Calem
Kaori had dismissed the attendants stationed nearby the moment we’d hit the floor dedicated to the Crown’s quarters. Save for the ever-present crashing of water from the nearby falls that filtered through the closed window, Leena’s room was quiet. And so was Kaori. She’d placed the package on the low coffee table before the fire and sunk into the settee to stare at it. With light fingers, she absently tracked the mercury veining on her inner wrist.
“Kaori?” I tried, moving to her side. It killed me that I couldn’t touch her while shadow walking. Not really. I desperately wanted to grip her hands in mine. To give them a squeeze and offer her some of my strength. “What’s wrong?”
After a long moment, she finally looked up at me, but her gaze was somewhere far away. “Nothing. I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine.” She’d always been a bit reserved. Quiet. But nothing like…this. “Tell me what’s going on.”
“There’s nothing to tell.”
I bit back a sigh. Her stubbornness was beyond irritating. “I don’t believe you. Something is up.”
She lifted one shoulder, but the action was stiff. “Yazmin is attempting to manipulate us yet again. Something is certainly ‘up.’”
Tossing my hands in the air, I rounded the couch to position myself in front of her. “Right. This is about the box.”
She blinked. “What else would it be about?”
“You’re as dense as Kost,” I mumbled, pinching the bridge of my nose before sighing. “Sorry, I didn’t mean that. He’s far and away worse.”
I’d hoped my jest would get her to smile. Just a small curl of her lips would’ve been enough. But she continued to look at me as if I weren’t really there, face devoid of emotion. Her fingers endlessly trailed along her wrist. My hand itched to clamp down on hers and stop their progression.
Shifting my weight from one foot to the other, I scoffed. How could I get her to open up? To share with me when she’d done so little of that before? I owed Kaori my life. I valued her more than I could put into words, and yet most of our conversations had centered around our inner beasts. We’d discussed my triggers at length and how to rein in my temper and practice control. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized she’d never shared anything of herself with me. Nothing about her past. Nothing about her triggers. I’d been so focused on my own recovery, on learning to strong-arm the beast in me, that I’d failed entirely at asking more about her.
And the fact that I wanted to know more, beyond an amicable friendship or flirting, was startling enough to bring my fidgeting to a standstill. Get a grip. She’s family, that’s why you’re worried. Worried. That was it. I drew in a slow breath and pushed away my scrambled thoughts. Thoughts that had absolutely no place in my mind. Not now, not ever. Kaori needed support. And I could give that to her.
Crouching before her, I rested my hands on my knees. “Kaori, I need to know that you’re okay.”
“I’m okay,” she responded all too quickly.
“No, you’re not.”
“Are you insinuating you know what I’m feeling?” A glimmer of annoyance colored her voice, and I almost jumped for joy. Anything was better than the statue I’d been dealing with moments before.
“No, of course not. But I’d like to know.”
She considered me for a long moment. Her dark eyes were full of emotions I didn’t have the ability to place, but one thing was certain: there was a storm brewing in her stare. One that wasn’t necessarily directed at me. There was an age-old hurt masked behind her wall of indifference. And gods if I didn’t want to know what’d caused it. Slowly, she dropped her gaze. Dug her fingers into her skin. When she sighed, her shoulders rolled forward.
“This is…difficult for me to talk about.”
I was almost too scared to respond in case it silenced her all together. “I’ll hear whatever you’re willing to share.”
She nodded. “You remember Wynn?”
A familiar heat raced through my veins, and my inner beast stirred. The rage I’d felt at seeing what he’d done to Leena, a member of my chosen family, had sent me into a murderous frenzy. But now was not the time to give way to my beast. I wasn’t even entirely sure what would happen if I shifted while shadow walking, and it wasn’t something I was eager to test.
With a deep, steadying breath, I nodded. “Yes.”
“He wasn’t the first one who went rogue playing with dark magic.” Her words were barely a whisper, as if she’d had to coax them out against their will. She pressed her eyes shut. Went entirely still. “My parents were.”
For a moment, I did nothing. Simply waited. I had my own complicated memories of my parents, particularly my mother. She’d destroyed me in ways I didn’t ever care to examine. If any inkling of my mother’s presence was somehow thrust before me again, no matter how tangential, I’d already be a beast rampaging through the Kitska Forest. Pushing that thought aside, I placed my hand over Kaori’s fingers. Shadows caressed the mercury veins, and she looked between them and me.
“What does this have to do with them?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Probably nothing. It’s just…” She curled her fingers upward, as if trying to intertwine them with mine. “Wynn primarily experimented on humans. My parents…experimented on everything. What if…what if the missing Charmers are because of them and not Wilheim?”
My throat went dry. “We don’t even know—”
“They were exiled when I was young, supposedly sent to some prison off the coast of Allamere.” She interrupted me in a rush, her words gushing like water that had just been freed from a dam. “But they were powerful. So powerful. And dangerous. They could’ve escaped, could’ve made an alliance with the king of Wilheim somehow. Maybe they’ve been helping him capture Charmers all along. What if they’re…what if they’re experimenting again? What if…”
“Kaori, breathe.”
Glassy eyes met mine, and she inhaled sharply. “I’m sorry.”
I let go of her hand and stood up. “Get up.”
“What?” She blinked.
“Stand. Up.”
Slowly, she pushed herself off the couch. “I don’t understand.”
Before she could say anything else, I wrapped my arms around her and tucked my head against her neck. I knew she wouldn’t be able to feel the warmth of my touch, but I willed the shadows to encircle her and provide as much comfort as I possibly could in this moment. At first, she didn’t move. Then, she started to tremble. Her tremors sent ripples through the inky tendrils, but I commanded them to stay in place. Finally, she cradled her head in her hands and let out a quiet sob.
As gently as I could, I spoke directly into her ear. “It’s going to be okay. I promise.”
“But what if I’m right?” she whispered between her fingers. “I don’t want to be right.”
My chest tightened. “Then we’ll take it one step at a time. But we don’t know anything yet, and if we focus on what we can’t control…” I sent a soft tendril snaking through her fingers. She pulled her hand away to watch its progression as it danced along the silver veins of her wrist. “Then the beast wins.”
Tears lined her face, and she looked up at me through thick lashes. Something shifted in me in that moment. Not my beast. Not anything I could really name. But it was warm and full and entirely too much. For the first time since we’d arrived in Hireath, I was glad I wasn’t physically there. Otherwise, I didn’t know if I would’ve been able to restrain myself in that moment. My fingers burned to brush away her tears. To cup her face and hold her close. To…
A tremble raced through me, one I was thankful she couldn’t feel.
Just then, a small, insistent shadow slipped beneath the door and raced across the floor toward me. Ozias. So absorbed in my conversation with Kaori, I hadn’t realized that he was waiting outside. A strange mixture of relief and irritation brewed in me. Relief because I didn’t have to stay and examine whatever the hell was going on in my brain, and annoyance because…
I let my arms fall away and took a small step back. “Ozias is waiting outside.”
Kaori nodded and rubbed her hands along her arms. Right where my shadows had been. “Thanks, Calem.”
“Any time.” I flashed her a grin because that’s what I did best—hide behind a smile. And with that, I headed for the door, eager to put some distance between me and the woman who’d turned my thoughts upside down.