It’s so odd to see something entirely emotional flash through a stranger’s face when they’re looking at me like I’m a long-lost relative. “I’ll get those things gathered for you.”
“Do you know what I need?”
“Your mother ensured I do. I’d often get it for her.” The corner of his lips twitch like he might hint at a smile, but it’s gone before I can even savor the concept.
The Scorpion moves quickly past Soren and out the door, as if whoever this Evan person is holds the most importance.
I’m not even jealous—just nosy about who my father really is, and to know the people he keeps around him. As the door to this makeshift throne room shuts—Rorge glaring at Soren like he’s a very unwelcome guest—Soren and I are left inside, alone.
Breathing steadily, I know I have to be honest with him, and immediately. The reprieve we made over the last few weeks is now stained with thishuntover my head.
How can he possibly stay in my life without threatening his own?
“Before your heart wanders,” Soren begins. “We can’t trust him, yet. While I can feel aspects of him… he’sveryhard to read. Unnaturally hard. Something is shrouding him, and I’m not sure what it is, but it’s similar to Blackwell. It’s a fuckery that reminds me of the world across the Black Sea.”
My mind is like a spider desperate to form a web, but no designfits. I sink into one of the barrel-shaped stools right next to Soren, the rough wood creaking, and place my face into my hands.
“Jane,” Soren coaxes.
There’s always the chance that Dad and Blackwell are working together, I suppose…
Could the Scorpion have been corrupted over that dangerous ocean? Were he and Blackwell corrupted together, used in tandem? If this weird god is after me, maybe this is a very contrived plot to ensure Iwon’tbe leaving?
“You know,” I begin, spreading my fingers slightly so he can hear me better. “Everyone talks about the Black Sea as if it’s this wall that once you climb, suddenly it’s an entirely different world there. It can’t bethatdifferent, can it?”
A part of me hopes it isn’t, because if so, then its magic is an enemy I know nothing about fighting.
“Maybe one day you’ll cross the Black Sea, love. It depends on how the rest of this goes.” My shoulders shake at hearing that term of endearment from him—the affection shakes every thought I’m trying to piece together. “But it’s not a simple journey. If the ocean waters were to disappear, you would see a seabed of ships more than you would sand. If you were to survive such a journey, then aye, you’d see an entirely different world.”
Okay, so I guess I’m fucked.
How can I make any decisions when I’m so ignorant of the world around me? I definitely can’t take on agodby myself, but how do I let people help when it feels as if I want to run from myownshadow?
Every fiber of my being itches to get across the Black Sea to this other world and perhaps learn about the magic that might be influencing the Scorpion—if there even is one—so I can undo them. I could sell myself as a healer to anyone who needed it to make money. Maybe travel so far to the other edge of the infamous continent that Misery might give up on me.
“Jane, I can feel you searching right now for an immediate reason for it all. We hardly know any details.”
Talk to him; don’t shut off.I glance up at those pale, blue eyes. “Soren, you do realize you can’t help me from here? If I seriously have all these people coming for me, then anyone beingnearme might die—willdie. My own mother did, and my father is aZenith. You can’t be near me.Kathleencan’t even be near me.”
I state it with such clarity that someone from the outside might think I have no care for any of them. But it stems from a place where I have been able to numb myself when needed, so I can fall apart years from now when I realize what I truly lost.
I’ll at least bealive,which means I can fulfill defending my family’s honor. And hopefully all these people will move on with beating hearts, too.
Icy eyes pierce mine, almost with a force that pushes me back. “And what if everything he said was a lie? It’s interesting, certainly. Aligns with some suspicions of mine. But I don’t trust many things right now,especiallysince I cannot feel him.”
I drop my head to stare at the ground with so much force that it nearly hurts my neck. When threatened tears burn my eyes, I bite the inside of my lip to stop them.
Why can’t it be simple for once?
“Jane,” he gently says.
“I, um,” I begin, trying desperately to remove the deep urge to release my tears. I wipe my eyes, then rub them. “It’s like the last ten years of my life have meant nothing, and my own father might as well be a stranger to me. And all that Misery nonsense aside, for the first time, I have clarity about my mother’s murder and that her revenge isnotdone. That I need to make people pay for my own suffering, too. I feel… I don’t know, I feel alone, and sohateful.”
“And what of me?”
Refusing to look up, I so badly want for the fates to reveal that this man is meant to be my rock. Mytruerock, the one that a hurricane can batter whilehe’dnever move.
It’s a security and love I had as a child, and now it feels like a figment of my imagination; a lost fable. Maybe what I want more than anything is to experience that again, and whether Soren is planted on sand or stone is yet to be revealed to me. We onlyjustcrossed very deep, intimate lines…
