Leaving my half-eaten breakfast, I paced out of the dining hall and toward the training grounds, veering to the left and down the stairs to the dungeon. I pushed open the door, noting how Silas’s head picked up from the cot he was lying on to see who’d entered.
I motioned to the two guards standing inside the door. “Leave us.”
They made small bows and left, closing the door behind them. Once they’d gone, I strode over to stand in front of Silas’s cell. He sat up on his cot, kicking his legs over the side to set his feet on the floor. The entire right side of his face was still swollen, black and blue where it wasn’t a deep red from various cuts. The wounds had been cleaned, but them even still being present came as a surprise. Sevedi had been occupied with Ava, but I thought she’d have come down here afterward to give the few minutes it would take to heal him.
“Why have you not been looked after?” I asked.
“Magic was offered,” he answered, rising from his cot. “I refused.” Standing, he strode to the bars of his cell, grabbing them in his hands and watching me for a few seconds while I absorbed his words. When I said nothing, he let out a sigh, saying with every bit of sincerity, “I deserve what you did, Kiena. I deserve this.”
It appeared that he truly believed it, too, but I didn’t want to believe it. Didn’t want to think that he felt remorse for what he’d done, because I didn’t think I could ever forgive him. Even if I did manage to forgive him, I would never fully trust him again. It would never be like it was.
When I still failed to say anything, he motioned toward my hand. “That’s just like you, too,” he said, and at first I thought he meant the fact that I’d beat him. “I remember that time you got head-butted by a ram. You took it home for supper, and wouldn’t ice the bruise because you thought you’d earned it fair and square.” I realized what he truly meant, and he was right. Sevedi had offered to heal my hand when I’d come to stay with Ava, and I’d refused it just like Silas had refused it. I’d refused it because in some ways I was ashamed of what I’d done to him. That violence, that brutality, it wasn’t me. I deserved the pain in my hand as much as he deserved the wounds in his face. “You don’t need to keep that—”
“Why are you here, Silas?” I interrupted, growing irritated by his talking, by his knowledge of my emotions. I hadn’t come to reminisce. Hadn’t come so he could remind me of how close we’d been. He’d thrown all of that away. Not me.
I knew Silas well enough to catch the disappointment in the drop of his gaze, but he answered accordingly. “Have you spoken with Kingston today?” I shook my head. “I’ll tell you what I told him. Hazlitt got what he was after in Ronan. He got the elixir and all its power.”
“Good,” I said with scathing sarcasm. “War’s over, just like you wanted. Maybe now he’ll restore the kingdom like you wanted.”
Silas’s head fell, because we both knew that would never happen. “War’s not over,” he said to the floor. He straightened again to look at me. “He’s moving on Cornwall, and I doubt he’ll stop there.” Silas shook his head, as if he was in disbelief, or disappointed in himself. “I doubt he’ll stop until he’s taken Cornwall, and White Haven in the north, and Aelmon west of Ronan. God, Kiena, he might even cross the Balain Sea.”
Wonderful. Here Silas was, telling me that Hazlitt wanted to conquer the world, and essentially admitting that he’d been wrong this whole time. Perfectly wonderful. All it did was frustrate me. I was so instantly frustrated that I turned and smashed my foot into the side of a bucket of water, sending it flying across the dungeon.
“I told you, Silas!” I shouted. “I bloody told you all he wanted was power, and all you had to do was trust me! Nineteen years! You were like a brother to me for nineteen godforsaken years, and you couldn’t trust me!”
“I know,” he murmured apologetically.
“You don’t know!” I roared, and I hadn’t come here to shout at him, but now I couldn’t stop. “You have no idea what you put me through! You betrayed me! You killed Albus! Albus, Silas! Who I thought you loved as much as I did, and you put a fucking arrow in his heart!” I stomped forward, so heatedly that he took a step back. “And Ava,” I growled. “She’s everything to me. Everything! You look me in the eyes and tell me when I’ve ever said that about a woman. Tell me when I’ve ever said that about someone who wasn’t family.” He looked at me, but he said nothing as his eyes filled with tears. “Never,” I answered for him, and my throat was raw with shouting and my voice broke with emotion. “Not once in my entire life. But you stood there while Hazlitt made me choose. Now she’s up there, and she can’t even look at me because I broke her heart. And you broke mine.”
Silas’s eyebrows converged with the severest kind of sadness. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, sniffling as a tear slid down his cheek. “Kiena, I’m so sorry.”
“Why’d you come here, Silas?” I asked again, blinking away the moisture in my own eyes. “You could’ve sent a message. Why come?”
“For you,” he answered. “I saw it that day, exactly how much you loved her. I’ve spent the last six months agonizing about everything I did wrong, and I came to beg you for the chance to set this right.”
The request was so painful that I took a wounded step back, but he rushed forward, reaching out and taking a hold of my hand in another form of begging. No matter how gentle the touch was, it startled me, and I ordered without thinking, “Let go.” That splitting crack went down the front of my skull, and Silas’s hand immediately released me.
That startled me too. Before yesterday, I hadn’t even thought it would be possible for me to control a human, and now I’d done it twice. I didn’t like it. Didn’t like that I’d unintentionally controlled someone. Even if it was Silas, and even if I was furious with him. It was his mind, his body, and I had no right making it do things simply because I wanted. The very thought of committing this invasion against a person made me severely uncomfortable. Plus, it hurt.
Silas also looked shocked that I’d done it again, but he didn’t say anything about it because he was too emotional. “I messed up, I know it,” he said, letting the better side of his forehead rest against the bars of his cell. “I thought I was doing the right thing. I was blinded by my desire for victory, and I hurt the only person who’s always been there for me.” He took in a shaky breath, another tear slipping from the corner of his eye. “I’ll fight for you. I’ll join this rebellion. I’ll do whatever I have to, and spend the rest of my life making it up to you. Please, Kiena, let me make this right.”
I sniffled, completely unable to even consider what he was saying to me because of how much he’d hurt me. Not the wounds on his face, or the tears in his eyes, or his pleas for forgiveness could take that hurt away. “You got Ava back to me,” I said, “and for that I’m grateful. But I set you free once, Silas, because of what you meant to me and against Ava’s better judgment.” I paused, and the corners of his mouth twitched with a desolate frown because he already knew what I’d decided. “I won’t make that mistake again.”
Though I knew they’d come, I didn’t wait around to see the tears roll down his face. I rushed out of the dungeon, already feeling numb and nodding to the guards that they could return to their posts. When I reached the top of the stairs, however, I stopped. I froze at the corridor because now I wasn’t sure what to do with myself. Ava was safe and I no longer had to fret about finding her or nag Kingston for updates, though I couldn’t go and spend time with her either. Nor did I need something to keep my mind off the fact that we couldn’t find her. It came as a complete shock, but for the first time in six months, I almost felt something akin to boredom. But there were always things to do, and I knew exactly what I needed.