Carissa Broadbent

“Because if I allow myself to be angry, I will never stop.”

He leaned closer. So close his nose brushed mine, so close I could count his eyelashes. And so close that I felt his warm breath across my face as he smiled and said, with the viciousness of smoke and steel, “Good.”

“So many mistakes in the end,” he choked out. “Never you.”

“You have nothing but me,” I said. “And yet, you’d let me go?”

“I have nothing but you,” he murmured. “So I am letting you go.”

It begins with two souls who find themselves suddenly, utterly alone

. “Nura—“

“I command you to do it.”

“It’s been eight years, Max,” Nura snapped. “It’s time to do something with your life.”

“I’m not doing this,” he said, at last. “I’m sure you’ve just been itching for an excuse to put me in my place. But it’s wrong for you to use her to do it.”

I could do this, I told myself. I was an expert in making stubborn men do things that they didn’t realize they wanted to do. I wrapped Threllian Lords around my fingers like they were made out of putty. And how different could this petulant Solarie possibly be?

“Not that it’s my business, but do you plan to stay out here all night?” I heard Max ask.

I didn’t turn around. My steady hand did not waver as it traced another circle. Calm. Methodical. I had a system — combining each symbol with each type of ink. “If I must.”

“I’m exhausted just looking at you.”

I had no response to that. Anger simmered deep beneath my skin.

“Do you even know what those are?” he said.

My fingers tightened so hard around my pen that I nearly snapped it in two. “No. And I think you probably will not say.” The words came out in a low snarl.

“The Orders probably won’t ask you about them.”

Before I could stop myself, I jumped to my feet, whirling to him, the pen still clutched in my hand. “I know. I need to— need to—”

The Aran words eluded me, driving my frustration to thrash up against my surface. I glared at Max, who leaned against the doorframe.

I wanted to scream at him. I wanted to ask, Who has ruined you so badly that you can’t do anything but stand in the way of people who have actual important things to do? Why do you feel such a pervasive, petty need to shove your petulance in the Orders’ faces? And why the hell do you need to bring me down with you, too?

Instead, the Aran words that came out sounded something like, “What so many hates do you have?”

“Huh?”

His confusion, understandable as it was, infuriated me. I let the pen drop violently to the ground. I hammered every Aran word home, slowly. “Why do you hate the Orders? Why do you hate me so many? What is wrong with you?”

“I don’t hate you,” Max replied, which made me even angrier.

“That is not true!” I shook my head. “That is not true. I don’t care if you hate me— hate me here.” I touched my heart. It was the only way I could think to convey what I was saying. “Or here.” I pressed my fingers against my temple. “But you hate me in what you do. Why? What wrong did I do to you?”

“It’s not about you.” Something shifted, softened, in Max’s expression. But I was past looking for scraps of kindness.

“It is about me! This is my life, not only yours.” I blinked and all I could see was Esmaris’s body, Serel’s face, hands and skin of every man I danced for to earn the money to leave. “I was slave in Threll. Did you know?”

He didn’t answer. Just stared at me, with one deepening line in his brow.

“Did you?”

“No,” he said, quietly.

“I did many things to come here. I killed for coming here. My friend—” I didn’t have the vocabulary to describe what Serel had done for me, given for me. “I left my most important people. They need me. I cannot fail them. To help them, I need this.” I thrust my open palm down to the piles of drawings. “I have nothing without the Orders. No power. I need this. They need this.”

I was long past caring what he thought. In that moment, I didn’t care what any of them thought — all of these people who, my entire life, had used me as a part of their stories, had assumed that I was a set piece in their lives. Like Esmaris did. Like every lord I seduced. Like Nura, using me to get under Max’s skin. And now, like Max, who saw me as a representative of some petty grudge and not an actual human being.

“This is not only yours,” I spat. “So tell me what is on stupid test.”

Silence.