. I was alarmed to hear tears in his throat. ‘Please.’
I looked down at what I had assumed was a mangled corpse, but was in fact a young woman. She was soaking wet and naked, but more to the point, she was covered head to toe in deep, hideous burns. They were black and purple and yellow, pussy, blistering and shiny – some even cut to the bone. I’d never seen anything like it in my life.
‘My Gods – I don’t think …’
‘Please, Rose,’ he uttered again, and that was when I saw the truth: Ambrose was a broken man. He’d gone away young and cheeky, if troubled and thoughtful, but he’d come back ruined by whoever this girl was.
‘Thorne, get my kit,’ I ordered crisply, urgency taking over. ‘And pull every piece of clothing out of our bags. Rip it all into strips then lay them out for me, and get a fire going so you can dry the strips – they must not be wet.’
Thorne stared at me for exactly three seconds, and then he jumped into action, doing precisely as I’d told him to.
‘Ambrose, I need you to remove the alder ointment from the herb kit. It’s in a labelled jar.’
He skidded over to the kit that Thorne had removed and started riffling through it.
‘What is her name?’ I asked, looking at her face.
‘Ava,’ Ambrose replied.
I checked Ava’s pulse and breathing, making sure she was still with us. Then I set about cleaning the deeper wounds and inspecting them for infection. When Ambrose brought me the ointment, I applied it to each of the burns, careful not to pop any of the blisters. Whoever had tortured her had been very careful about not wounding her so badly that she would die. This meant that most of the burns had only reached the top two layers of skin, and could be healed over time. There were others, however, that had burned through her flesh so badly that I didn’t know if they would ever truly recover – they’d certainly leave terrible scars, even if they did. The one on her cheek was deep and had made half of her face swell up.
I glanced up at Ambrose worriedly.
‘Keep trying,’ was all he said, and so I did.
Thorne had got a fire going and managed to make sure all the bits of cloth were dry before I placed them over Ava’s skin, wrapping every inch of her body. She moaned a few times, but each time I got her to drink some herbal brew for pain relief and she fell back to sleep.
As the sun was rising I sat back on my haunches. ‘There’s nothing more I can do for her right now. We need to keep her warm and dry and full of fluids, and I’ll change the bandages as often as I can. Today you will both have to go into the forest and try to find me some supplies.’
After I’d sent them off to get what I needed, I slumped to the ground beside the blond girl. For the first time in hours, I looked at her face properly. It was hard to make out her features through all the swelling, but the clear side of her face seemed familiar to me. I had heard the name Ava somewhere before, but I couldn’t place it.
She stirred restlessly, hot with fever. I wet a cloth in the bucket Ambrose had managed to find and replaced the one on her forehead.
After a while she opened her eyes, and we gazed at each other. ‘How are you feeling?’ I asked softly.
And by some miracle, she smiled at me. ‘I have certainly felt better. How are you, Lady Roselyn?’
I blinked, shocked. ‘How do you know my name?’
‘We’ve met once before,’ she rasped. ‘I’m rather fond of your brother-in-law. Where is he?’
‘He’ll be back soon. But when – when did we meet?’
She smiled again, dreamily, something odd moving into her eyes. ‘You always said I didn’t know how to pick my battles, but I’ve been good lately. I’ve held my tongue a
lot. You’d be proud of me.’
‘I … forgive me, I don’t understand.’
‘You always say it. I dream it.’ Ava closed her eyes, muttering under her breath, and I realised she was delirious. I stroked her beautiful hair, and I prayed.
Thorne
My chest hurt, because the man I loved best in the world had just become a stranger to me. We had left to get the supplies, climbing into the dinghy we hadn’t been in since we were children and rowing around the mouth of the cove to the forest. In silence we started trawling the trees and bushes, searching out the plants Rose had instructed us to find. Ambrose had said he knew what she meant, but I didn’t have a clue what we were seeking. The trees and the grass, the ocean and the rocks – they held memories, and there was no one left alive in this world who wanted to remember those memories.
After twenty minutes I stopped walking. ‘What happened?’
Ambrose glanced at me. ‘I can’t do this right now, Thorne. Not when she’s in there waiting for this stuff.’
‘I don’t even know who “she” is.’
He ploughed on, back bent to peer at the leaves of plants.
‘Brother, why did you call her your bondmate?’
‘She’s not my mate,’ he said softly, ‘not really. But if she were, would you hate me for it?’
I must have made a sound of disbelief, for he spread his hands.
‘You hate the bond so much – you hate the warders for creating it, and you hate the Kayans for submitting to it.’
‘But not you,’ I said softly. ‘I could never hate you.’
Our eyes locked, and then Ambrose sank to his knees in the brush, and I watched in astonishment as my little brother leant over and started to cry. In the life we lived a Pirenti man never wept. We had to be hard all the time – especially Ambrose and I. There could not be a moment when we stopped to let in the darkness, because they were circling, eternally, and if they saw a moment of weakness then they would all swoop to steal what little we had. We’d be destroyed.
Ambrose knew this. And so, standing in the forest and watching my boy cry, I understood something about the two of us. This man would not cry in front of anyone else – that was a fact – so I crossed the space and dropped to the ground behind him, pulling his back against my chest and holding him so tightly I thought his bones would break. They didn’t, they held strong, and he gripped me back, and I knew, whatever tragedy this was, it could be the end of my brother. And here – here – in a place that held Ambrose’s nightmares. The memories had chased him from that cabin years ago. Whoever the woman was, he couldn’t lose her in that place.
‘That girl is not dying,’ I said flatly when the worst of his shakes had passed. ‘Now get up and help me find whatever this stuff is. I cannot do it without you.’
Letting him go I stalked away, and I heard him climb to his feet to resume his search.
Roselyn
When they returned, Ava was still muttering deliriously. Ambrose took one look at her and his face twisted into a ghastly mask of pain. I watched him sink to the floor beside her, and pull her gently into his lap, careful of her poor, burnt body.
‘Hey, pretty boy,’ he murmured, stroking her forehead, twisting her hair in his fingers. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘She doesn’t know where she is,’ I told him. ‘She had a moment of lucidity, but then she went again. If you talk to her, it might help keep her calm.’
I rose to give them some privacy, but the cabin was only so big, and when Thorne and I sat exhaustedly by the wall, we could hear every word Ambrose said.
‘I wish you hadn’t left like that,’ he murmured. ‘Dashing off on your own all the time. I can’t protect you when you leave me behind.’ Ava sighed and I watched Ambrose smile gently. ‘I guess you never wanted anyone to protect you, huh? You never needed it – except this one stupid time, because of me. I took you to that cursed place. I dragged you to that isle and now it turns out I’ve ruined you more than even the bond did.’
My breath caught in my throat as all at once I realised who she was. ‘The boy he took to the prison,’ I whispered.
‘What?’ Thorne hadn’t taken his eyes from his brother for a second.
‘It was Ambrose’s punishment to take the boy to prison.’
‘That’s not a boy, Rose,’ he replied impatiently.
‘She was dressed as one. The Kayans who stole me wanted to trade for her. They told me her real name was Ava.’
Thorne stiffened in disbelief. ‘I saw that boy – it was a boy.’
‘Trust me, Thorne. It was Ava.’
We fell into silence because Ava’s soft voice had drifted into the cabin. ‘I missed you,’ she sighed.
‘Oh, sweetheart, I missed you too,’ Ambrose said with relief, kissing her lips. It was so strange watching him like this, when I’d always known him to be just as unaffectionate as Thorne.
‘I feel like you’ve been gone so long,’ she went on, ‘so long, my love. Remember that day the fish jumped into our boat? There were twelve of them and they all jumped straight in, and we just laughed and laughed until they started jumping back out and we realised we had to get them home quickly. I’ve been dreaming about that day.’
Ambrose frowned in confusion. ‘I don’t think …’
‘And when we got home, Da yelled at me for spending the whole day on the boat, but you snuck me out to your house and made love to me all night. I remember the whole night smelt of fish because neither of us had washed – it was horrible, but it was so funny that we kept laughing all night, even as we made love.’
She was rambling again, and I saw the moment Ambrose realised – it was like something in him shattered, and he closed his eyes.
‘I’ve been wanting to kiss you again, my love,’ she whispered. ‘We never had enough kisses. Tell me you love me, Avery, and then kiss me.’
My chest hurt, abruptly and strangely. I grabbed Thorne’s hand and held it tightly, because I didn’t understand quite what was happening but my instincts were alive with the tragedy of it, the hurt of it, the unfairness. I wanted it to stop. I wanted to take Ambrose away from here, away from this woman who loved another man, but I feared it would be as bad as what she was doing to him.
I waited to see what Ambrose would say. I thought I could imagine how he would handle it – how he would react, how he might try to explain – but I was wrong.
He said, very gently and with a voice full to the brim with adoration, ‘I love you, Ava of Orion. I am Avery, your mate, and I’m here with you, so you have to hold on for me.’ And then he kissed her, and I could see his tears sliding over her one unblemished cheek.
Ambrose
Sometime after the daylight had passed and it was night again, Thorne fed me. He’d been hunting, and he cooked the rabbits he’d caught on a spit outside. I couldn’t eat at first, but he forced me to. He didn’t ask me any more questions about Ava, and for that I was grateful. Rose kept up her constant vigil, changing poultices and ointments and washing bandages tirelessly. I’d never had so much affection for a person as I did for her while she tended to Ava.
It started raining again, just a grey drizzle this time, and Thorne made me go outside to stand in it for a while. He said it would make me feel better, but I did it because I couldn’t be bothered to argue with him. I didn’t ever want to argue with my brother again. The fight had finally gone out of me, but it didn’t feel good – it felt weak.
After drying myself off by the fire, I sat down next to Ava once more. It may have been a strange thing for a man to do, but I was compelled to comb her hair. The long strands had so much dirt in them that when I managed to brush them mostly clean they glowed golden – so pale they were almost white. ‘Sword, girl,’ I muttered, twining it through my fingers. ‘You keep managing to surprise me. How could I not have known what you are?’ I smiled, glancing down at her lips and thinking back to the first time I’d seen her.
But my eyes drifted to the walls of the hut, r
emembering things I didn’t want them to. There was where the painting of Thorne and I had hung. There was where the crib had sat. A rocking chair had been by the fire, and she’d sat in it to rock the baby and tell us stories. He’d not spent much time indoors – he’d been a wanderer, storming around outside, finding things to tinker with and jobs to be done. Mostly we’d been outside with him – following him like shadows, trying to be more silent than the other – but at nights we had been in here, warm against the chill, full of words and images and songs I had etched into the walls of my skin.
Thorne and Roselyn were outside collecting firewood, so I took the moment alone to lie down next to Ava, threading my fingers through her limp ones. ‘Do you remember all those songs I sang when we were in the tunnels?’ I asked her softy. ‘I know them because my da used to sing them. He had a better voice than I do – mine’s rougher. He had an amazingly clear tone and when he sang it was a miracle.’
My chest started to hurt. This wasn’t a good idea – speaking of him, remembering him – but the words tumbled from me unbidden.
‘He lived here, in this cabin with his wife and daughter. They were out here because he’d been banished. Thorne and I would sneak here every week. He loved Thorne just as he loved me.’
No. No – that was too much.
‘I could tell you about the times I went to Kaya, but they might hurt you.’ Her lips were very dry, so I leant down and wet them with my tongue, as if they were my own. ‘Rose said I should talk to you, but I don’t have any nice stories to tell you – no nice memories. They’re all … tainted by something or other.’
Sighing, I slumped onto my back and stared at the ceiling. ‘Ava, come on. Wake up now – I’ve had enough.’
Ava
Standing atop the sun dome of the first tower, I was able to look out at the ocean and imagine diving all that way – all that long way into the deep blue below. The other towers sparkled in the sunlight, sprawled along the edge of the coastline, exploding out of the crashing waves like pinnacles of glistening human progress. Until coming here, I’d never seen anything like the seven shining towers of Limontae, could never have imagined a likeness for their beauty.