“Only two Cinders died, but everyone else is live. Blackwell’s soul was ripped apart; your father captured Jesper and I ensured the sirens took him. Tempest is alive, although her ship is now with the ocean. The hull broke at the bottom when colliding with Darkwater.”
I pull back to look up at his face, at the bruising on his temple. I reach up to heal it even if it hurts like a bitch to raise my arm, noticing there’s a large, scabbed wound below his ear.
Soren’s hand engulfs my wrist and to bring it back down, almost in a scolding manner. “Your body needs to heal. If there’s anything to tend to, it will be yourself.”
I smile, fucking missing this man. “Back to the orders?”
“I have no problem asserting that your health is above the rest.”
“There really isn’t another healer?”
“No. She was taken under, and when the sirens got to her, she was already gone.”
“I feel okay,” I say, trying to hide a groan. “As in, I’m alive. I’ll make it to wherever we’re going, and I can be healed there. Others might need my help.”
He pulls back and touches my chest with calloused hands that I’m so glad to feel against my skin again. “The sirens said their magic requires you to sit still.” He looks me in the eye, the pale blue encased within dark lashes. “I’ll tie you down in here if I have to. I already have the rope ready. I knew you might fight me.”
My laugh turns into a coughing groan. “Are you in here to ensure that happens?”
He gives a faint, crooked grin, the stubble around his mouth deepening where his skin indents. “Yes.” He looks over my face, the room so quiet I can hear the smallest sound of every breath he takes. It’s a mundane detail that brings me more relief than can I interpret. “Did you really think of me when in that stairwell?” he asks.
The moment crashes back into my mind like the waves Misery forced me to suffer through. “I thought of the nights when we’d lie together, when nothing else mattered,” I answer through a voice that involuntarily grows shakier, tears blurring my vision; it’s as if I fully realize I nearly died. “It was nice not to feel alone. And you brought mesomuch comfort.”
Something deep and sentimental overtakes a face that’s primarily unbending, his eyes perhaps wetter than usual before he pulls my forehead to his lips. I breathe him in, the traces of his unique scent covering up the rawness of my trauma.
“Sleep, my love,” he says against my skin. “You need sleep.”
S O R E N
After helping her drink as much water as she could take, along with offering a biscuit and a pickled egg, I administered the vial to Jane under a slight guise; I told her it was to ease the pain, not render her unconscious again.
She can figure out the details of that later once she’salive,and with a healer.
As I stare out the window, an urge to open it overtakes me as I reach over a sleeping Jane to work the latch, fresh air waftinginto the room once it’s opened. While I’m up, I take one of the towels to lay underneath her, in case her body is unable to wake to relieve herself.
Sitting back in the chair, I lean my head back once more, dragging out a long, deep groan. My own body aches with a depth I don’t care to ever feel again, my damn head pounding.
The way Jane broke down when she saw me just now andknewshe was safe, flooding me with every ounce of love she had, and that she thought ofmeas she lied there on those stairs…fuck. That’s what made all of this worth it. She was willing to die to save others, so it’s important she realizes the same sacrifice will easily be given to her.
My body stiffens when a raven flies into the small room, the bird landing on a table next to Jane, eyes glowing red. Its beak opens as the form of Cypress rapidly expands until the witch is standing before me. “I’m here to remove Jane’s ruby,” she explains without wasting any time.
All I can do at this point is roll my fucking eyes and pinch the bridge of my nose. “Did you enjoy all of that?”
“I enjoyed that you all lived.”
“NotAnya.”
“She and I spoke. She understood her death was essential, and she was more than willing.”
What? Why didn’t Anya say anything? “Why was itessential?”
“Itsinspirationis what was essential. For everyone. For Jane’s dignity, as she otherwise would have greatly suffered. I always saw a decrepit Morvock would believe Anya.” Cypress moves to examine Jane, who lies in one of the few beds on this ship, her chest slowly rising and falling in her sleep. “I can speak more freely now, Soren Latham. I don’t enjoy being so cryptic, you know. But give too much information, and it could alter the visions.”
When I don’t say anything in return, she seems to take that as permission to continue. “I saw you in Jane’s future long, long ago, to be clear. As soon as she was born, in fact. There are so many things I had to arrange just perfectly for you both to meet under the right circumstances. I needed toensureTempest would allow you on her ship, but that would be impossible if I involved myself, seeing as she and I go back over a hundred years.”
I absorb every word the witch speaks. “How old is Tempest?” I ask, no longer fighting whatever current Cypress is dragging us through.
“Close to two hundred summers.” I nearly laugh at that, as ofcourse. “Her relationship with a god helps extend her life, like it does with mine. Althoughmygod is not interested in me like hers is with her. Her capturing Ta’Kan’s attention is an entire story in itself.
