Agatine (Terres book II)

Chapter Thirteen

Wren's head pounded to the steady tempo of her heartbeat as she opened her eyes. The sun shining into the tiny room made them squint. She rubbed her temples a bit and sat up, wincing as her wings squashed against the wall. For a moment she didn't remember why her head hurt and her eyes were so sensitive and why her stomach churned, but then all at once it came back to her. 

She let out a small gasp and glanced wildly around the room. Rannok was on his back in the other corner, staring into that book he'd been reading, close enough for her to touch. Her stomach dropped into her feet, and her face flushed until she thought the skin might boil off. She stared at him for a moment, as if hoping he might say something, but he just turned the page. 

She clutched her hand to her head and let out an unintended groan. Rannok placed the book down and looked over at her. She hid her head in her hands and peeked at him between her fingers. He sat up and raised an eyebrow at her. Wren wanted to die.

"I'm not mad at you," he said, though his eyes said otherwise. Something burned below the surface, hot and red and angry. Wren took her head out of her hands and looked away. He could pretend all he wanted, she could still see it. The air huffed out of her lungs. She tried not to let the light blind her as she looked out the window. 

"Then why are you looking at me like that," she asked as his eyes burned into her forehead. She tried not to look him in the face. He let out a deep sigh, his chest heaving in and out.

"I said I wasn't mad at you."

"Why would you be mad at anyone else?"

"Because one of the girls at that place Ittra took you to...she swore they wouldn't. Did one of them tell you that you had to--"

"No!" Wren said. Her face burned even hotter than before. She didn't know what she would have done if they had. If she would have gotten used to the idea and complied and probably not minded all that much. Phina didn't seem to. 

"Then why did you?" he asked. 

"I don't know," she responded, though in a certain way, she did. He was there and he was acting like maybe he cared just the tiniest little bit, and she wanted so desperately to feel like someone gave a shit. Like they wouldn't up and leave the first time she got inconvenient or said the wrong thing. Really she'd just wanted someone to hold her. She wasn't sure why she'd taken it farther than that.

"Okay," he said, though the subtle anger in his eyes had only dimmed slightly. 

"You don't believe me," she said.

"Not really."

"Why do you even care? You're not my keeper. It's my choice, not yours." Her chest got hot, and as the words tumbled out, a spark came with them. The last thing she needed was another protector. Another babysitter who would keep an eye on where she was going and who she was with and what she was up to. He didn't have the right, not after everything he'd done and all the pain he'd caused. 

"Because if someone told you that you had to, it's not a choice." He locked eyes with her and the look in them made the color drain from her face. "You're right, I'm not here to protect you. I only care because you crawled into my bed and tried to fuck me while you were so drunk you couldn't even say your own name, and I don't sleep with drunk people."

"Nobody  told me I had to!" Her voice flew out of her mouth so loudly she made herself jump. The spark in her chest flared into a fire. She glared at him from across the room, hands balling into fists, trying to keep the words down because she knew would only make it worse. She wanted to hurt him, to make him feel the pain that she felt. But she couldn't, because for once she knew everything was all her fault. It only infuriated her more that she couldn't bring herself to hate him anymore.

But then she let out a long, deep sigh and leaned back into the wall, feathers squishing down behind her head. She looked up at the ceiling so she could examine the cracks in the stonework instead of his face.

"Why did you do it?" she asked, though it wasn't the topic of conversation. It had been eating her alive for years, the thought of why he did something so terrible. Why he blackmailed her into buying those fireworks. Why he hadn't come forward when Cain died and left her instead to pick up the pieces. Why he'd been so fucking content to abandon her when she'd never done anything to hurt him.

"I don't know, I was fifteen. I didn't think you were really going to buy them and when you did I was too scared that you'd tell someone I had them if I decided not to do it, so I did it. It was a stupid thing to do."

"You could have told them," she said. 

He nodded. "I could have, but I was stupid and scared and I'm sorry. I can't say anything else, Wren."

Wren closed her eyes and inhaled the air in the room. It smelled like sawdust and old stone and heat. It reminded her of her house in the village in the mornings, after the fire they lit for overnight had burned out and the smell had baked into the clay.

"Why do I hate everything so much?" she asked.

"I don't know, why do you?" he replied, cool as morning frost, his voice almost enough to soothe the burn that radiated from around her heart. 

"Because I miss it," she said quietly. "I miss my mother and the village and the caravan and not having to make decisions for myself. And I miss being normal." She looked back down at him. His eyes were impassive, honed on her, like he was listening to every word. For a second it tricked her into thinking maybe someone did care.

"I miss mine, too," Rannok said. He traced his fingers over the book and held it out to her. The leather cracked under her fingers. She cradled it with her hand, careful not to damage it further, and flipped open the page. 

Inside was a drawing from when they were very little, one Rannok's mother drew while they sat and posed for what felt like days. His arm was around her and they were both smiling, his hair sticking out in all directions, her still in the cotton nightgown she'd worn the night before. She'd forgotten about that day. She'd stayed in their house the night before and when they woke his mother fed them dried berries she'd gotten from a passing group of merchants. They must have been no more than six years old.

On the next page there was an inscription. His mother's tiny, curled text was bold and clear across the page. It talked about how they'd fought over a toy but made up, and how tall they'd both gotten in the last few months.

Wren turned the page. There was another drawing, one of Rannok holding his younger sister, scribbled out in a way that only could have come from memory. A tiny block of text floated above their heads, with their names and ages. She couldn't imagine how much he must miss them, his siblings and his mother and his father. 

She only had a mother and a father to miss. He had to miss Kana and Hael, too, and he had to constantly wonder if they were safe. If they fledged, and if the villagers beat their faces in with clubs or slit their throats or kicked and punched them until they no longer moved. If they'd flown into the desert and died of blood loss before anyone found them.

She flipped through the rest of the book without much thought, fingers skating over the text as she skimmed it. There were seasons and harvest schedules and notes from when traders came by. Pencil marks with the childrens' heights and what their first words were and what friends they had. Wren's name was mentioned in a few places as if for a while, she'd been one of them too. She'd forgotten how close they all were, and for a moment it bothered her. She supposed as a child she never realized it, and by the time she was old enough, they'd already drifted apart.

"Why do you have this?" she asked as she looked up at him.

He shrugged."I saw it on our bookshelf and was curious, so I put it in my bag. I'm glad I did because it's the last thing I have."

"I wish I had something," Wren said. "I wish I had one of her bracelets or her diary or something. But I understand why you lied to me and I'm sorry I got so mad."

"You lost your mother," he replied. "I would have been mad, too."

For a moment there was silence. The type of silence she missed, because rather than not saying anything, there just wasn't anything to say.

"It hurts," he said after awhile. Wren just nodded.