Agatine (Terres book II)

Chapter Thirty Seven

Wren still shook, but occupied herself with staring at the brickwork and Phina's back. The light nearly blinded her as they emerged from the darkness and out into the alleyway that ran parallel to the building. She watched Phina's head bob as she nearly tripped over something, then glanced down.

His face was turned away from her, but she already knew, the second she saw the cracked paint and the boiled leather and the pool of blood that had already started to solidify where he laid. His eyes were wide and glassy, and they stared off into nothing, because he couldn't see her any longer. Wren's eyes stung with tears. His skin was pale and ghostly. She knelt down beside him and touched the back of her hand to his forehead. She needed to convince herself that it was real, because it could not be. He could not die.

His head flopped lifelessly to the side. The gash in his neck was so deep his spine stuck out like marble, and she could see the thick, ropelike vessels that had spilled his blood. She wondered if it had been quick, and if he had been scared. If he was sorry for leaving her alone, and if that was why he'd gone to try to save her. She hunched over herself. Phina touched her back, in the space between where her wings jutted from her shirt.

"There's not time," she said gently. Wren wanted to swing at her, and to scream until her throat went raw. To scream that she would never understand, that she would never comprehend what Wren had lost. That it wasn't fair for him to leave and then to die and for her to still feel when he had lost that right. When he had betrayed her in so many ways she couldn't remember them all.

She stood, then wiped her eyes with her sleeve. The group snaked between one of the buildings and down another alleyway, and the smell of damp and rot returned. It comforted her, somehow. Made her feel like she was in a place that was small and alone and safe. She fought the urge to curl up in one of the corners and lay there until she slept.

Phina put a hand on her forearm, and it returned her to the reality she did not want to face. The one in which her mother was dead and her father was gone and her only friend had left her. The one in which things changed so fast  her head spun and her stomach twisted until she thought she might vomit.

She didn't notice the way they were going, or pay attention to how long it took them to get there. She only noticed and breathed a sigh of relief when she saw the white flag and the flowerbox. Rannok opened the door to Ittra's apartment and they all spilled inside.

Ittra stood, leaned against the back wall, puffing on a cigarette as if nothing in the world could bother her. She flashed a grin in Wren's direction. Wren scowled back. She hated Ittra. She hated her with the kind of white hot hatred that one did not ever forget. The kind of hatred that haunted you until you died. It wasn't hatred like the hatred she had for Rannok. This was different, and it nearly crushed her chest with its weight.

She stormed past Ittra and pushed into the small room in the back, the one which Ittra did not sleep in, though it would please her to steal her room from her, to make her sleep in a heap in the living room with the rest of them. The thought of her old bones complaining made Wren happier than she wanted.

She dug through the pile of clothes she'd tossed in the corner, not caring whether or not they were clean, so long as they were not stained with someone else's blood. She ripped the one she was wearing off and replaced it with a new one in one fluid motion. 

The white fabric settled onto her skin. She hadn't worn these clothes since she'd left the caravan. The shirt she'd taken off laid in a puddle on the floor. The blue silk fabric hurt her eyes. She hugged the soft linen close to herself and sank down to the wall, biting her knuckles in a place there wasn't blood.

She could hear Phina shouting outside, in angry words that made Wren cringe and worry for everyone else's safety. Ittra shouted back just as loudly, until the walls shook and Wren wanted to disappear into herself like a tortoise. She could barely make out the words through the thin walls, and she didn't care to hear them. She let them wash over her like a soft breeze.

She examined her right hand. The blood had settled into the dry cracks in the skin and outlined them, until they looked like earth itself. She shivered. It scared her, how good it felt to kill that man. How powerful she felt as she pulled the blade through her jaw. She wondered if it would be like this every time, until she scarcely forgot why she was supposed to feel bad for doing it. Her stomach twisted. 

The door opened a few minutes later, and Phina's head popped in through the crack. Wren hid her head in the comforting fabric of her sleeves. Phina let out a deep sigh, then pulled herself into the room like a cat, letting the door shut by itself behind her. Wren shivered. It felt like an invasion of space, like Phina was spilling out into a world that was not and could never be hers. Like she should not be in this room or in this place or in this house. 

She brushed a dark curl out of her face and knelt in front of Wren. Wren did not look at her. She tried to ignore the tears stinging at her eyes, and the horrible twisting of her gut. Phina said nothing and dropped down so she was cross-legged on the floor.

"Are you okay?"

Wren shook her head 'no'. Phina tried to take her hand, but she pulled it away. The air in the room grew cold. She shuffled a little so they were no longer facing one another.

"You--"

"Stop," Wren said quietly, and then there was silence. Phina let out a few breaths of air, as if she were lost for what to say. Wren suddenly remembered why she was so terrifying.

"I don't want to get used to it. How could you even say that? That you'll get used to it?" Wren's cheeks felt wet. She held her wings around herself for protection. 

"I was going to say that you did the right thing," Phina responded.

"I couldn't control myself." She glanced at Phina. Her dark eyes stared at the wall, mouth set in the same hard, serious line. Like she was pondering something she didn't want to be pondering.

 "You never get used to it. Not to that. Not ever. No matter how many times you have to, it never gets easier to watch them die."

"Then how do you do it?" 

"You seem to think I kill anyone who looks at me wrong." She took Wren's hand in both of hers. A shiver ran down her spine. Phina's eyes had gone from dark and brooding to something Wren couldn't place, but it made her want to pull away before Phina hurt her. "I have only killed three people, Wren."

"Why?" 

Phina let out a deep, shaky breath. She let go of Wren and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand."Because it is far more terrifying to watch someone you care about die. One barely managed to kill my sister. The other two were going to kill me."

Wren swallowed hard. She never realized that Phina's count was only one higher than hers. "Why did you let the man in the brothel go? The one who threatened me?"

Phina's fists clenched. Wren leaned away from her. The dangerous look was back in her eyes, the one that made her just as terrified as it reminded her of something poisonous and beautiful.

"Because I am not Seltus."