She swallowed hard and continued, “At first I didn’t know if I could trust you. You were asking for me all over town and it scared the shit out of me. There’s a lot you don’t know. And then, I was going to tell you, but too much time had passed and—” She rubbed the sleep from her eyes. “Ugh, you know what it’s like. To be like …this.”
Not trusting himself to speak, Vesper lifted a single brow.
Her statement rang clear: to be an outcast, different, and to be judged and feared from a single glance.
Yeah, he fucking knew. It was his whole bloody life story.
She speared her hands through her hair and said, “The way you waltzed in here and had people fawning over you, fuck—it pissed me off. I’ve spent my entire life hiding my magic. My scars. Trying to find my place in this world and people who would accept me…” She sighed. “Thorrin is the only one who knows. I’ve kept it hidden from everyone else. Aside from you now.”
“But if anyone would understand, it would beme.” He blinked at her. “Why did you keep it from me? Come on, Kyrith. Youknew I was here because of the prophecy and I was struggling with myShadowheart—”
“Don’t act like I turned you away. Ididhelp you with Kaida, and Thorrin did with your burden of mimicry and—” She averted her eyes. “I don’t want anything to do with this stupid prophecy.”
Vesper grit his teeth. “Well that’s pretty fucking selfish of you.”
“You had better be kidding.” Her gaze snapped back to him. “So I’m selfish because I don’t want to cause the end of the world? Either the fever will end or the existence of our kind and we have no clue which one. Maybe the gods will flip a coin on the day.”
Suddenly, his blood ran too hot, too angry and he seethed, “How will we know if we don’t even try? I want a future. I don’t want to wake up each day and watch people suffer, watch family lines die off. And Iknowthat you feel strongly about the Hollows and the injustices here. It’s the same in Ellynne. I refuse to go back there and be a bystander. This is so much more than us, I know it is—but itbeginswith us.”
She was quiet for a long moment before she said, “Yeah, well, I don’t need this prophecy. I don’t need the trouble or the—”
“Did it ever occur to you that maybeIneed you?”
Vesper’s heavy words devoured the air between them. He was such a fucking idiot, so godsdamn pathetic, but he spoke the truth.
Kyrith stared at him for a long time, like she reached inside him and stole something from his soul. But her eyes grew glossy and she sighed like the world was ending. “My magic isn’t what you think.”
“Worse than throwing corpses around like puppets?” He sat back on his hands. At least the wound on his ribs didn’t twinge.
She steepled her fingers. “You don’t understand what I can do.”
“Well, no, because you haven’t bloody told me. Other than than your ability to charm knives. So, if you could get on with it, it would be appreciated.”
“Don’t be an ass.”
He sucked a cleansing breath and lifted his hands, palms out, to calm himself. “Alright, alright. Tell me of your oh so magical ways that I couldn’t possibly understand. Go on. Really, wow me.”
Kyrith’s glare could melt a fucking glacier.
“Please,” he added sweetly and shot her a grin. “And be sure to dumb it down so my tiny brain can comprehend it.”
She muttered something that sounded nasty before she said, “My sword—I enchanted it too.” She sank her teeth into her lush bottom lip. “It can detect intentions. If people are good or truthful. How pure their heart is.”
Not seeing how any of this was a big deal, he raised a brow at her.
“I can charm almost anything. I only need to scribble some Sellidic and give the appropriate amount of blood and a heap of magic.” She finally looked back at him. “I’ve been asked for some heinous things. And I—I did them. Some were worse than others but … I was desperate for slate.”
Silence spread between them as she averted her eyes and Vesper broke it. “We’ve all done bad things. It doesn’t mean we’re bad people.”
“Oh yeah?” Guilt swam in her eyes as she clenched her jaw. “What if I said I enchanted that fucking grave plot?”
It was like the floor gave out beneath him and doused him in frigid waters. Dumbfounded, Vesper studied her, because he thought the Gravers had done that, not anyKenna. That magic was wrong and impossibly strong.
“It was a long time ago, and I didn’t know what it was for, but I charmed it to reach for life.” She wrapped a hand around herthroat. “All those people, all those lives and the torture they went through—” Her voice hitched, broke, and shattered something inside him too.
Vesper reached for her, but she shrank away. “You didn’t know. And like you said it was a long time ago, right? You wouldn’t do that now.”
She gave a shallow nod of her head and fiddled with her quilt. “If you tell anyone, I’ll make good on my promise and cut off all your fun parts.”