He howled. He let the fury pour out of him until he, too, was shattered. The sunlight tracked across the floor, marking each passing hour, and he could do nothing but watch it and think of the ends of her hair, matted with blood; the spectral quality of her skin as death had stolen over it.
When it no longer felt like he was frozen, Nicholas began to work at what was left of the knot around his wrists. The wound in his side pulled, his shoulder ached, and his mind carried him back, unwanted, undeterred, to that moment again. Her forehead had creased, as if she had heard something he had not. And there had been pain—he’d seen it tear across her face, felt it in the way her fingers had suddenly dug into his wrists, as if she could tether herself to him. Her eyes had rolled back, she’d gone utterly limp—
Had she known?
Did she know what was happening?
The silk unraveled under the coaxing of his thumb, slipping against his skin as it fell away. Muscles screamed in protest as he pushed himself up, leaning back against the wall again. He steadfastly avoided looking at the blood that crept across the ancient stone.
Nicholas watched the sun retreat through the window as it set, hatred hardening his core, until he was finally seized by impulse. He snatched a fragment of plaster up off the ground and drew his arm back to smash it against the stone, beat it into something unrecognizable, when he noticed something a few feet away.
An earring.
He scooped it up before the blood could wash over it—clasped it hard enough to feel the shape of the pearl, the prick of the stud, as it dug into his palm—and tried to find her again in himself, to pin down the memory of her face as he’d first seen it on the Ardent.
All for nothing. All of this, everything, for nothing.
Why was he so shocked? How had he ever expected life to deliver something he wanted to him, when it had denied him at nearly every turn? And just when he’d finally decided that the risk was worth the reward—when he’d settled on one path over another—Nicholas had been ready to go with her. He would have followed her anywhere.
And he’d killed her. His shot had missed the guardian—the Thorn—in front of him, and passed through her smaller frame.
He had let her change his plans; he’d started to rearrange his future, to become open to the possibility of a different kind of freedom. She had taken all of that with her, and he’d been the one to steal her from the world. To silence her talent and charm and unstoppable, fearless heart.
This. All of this, everything, for this; the cold, unfeeling touch of death and disappointment and grief. Nicholas felt a peculiar sort of envy for his past self, the young man who still existed outside of the barbed knot of time. The one who had not yet been crushed into dust.
He stood, his vision flooding with pops of light and color. His skull felt light enough to float away from his body, to drift off into the night. Was it so wrong to wish it would? If only to escape this…this…
Nicholas felt his way down the stairs, taking slow, measured steps in the cool darkness, until he reached the lower chamber and stepped outside. As he’d expected, his horse was gone, along with the supply of food and water he’d carried with him.
Rage once again replaced the numbness, flooding his body with a kind of fury that made him unrecognizable to himself. Sophia hadn’t fired the gun, but she was partially to blame for this. Together, the three of them might have been able to overcome the two Thorns, but she’d turned on him and Etta, just when it had mattered most. He would kill his cousin, woman or not. When the time was right, when he found her, he would call her out, and he would kill her. Even as a sailor, he’d known how to hunt. He would not stop until he found Sophia.
Nicholas sat at the entrance, leaning his shoulder against the stone, breathing in the night air; it was as dry and harsh as it had been when he and Hasan had camped for a few short hours the night before.
God. He would need to explain this to Hasan. The other young man would know to come looking for them—for Nicholas—when they didn’t meet on the road.
He shut his eyes. His cracked lip began to bleed as he drew in another steadying breath.
There was nothing to do but wait for Hasan, to try to find a way to save the mother, if he could not save the daughter. His helpless anger spread like a blot of fresh ink on paper until it absorbed her mother, too. She should have protected Etta in the first place. If she had, Etta would be playing in her debut; she would be safe, hundreds of years away from the sweltering, wasting reach of this desert.
The moon was full and bright above him, but he closed his eyes, unwilling to look again. Sleep stole upon him quickly, silently, leaving him confused and disoriented when he woke at the first touch of sunlight.