Page 25 of The Midnight Arrow
“Is that what you want?” he asked.
“He’s right,” I said quietly. My mind had been racing ever since he’d left. It had never stopped. I felt drained. I felt…strangely at peace. “She would have loved this wreath. She loved nature. She loved being in nature, being outside. She would collect lakelight leaves when they turned color this time of year and make a crown of them. She did that every single year and then hung them to dry so she’d be able to look at their color untilthe next season. I still have them somewhere—all these dried crowns she wove, likely crumbled to dust in a chest.”
“It’s all right to be angry at him, Marion,” Lorik told me. “I don’t know the specifics, but I heard about what happened in Rolara—villagers talk. He was careless. He didn’t protect her when he should have.”
“I’ve been angry for so long,” I whispered. “I’m tired of it.”
Lorik’s hand came to the middle of my back, and I pressed myself into him without a moment’s hesitation. He slid it down until it curled around my hip.
“Do you find it difficult to forgive those who have hurt you?” he asked. His tone was careful, evenly measured. The question struck me as earnest, almost solemn.
“Yes,” I confessed. Lorik blew out a sharp breath. “I try so hard not to hurt other people. I’m careful with my words, I consider their feelings in everything I do, even at the cost to me sometimes. So when other people hurt me, nothing feels worse.”
“Being hurt is a natural part of life, Marion,” he informed me. “The Kylorr have a saying—from blood, you overcome. You need to be cut deeply in order to be strong.”
“And that’s where I’m weakest, I think,” I told him. “I’m a healer because I didn’t like to see Aysia cry at night when Correl would punish her. I’m a healer because my nature is not to harm but to heal. So why I can’t heal myself?”
“Oh, my love,” Lorik said, his tone gruff. And I realized I liked that term of endearment entirely too much coming off his lips. “There’s a part of me that just wants to keep you shielded from every dark thing in this world. Even me.”
Looking up at him in surprise, I saw something flicker over his face. A shimmering.
“But that would be a lie. That would be a disservice to you,” he continued. “If you were mine, I’d want to protect you without keeping you caged to keep you safe. Perhaps Veras was tryingto do the same with Aysia. Only he didn’t protect her enough. Would you have rather he kept her tucked away in his estate? So not even a splinter could have pricked her?”
“No, of course not,” I said quietly, sighing. “But it was much more than a splinter that killed her.”
“Do you think you’ll ever forgive him?” Lorik wondered, his eyes shifting to Aysia’s grave. Moonlight speared the headstone, and the metal shimmered and gleamed. How could I have let so much time get away from me?
“I don’t know,” I said. “But I do know that I can’t do this anymore. Every time I see him, every time I hear his name in the village, I get so angry. And it affects me. Like today—I’ve been standing here for hours, and I didn’t even realize it. This hatred is taking away my life, and I don’t want to let it anymore.
“So I don’t know if I can forgive him, but I’ve decided I’m going to try to move on from the past. Because he’s right…I know he did love her. Deeply. He made her very happy, even though the end was tumultuous between us. I can’t just erase that. Shechosehim. I can accept that. And we have our love for her in common, and so he will always be part of my life, no matter how much I wish he wasn’t.”
“I think that’s a good start,” Lorik murmured.
“It’s the only thing I can think to do anymore,” I said. Sighing, I dusted off dirt and shriveled, wrinkled leaves from the pedestal and lay the wreath on top. It must have cost Veras more than I made at the market in three months.
Lorik’s warm hand never left my waist. I shivered when a breeze wound through my hair and turned into him. My emotions were a little raw tonight, but it was nice to have someone near. To be able to lean on someone else, allow them to be my pillar, when I’d never had anyone like that before.
“You have a pure soul, Marion,” Lorik told me gently as he led me from the clearing. “I told you earlier—kind and gentle.There are not many like you in the world, especially here on Allavar. You’re as rare as the creatures you so lovingly keep.”
“But?” I asked, hearing that unspoken word in his voice.
His smile was a half one, not quite reaching his eyes as they scanned the darkness of the Black Veil.
“I’m worried that someone like me isn’t good for someone like you,” he confessed. “I worry for the day when you look at me like you look at Veras.”
I stilled. I hadn’t expected thevulnerabilityI heard in his gruff tone.
I wasn’t a fool. I knew there was a lot lurking beneath the surface of Lorik Ravael. Unspoken, dangerous truths. Even Veras’s guard had been afraid of him. The barbed words edged in warning from Veras told me that even he knew something I didn’t.
There was a suspicion nagging in my mind, but it was too ridiculous to even voice. That Lorik had dealings with the Severs, which was forbidden. Anyone who came across Severs were never seen or heard from again.
Like Merec?I wondered, remembering what Lorik had told me about the old shopkeeper.
“What did Veras mean?” I asked quietly. Lorik’s hand tightened on my waist. “When he said he wasn’t surprised to see you in the Black Veil?”
“I hunt in the forest sometimes,” Lorik replied.
“You two know one another?”