Blessed By The Moon

Chapter 48

The morning of.

Storm's POV:

She walked in.

I opened my eyes and smiled, I didn't think she'd come back to me so soon.

"Echo," I said  "You came back to me."

She stepped forward slowly, eyes sweeping the room, and I watched her face change as she took in the blood, I could see the question form in her mouth, I could see the hope and the fear, and I felt its weight like a blade.

"Storm... what happened here?" she asked.

I kept my confusion small and careful, like a stage trick, something is not right. "Are you okay?" I asked, because I needed that concern to seem real.

She pressed, voice small and frightened. "What happened here? What have you done?"

Does she not..remember? 

If she doesn't, I won't be the one to remind her, I'm here to protect her, and I swore to myself lifetimes ago that I will never hurt her again. 

I let my smile widen, letting the lie settle into my bones. "They weren't going to kill you," I said, and watched her freeze when the words hit. I could feel her breathing hitch. I almost wrenched the truth out then, almost told her she'd been the storm that tore them apart, but I swallowed it down. 

If she remembered, she would shatter. If she remembered, she would go mad. The thing inside me that loved her more than myself would not let that happen.

"What?" she breathed.

"They weren't going to kill you," I repeated, because repeating the lie made it heavier, more real. "They talked about torturing you, cutting you into bits after carrying Daniel's heir. They said they would build your chamber. At first, it was jokes. Then threats. Then they said they would make a spectacle of you. All I could think about was you. That's why I sent you that letter. Daniel read it first, he thought I was on his side fully. He thought with you gone we would win the war. He told me he would spare you. He lied. He wanted you maimed. He wanted blood. So I gave him what he wanted."

Every lie scraped my throat, every syllable tasted like iron. I watched her look at my hands as if they were strangers. I could have told her the truth, how memory had betrayed her, how her mind had folded that night into blankness to save her, but I couldn't. 

Not if the price of remembering was madness, not when the only life I could imagine for her was one without that horror in her head.

"You killed them," she whispered.

I didn't flinch, not outwardly at least,my heart was an animal battering its cage. "Yes."

"All of them?" Her voice had gone thin.

"Every last one," I said, and let the words fall like a verdict I carried alone. I didn't want her to hate me, but I had no other choice.

What I wanted more than anything was for her not to remember being the blade that had cut them down, for her not to realize that her own hands might have been the ones stained worse than mine.

She stepped back; I saw sickness ground into her features, and let her hate me for what she has done.

My beautiful Echo.

"What did you do, Storm?" she choked. "This wasn't justice. This was slaughter."

I looked down at my hands, at the dark smear that wouldn't wash away, and I let my voice go small, reverent even. "No, this was mercy, for them, and for me."