Chasing Tides | Throne of Glass

XIV

vulnata est

He walked in, to her standing there before the bed like a wraith. The gold pieces he'd delighted to collect in his pockets suddenly turned into lead as he beheld her with guilty eyes, her wrath seeping into the ground, the air cool, with every footstep he took forwards. Her face was closed off – to anyone else, she would have appeared distant from the way she stood and stared soundlessly at him – but he knew what that meant. That he had hurt her again.

She walked right into him, face crumpling, arms clenching tightly around his body, burying her face into the crook of his neck. Fingers pulled on the muscles of his back; nails gripped the folds of his shirt as she bunched her fists, her skin pressing warmly onto his through the fabric. Her sobs were silent, her body still, but he felt her tears blossom across his shirt.

'I'm sorry for not telling you where I'd gone.'

His words resounded in the silence; he stood there with her and waited until she spoke.

'I was so scared,' she mumbled eventually, voice raw. 'Waiting alone here for you these past hours was like reliving that day. Every. Single. Goddamn. Second,' she ground out, the agony in her voice coalescing with broken notes of relief. 'What if– I thought to myself, what if something like last time had happened again? Because it's no less dangerous here than it was in Adarlan, and I didn't know where you were.'

Sam clenched his jaw. 'I'm sorry.'

'I– I don't want to restrict you from anything. But just a word, just a note, anything to let me know, because I don't think I can be put through a trial like that again, Sam.'

'I will,' he replied immediately, throat tightening.

'Damn you,' came her tiny voice, and they remained stood there, each clasped to the other. But when she simply did nothing for a while longer, he knew that something else was wrong; something else was the matter.

He pulled away, staring at her. When she tried to look away, he grabbed her face gently and turned it so that her gaze was fixed upon his. 'Celaena.' He did not let her look elsewhere, and he held that simmering rage within his own eyes, watching those flames rage behind the tightness of her lips, the tautness of her jaw. 'Celaena, look at me.' He did not let her break his gaze – until she yielded at last, those flames flaring once more before being extinguished into a shower of ashes. An unmistakable sadness filled the depths of her blue eyes.

'I hate him,' she uttered at last, surprising him. 'I hate him so much. I couldn't find you, so I went to him. But he just...' She swallowed. 'I decided to come back here.'

Sam pulled her in once more, wrapping his arms around her head, fingers stroking her hair. 'Talk to me.' Her breaths deepened as she inhaled, reigning in the control. But when she lifted her head to finally look at him, his heart plummeted at the dimness in her eyes, the blankness in her face.

'The more I train, the more I realise that I don't want this,' she said quietly. 'And Rowan does anything but help. It infuriates me to an extent. I don't know what to do, what to think, Sam.'

'Come,' he said. 'Let me take care of you for tonight. You've done more than enough.'

She offered no resistance as he guided her to the bathing room. He slowly peeled back her clothes and tugged off her boots, whilst the water ran, steaming, into the tub. Her shirt came off, his own lips tightening at the scarring that marred her back. Whatever he had done to make her like this, Rowan had crossed the line. He didn't know anything. For a centuries-old Fae male, he was surprisingly ignorant.