Hot tears started rolling down her cheeks as soon as she closed the door behind her. She slumped back against it, beating her fists against the grimy wood.
She’d come back to Luskan prepared to rage at Kalen for sending her away. Then-of all things-he had thanked her for coming back. She’d ended up raging at him anyway. And what she’d said-or, rather, almost said to him … Gods!
It was all so frustrating! If only she had more power-if only she could remember when she had wielded more! Then Kalen wouldn’t doubt her. Then-
Myrin felt like screaming, but that would draw attention, which would be worse. She grabbed her grimoire, flipped it open to a simple silencing incantation, and intoned the ritual. A hazy blue glow filtered over her door and walls, ensuring her privacy. Perfect.
Her wand flashed into her hand and she slashed it at the bed. A wave of thunder streaked forth, sending the bed shattering against the wall. Her pack burst open in a rain of colorful garments. She blasted one out of the air with a conjured arrow of force, sending scraps of fabric sailing in all directions, then whirled and sent forth a burst of flame to consume a fluttering white shift. The destruction was petty but it relieved her.
She turned her wand toward another garment, then stopped. The slinky red dress hung where it had caught on a broken bedpost, swinging like a hapless doll. Somehow, this image got the better of Myrin and she dropped her wand. More tears came. She didn’t fight them.
“Lady Darkdance.” Sithe stood at the door, dressed in her ruined fighting clothes. She spoke in words that barely rose above a whisper. “You are well?”
“Yes.” Embarrassment seized Myrin and she wiped her nose. “Yes, I’m well.”
Sithe hesitated on the threshold. Myrin wondered if she’d ever actually shared more than a dozen words with the genasi at any one time.
“You do battle?” The dark woman glanced around Myrin’s ruined room.
“Only against myself, I suppose,” Myrin said. “Please-come in, if you like.”
Slouched and shivering, Sithe entered. The swarm demon’s assault had torn her clothes to little more than ribbons. The tatters hid little enough that Myrin blushed to look at her. Lilten’s song had healed her wounds, but Myrin knew the genasi had been grievously hurt in the battle.
“That can’t be warm enough,” Myrin said. “Let me find you something else.”
Sithe adjusted her cloak self-consciously. “No need.”
“Please,” Myrin said. “I must have something you can wear. Here”-she pulled down the red dress from where it hung-“it’s not much, but-what?”
Sithe stared blankly at the dress.
“You think it won’t fit? We’re of a size, you and I-mostly.” The genasi was a bit broader than Myrin, but not by much. Amazing, how so much warrior fit into so little body.
“I-” Sithe said. “I cannot wear that.”
“Why not?” Myrin asked. “The color doesn’t flatter your inner darkness?”
From the way Sithe stared at her, she’d not taken the jest.
“Very well-I’ll get the blanket. Sorry about it being blasted in half.”
Myrin fumbled for the covering, which she wrapped around Sithe’s frail body. The genasi seemed so thin and weak. She had not brought her axe to Myrin’s room. Before she had been a force of death, but in that moment, Sithe seemed suddenly a woman. They sat on the floor together.
“Why, um,” Myrin said. “Why are you here? Don’t misunderstand-I don’t mind. But I never got the sense you even noticed me, much less-”
“I attempted to defeat you and was defeated,” Sithe said. “My life is yours.”
“Oh. That makes sense,” Myrin said. “It really isn’t necessary, you know. I appreciate your honor, but I’d much rather your life be your own. Mine’s complicated enough as it is.”
Sithe offered her a studious look with no reaction one way or the other. “You make war against yourself,” the genasi said, gesturing around the room. “You wish to forget?”
Myrin shook her head. “The opposite, in fact,” she said. “My whole life, I–I cannot remember the slightest moment of it. Only bits and pieces I take from other minds when I touch them. I take their memories for my own.”
“When you touch them,” Sithe said. “As you did with me.”
Myrin remembered then-the night Toytere had betrayed them, Sithe had gone mad. She’d only stopped when Myrin stole her powers. What had happened to the genasi in that moment?
“Yes,” Myrin said finally. “When I touch them.”
The genasi extended one torn and swollen hand-an offer.
“No, it-Sithe, it only works if you’ve met me before,” she said.
The hand withdrew and the genasi looked haunted.
“I’m sorry,” Myrin said. “Here I want to remember … and you want to forget.”
“No fear.” Sithe shook her head. “Only the weak fear to remember what is past. Only the guilty are ashamed of it. I am neither.”
“It is not weakness to run from a memory that is painful,” Myrin said. “And it is not shame to let yourself hurt.”
“So you say,” Sithe said.
Determined, Myrin reached out and took the genasi’s hands. Sithe flinched away, but Myrin held them securely. She needed no magic to feel the woman’s pain.
“You don’t have to be empty to be strong,” Myrin said.
The genasi, her black eyes wide and staring, nodded slowly. The lines of power along her skin grew darker-their blackness deepening in intensity-almost like a human might flush. As Myrin watched, the darkness blurred in her eyes, swelling around the bottom, then it abruptly leaked down her cheeks. Tears.
“It’s well.” Myrin scooted forward and put her arms around Sithe, pressing her head into the woman’s shoulder. “It’s all well. You’re safe now.”
The genasi at first sat rigidly, then returned the embrace fully. Her silent tears became sobs and she let Myrin hold her as her body shook.
“I heard their voices,” Sithe said. “I heard them, in the darkness, as they chewed my flesh-as they drank of my soul. They said ‘come with us, Sister-feast with us.’ ”
“That’s not right,” Myrin said. “You are not like them.”
“Am I not?” Sithe glared into Myrin’s face. “My father was a demon who raped my mother and left her for dead. I was born with darkness in my soul. How can you say I am not one of them?” She clasped her hands to her stomach. “Every one of them was a little bit of me-every one bore the same inner void, the same awful hunger.” She shivered. “I can feel them now, in my head. Their hunger is inside of me. Their rage.”
“You are not like them,” Myrin repeated.
“Look!” Sithe threw off the blanket and tore free the tatters of her bodice. “See!”
Myrin’s eyes widened. Bites rose on Sithe’s chest, angry and red. And-Myrin saw with dawning horror-they bore traces of crimson crystal.
“The Fury,” Myrin said. “You carry it.”
The genasi nodded. She looked past Myrin at the red dress that lay on the broken bed. Myrin thought she saw longing in that look.
“You will keep my secret?” Sithe stood.
“If you wish,” Myrin said.
“When the time comes”-the genasi tightened the blanket around her body-“I will ask Kalen Shadowbane to kill me.”
Myrin opened her mouth to protest, then nodded solemnly. “Why him?” Myrin asked. “Why did you spend all that time teaching him?”
Sithe met her gaze levelly. “Because he can be better than he is.”
“Are you”-Myrin clenched her hands very tight-“are you in love with him?”
Sithe looked past her, at the red dress, and her gaze seemed nostalgic and a little sad. It was, Myrin thought, as though the genasi mourned-in that moment-for a life she had never had. Sithe shook her head.
“That is why you love him, is it not?” Sithe asked. “Because he can be better?”
Myrin wanted to deny that-both parts of it-but the words wouldn’t come. She nodded slightly, her eyes damp.