Twice Born

Chapter 17

When I wake, I’m sitting at a round table in a corner of an unfamiliar tavern. Plates and bowls are laid out before me, heaped with food. Large cuts of roast, golden bread, soup, and a half-filled mug. Tristan sits across from me, talking. My hand—Eve’s hand reaches out and picks up a piece of roast.

You’re here, she says as she takes a bite. That’s a shame. I thought you managed to exhaust yourself into nonexistence.

“We could head to Rakoshan,” Tristan is saying. “Help ourselves to the pockets of the filthy rich. I met a man once who carried enough gold to last me a month.” He held up his mug to his lips, grinning. “Let’s just say that it was quite the eventful month. The women certainly love a man who can—”

“Where is Daniel?” I interrupt. 

Tristan’s smile fades. “He’s not here, Bree.”

I don’t like the serious look on his face. I also don’t like the way Eve has fallen silent. Her mental block is up again. I fish around for the crack, but the barrier is strong and unyielding. “Tristan. Where is he?”

“He disappeared as soon as you fainted,” Eve replies without any emotion. “He wanted Tristan to pass on a message to you. Don’t try to find him or the next time you two cross paths, he might be forced to do something he’ll regret.”

I’m nauseated by the food that Eve keeps stuffing into her mouth. Tristan focuses on his own meal, his earlier merriment gone.

“You didn’t expect things to remain the same, did you?” he asks. “He’s our enemy. The best I can say about him is that he didn’t try to hurt you last night. That’s the only reason I let him walk away with his limbs intact.”

 Can you stop eating? I say. You’re going to make me ill.

She pushes away the food and smiles at Tristan. “I feel so much better now. What do you say we go hunt for more Trackers?”

“After everything we’ve been through tonight, you want more excitement?”

Eve and Tristan joke about their shared love for killing while I try to sort things through in my mind. I was a fool. I thought, because Daniel didn’t try to harm me, he felt something for me—not love, but something meaningful that prevented him from turning against me. I should have known that his hatred of Twice Born outweighed anything between us.

The sense of loss is so strong, so overpowering, that I feel like I’m drifting in a black ocean, with nothing to hold onto. Not even my own body.

When the tide drags me away, I don’t fight it.

#

It’s morning when I wake in the same shack, huddled up under a blanket. Tristan isn’t sleeping beside me today. I turn on my side on the hard floor and wince. Everything aches, down to the tips of my fingers. It feels like I’ve been rubbing them raw all night. For all I know, I might’ve been. Who knows what Eve was up to last night?

There’s a hollow ache in my gut. Like something bad happened, something devastating. And then I remember it—Daniel leaving me, telling Tristan that I should stay away from him.

At least last night I didn’t have a body and al I felt then was the sense of loss. But the physical cuts through my gut with searing pain. Tears fill my eyes. I let them fall freely, my hand pressed over my mouth to muffle my cries.

Tristan clears his throat behind me.

I wait till the tears have stopped before wiping them away. I keep my face averted when I sit up. “What are you doing here?”