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Authors: Keri Arthur
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something that can’t be undone.”
“Was it worse than me starting a relationship with you to get a story? Worse than Lucian killing your mother, then bedding you for information?”
I opened my mouth to say yes, then stopped. Put like that, the answer was actually no. Even if Azriel had a tendency to keep secrets, he’d never been anything less than honest about his intentions or his priorities – and his priority had always been, first and foremost, his duty to secure the keys for the reapers. All else was secondary.
I might be furious with him, might feel betrayed by his actions, but he’d always warned me he would do whatever he deemed necessary to get those keys. Or die trying.
Why would he think my life – or rather, all my future lives – were any less expendable?
He wouldn’t. As the hostile reaper had pointed out, duty was all to a reaper. It rose above everything, even family and love. He might care for me, but that would not have stopped him from doing what needed to be done in order to finish his mission.
The only thing that had stopped him was me. I’d sent him away, thereby forcing another to take his place. I’d made him fail, and he was now paying the price.
I scrubbed a hand across suddenly stinging eyes and swore yet again.
“So,” Jak murmured. “Not as bad.”
“No.” I hesitated. It felt a little weird discussing this with Jak, of all people. And yet, he was also the one person who would understand betrayal, even if from the other side. “But I don’t know if I can move past —”
“Relationships are hard work,” he interrupted. “They’re all about give and take. If Azriel did the latter rather than the former, the question you have to ask yourself is, are you willing to walk away? Or is whatever lay between you special enough to work on a fix?”
Yes, it is. I stared at Jak for several heartbeats. “When the hell did you start doling out such astute relationship advice?”
He smiled. “I’ve had more than my fair share of broken relationships, remember. And you didn’t answer my question.”
“That’s because I haven’t actually got one.” A lie, but I wasn’t about to admit my feelings to Jak before I admitted them to Azriel.
“Then I suggest you do so – and before the gulf between you gets too wide to traverse. Besides, running away from a problem is never a good idea.”
Which was an echo of what Aunt Riley had said to me when I’d first woken in hospital after being dragged back from death.
I hadn’t wanted to listen to her back then. Hadn’t really wanted to listen to anyone – not even when my own intuition had suggested that banishing Azriel was the worst possible move I could ever make. I’d been far too angry.
But somewhere between waking this morning and now, my brain cells had finally started functioning again. The truth of the matter was, despite the pain and the hurt, despite the sense of betrayal, I needed Azriel in my life. I just had to hope that it wasn’t already too late to get him back.
I grabbed a quick shower at Jak’s in the vague hope that it’d wash away all the bits of fluff and debris that were both on and in my skin – the Aedh magic didn’t always re-form clothing as precisely as it deformed it, and it wasn’t unusual for me to have annoying bits of fiber sticking out of my flesh for days after becoming Aedh – then went in search of clothes. I found a pretty, knee-length dress at the back of the wardrobe in the spare bedroom, but had no such luck when it came to underwear – for which I was kind of glad. It would have been a little too weird if he’d kept any of that after all these years.
But just as I was about to pull on the dress, I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror behind me, and froze. Because my reflection now bore a series of tattoos that ran up the back of my neck and disappeared into my hairline. They were a mix of patterns that sometimes resembled the known – one looked vaguely
“Was it worse than me starting a relationship with you to get a story? Worse than Lucian killing your mother, then bedding you for information?”
I opened my mouth to say yes, then stopped. Put like that, the answer was actually no. Even if Azriel had a tendency to keep secrets, he’d never been anything less than honest about his intentions or his priorities – and his priority had always been, first and foremost, his duty to secure the keys for the reapers. All else was secondary.
I might be furious with him, might feel betrayed by his actions, but he’d always warned me he would do whatever he deemed necessary to get those keys. Or die trying.
Why would he think my life – or rather, all my future lives – were any less expendable?
He wouldn’t. As the hostile reaper had pointed out, duty was all to a reaper. It rose above everything, even family and love. He might care for me, but that would not have stopped him from doing what needed to be done in order to finish his mission.
The only thing that had stopped him was me. I’d sent him away, thereby forcing another to take his place. I’d made him fail, and he was now paying the price.
I scrubbed a hand across suddenly stinging eyes and swore yet again.
“So,” Jak murmured. “Not as bad.”
“No.” I hesitated. It felt a little weird discussing this with Jak, of all people. And yet, he was also the one person who would understand betrayal, even if from the other side. “But I don’t know if I can move past —”
“Relationships are hard work,” he interrupted. “They’re all about give and take. If Azriel did the latter rather than the former, the question you have to ask yourself is, are you willing to walk away? Or is whatever lay between you special enough to work on a fix?”
Yes, it is. I stared at Jak for several heartbeats. “When the hell did you start doling out such astute relationship advice?”
He smiled. “I’ve had more than my fair share of broken relationships, remember. And you didn’t answer my question.”
“That’s because I haven’t actually got one.” A lie, but I wasn’t about to admit my feelings to Jak before I admitted them to Azriel.
“Then I suggest you do so – and before the gulf between you gets too wide to traverse. Besides, running away from a problem is never a good idea.”
Which was an echo of what Aunt Riley had said to me when I’d first woken in hospital after being dragged back from death.
I hadn’t wanted to listen to her back then. Hadn’t really wanted to listen to anyone – not even when my own intuition had suggested that banishing Azriel was the worst possible move I could ever make. I’d been far too angry.
But somewhere between waking this morning and now, my brain cells had finally started functioning again. The truth of the matter was, despite the pain and the hurt, despite the sense of betrayal, I needed Azriel in my life. I just had to hope that it wasn’t already too late to get him back.
I grabbed a quick shower at Jak’s in the vague hope that it’d wash away all the bits of fluff and debris that were both on and in my skin – the Aedh magic didn’t always re-form clothing as precisely as it deformed it, and it wasn’t unusual for me to have annoying bits of fiber sticking out of my flesh for days after becoming Aedh – then went in search of clothes. I found a pretty, knee-length dress at the back of the wardrobe in the spare bedroom, but had no such luck when it came to underwear – for which I was kind of glad. It would have been a little too weird if he’d kept any of that after all these years.
But just as I was about to pull on the dress, I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror behind me, and froze. Because my reflection now bore a series of tattoos that ran up the back of my neck and disappeared into my hairline. They were a mix of patterns that sometimes resembled the known – one looked vaguely
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