Darkling (22 page)

I’m getting cold so I slip back inside. Now that I truly am alone, the solitude of the house hits me. My skin crawls and I feel vulnerable. I gather firewood from the kitchen. The once plentiful stack has dwindled. I take a risk and climb the stairs. Once back inside our room, I lock the door then stir the ashes and start a fire.

Draven’s right. I don’t need him to protect me. I can protect myself. And having him here only makes things worse. Victoria lured him to the house to try to break me. If not for Scarlet, she would have succeeded.

The fire is roaring.
Too hot for me to sit on the hearth. I grab Tristan’s journal. Where is he? Doesn’t he know I need him? What if he can’t reform his body? How long should I wait? I think of Grandma Abella talking to someone who wasn’t there. What if it was just someone no one could see? Someone like Tristan. And the only way to be with him was to kill herself.

The thought sends a chill down my back. I focus on the journal I’m holding. His handwriting is elegant loops on the page.
Loops that mean nothing to me. I throw it across the room. My life is broken and it isn’t fair. It isn’t from poor choices I made or wicked things I’ve done. It’s out of my control. I want to take control.

Looking at the fire, I wonder what will happen if I set the house ablaze. Victoria will have no halls to haunt. No doors to slam. No lamps to flicker.
Fire, the creator and destroyer of Victoria’s existence. It ended her once. Maybe it can again.

I grab a burning branch and carefully remove it from the flames. I look around the room.
The books. They will burn well. I grab one and open it, laying it on the desk, exposing its pages. So many printed shapes lining the paper. I lower the flame. It’s about to catch when the fire I’m holding snuffs out.

Smoke curls around my face. Irritation blooms in my chest. Then the fire dims. Someone shuffles in the darkness. The fire begins to recover as the heat claims more wood. The room slowly brightens.

Tristan is huddled in the corner, his head tucked into his arms, like a frightened child. Relief floods me as I toss the branch back into the flames and cross over to him. I sit down with my back against the wall, our shoulders touching. I wait for him to react but he doesn’t. Not for a while.

“Why,” he whispers, “did he bring about that horrible day? Why couldn’t he just leave us alone?”

“I don’t know.” He did hear what I told Draven. I twine my arm with his, comforted by his warmth. He feels whole. I want to lie down in his wholeness.

“My back was to the fire when it caught,” he says quietly. “Victoria was sitting on the hearth. She had asked me to bring her a blanket. I was walking away when I felt the pressure in the room change. Then heat and fire were everywhere, all over me. My back was burning so I dropped and rolled. I could smell melting hair. I could see the flames eating Victoria. I used the blanket to beat them out but my sleeves caught on fire, as well. We were both screaming.”

He lifts his head. His bangs are in his face as he rests his chin on his hands.

“When it was finally out, I thought she was dead. I couldn’t even recognize her.
She lay there moaning while I put out the rest of the fire that had already eaten through the walls around the chimney.”

“You did the best you could.”

He rests his cheek on his hands as he peers at me. It’s been too long since I’ve seen his face. I’ve forgotten how warm it makes me feel. “Will Draven be all right?”

I look away. Guilt gnaws at my stomach but it was his choice to leave. “He is a woodsman, like his father.”

“Who died because of me. So much death because of me.” His eyes have that terrible sadness again. “I deserve this prison. This torture. I let her take from me because I owe her life. I owe her life because I gave her death.”

I touch my fingers to the curve of his cheekbone and turn his head to look at me. My voice is firm. “Her death was not your fault. You killed her to end her suffering. If anyone’s to blame, it’s Elias.”

He shakes his head. “This is what you don’t understand. What you’ve never understood. I wanted her to die. Long before she was burnt. I wanted to be free of her.”

Clarity invigorates me like a breath of cold air. It is not his love for Victoria that has bound him to her after her death. It was not his loyalty to his dead wife that stopped him from lying with me. It was guilt. Not just over the mercy killing of his wife, but over having wished her dead.
Gone. And then receiving what he wished for.

Watching Victoria languish in such agony was the most horrible thing I have ever experienced next to my sister’s death. No one should suffer like that. Not even someone as manipulative as Victoria. She may have abused Tristan’s trust and affection, but she didn’t deserve to linger in such pain. And watching her suffer when there was nothing he could do to help her, feeling as if his dark thoughts had brought this upon her, changed Tristan even more than her death. He’ll never be free of her until he lets go of his own remorse.

“You didn’t bring death upon her.”

He shakes his head.
“If I never met Lucian. If we never came here –”

“If you never met her in the first place.
If you were never born,” I continue for him. “If, if, if. You can’t change what has happened. The important thing is that you never intended for harm to come to her. If you really wanted her dead, you would’ve killed her yourself.”

Tristan raises his brows, his eyes earnest, as if he doesn’t think I understand. “But
if
I had never set those events in motion –”

“Then I never would’ve met you.”

The concern on his face shifts. As if he feels small. Humbled. My fingers trace the side of his face.

“And despite all of the terrible things that have happened because of the darkness, I am so grateful to have met you. To feel the way I do. You make me happy and I want to return that happiness to you.”

His lips twitch in a bashful smile. “You have.” He cups my face. “Oh, you have.”

Tristan presses his lips against mine.
So warm and soft. Strong and gentle. And for several moments, I am lost in the rush of my own blood, the tickling of his hair against my fingers. The beauty he is radiating through me.

When he pulls away, he has a funny look on his face. As if he’s been drinking. I know my expression matches his. And I’m so overwhelmed by the adorableness before me that I kiss him again.

“This is what it’s meant to be,” he murmurs against my lips before pulling away a little. “This happy quietness. This warmth. This delight.”

I have nothing else to compare to how we feel. No, I do. I have his memories.
The sordid passion of Victoria. The mixing of pain and pleasure. The withdrawals and indulgences. All he knew of love until now. I kiss him again to let him know he is right.

This trust and contentment.
This giving and receiving. This is love.

We linger with our faces close together, our skin touching. His breath falls on my chin and neck. He smells of autumn leaves and sweat. His hand is in mine, his thumb stroking my skin, drawing teasing shapes. Everything else fades away but this moment.
These sensations. This togetherness.

At length, the pleasant tickling stops. He shifts. “I know what I have to do,” he whispers. I nod.

Squeezing my hand, he rises and I rise with him. We start for the door. He unlocks it and I press myself closer to his side as we enter the hall. The only light in the house is coming from the fireplace downstairs. No moonlight lingers on the sills. It must be day. I wonder if Draven made it back to Morrot. If they stopped the lottery.

We walk down the hall, towards the chained door. My hair stands on end as we near. I know she’s in there. But she is still weak. Tristan pulls a key out of his breast pocket and slides it into the lock that binds the chains together. I watch his hand, waiting for him to turn it.
Tensing. Instead, he looks at me with worry tinting his eyes.

“If this works,” he says, “Then I’ll be like you. I won’t be able to heal myself with fire anymore.”

I nod but the concern hasn’t left his face.

“I’ll have my scars.”

And then it hits me. He’s not worried about injuries. He’s worried that I won’t want him anymore. That I’ll be disgusted by his burns. I called him a monster once. I catch his hand in mine and kiss it.

“Your body is beautiful to me because it’s yours. Nothing can change that.”

Tristan’s expression softens. He looks like he’s about to cry. Instead, he lets go of the lock and grabs me in a hug. I cling to him as he buries his nose in my hair. I kiss his neck. We hold each other until his heartbeat calms. Then he pulls away and turns the key.

The lock clicks and he removes it from the chains. Then he tugs and the metal links slither as he coils them until the door is bare. He sets them aside. I take his hand again as he sticks the key in the final lock and turns. The bolt thuds. He tries the handle and the door slowly creaks open.

T
he room before us is dark and smells of the forest. Several lamps burst to life within as Tristan wills light into the room. It’s their bedroom. The wall around the chimney is missing, bordered by charred planks of wood. It is letting in a chill and something else.

Snow.
It’s lightly dusting everything in the room. Even the old cobwebs. In the darkness of the sky, the snowflakes look like they’re appearing right above our heads.

The floor creaks as we step forward. I see the bed, still stained dark with old blood and burnt flesh. The nightstand beside it looks as it did in Tristan’s memory. The knife rests upon it next to an empty glass. Along the other wall is a chest of drawers. A vase is set on lace. Dried roses clustered. Above the chest of drawers is a large painting. I pause when I see it.

Though it has been dulled by exposure to the elements, it is shockingly lifelike. Tristan and Victoria pose by an armchair. She seated in it, him beside with his hand resting on her shoulder. A corner of the frame and canvas are charred, peeling and bubbling from the heat of the fire.

“Victoria painted that,” Tristan says quietly.

“She was a wonderful artist,” I say.

And I mean it. In all this madness I have forgotten that she was a woman. She was once more than her faults. Tristan lets go of my hand as he crosses over to the fireplace. The river rock is blackened and cracked. Even now, the scent of old smoke lingers. A half-burned blanket is on the ground where Tristan left it all those years ago. He sucks in a shaky breath as he gazes at the hearth.

I cross to him and hug his arm. He turns away and closes his eyes. Though it didn’t happen to me, I felt what it was like for Tristan. And I don’t like being here anymore than he does. But when we pivot to face the bed and I gaze upon the dark stains, I am reminded of more than Victoria. I hear the echo of Scarlet’s screams as she died. Two women who never knew each other in life. Such opposites. Both burned. And by the same hand.

Tristan takes one of the dried roses out of the vase. He tugs on the blossom until it pops off into his hand. I let go of him as he steps forward and scatters the petals on the bed. I remember him saying he used to sleep like that when he was kept from Victoria. The passion wasn’t all one-sided.

Then he sits on the side of the mattress, as if she were lying there. He runs his hand across the snowy, charred fabric. Then he lies down. I feel out of place. But he wanted me here. He rests his hand where her hips would have been.

“I’m so sorry, Victoria,” he whispers. His voice is strained and I realize he is crying. “I’m so sorry that this happened to you.
So sorry that I couldn’t help you. That I couldn’t make the world stable for you.” He sniffs and a tear slips down his cheek.

My breath hitches in my throat as the bed beside him dents. Like someone is lying there. I quietly step to the side. There, between the lamplight and snow, I can glimpse the shimmering image of Victoria. She is gazing at Tristan with empathy and affection. An expression I’ve never seen her wear. And though I can see her, my hair isn’t standing on end.

“For a few moments, you did,” she says. Her voice is ethereal and though I could clearly make out the words, I wonder if I heard it at all.

“Our moments are over,” he whispers. His hand is now holding her ghost hand. “It’s time to say goodbye.”