When Nelle Wychthorn was forced to sign herself away in marriage, she should have read the contract's fine print. Because she signs not with ink, but with blood. And that changes everything.
Season 1 'Of Crows and Thorns'
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Fiery Nelle, the isolat...
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Cursing softly, I gathered Nelle into my arms and lowered myself to sit on the cool marble floor, rocking her back and forth gently on my lap. Her tiny fingers dug into my t-shirt as she clung to me. I rested my chin on the crown of her head and murmured quietly, "Ending lives is something you should never get used to."
Nelle buried her face into my chest and her tears soaked into my shirt. Her voice was muffled when she asked, "Have y-you?"
Loosening a sigh, I offered her the truth. "Yes. Often those lives I ended deserved it." Killing was part of our world, especially in my line of work as an enforcer. "But not when they're innocent." There were times my House had been ordered to do so on behalf of the Horned Gods and those were the deaths that haunted my soul.
Sniffling, Nelle shivered, and I briskly rubbed a hand up and down her trembling arm. "Little bird, those we faced down in the catacombs, they weren't alive." Her fingers bunched into my shirt, tightened, relaxed, then tightened again. I wasn't sure if knowing that we'd faced an army of dead was going to lighten her soul.
I'd been seventeen years old when I'd taken my first life. I'd held on until I'd gotten home, then headed straight for the forest and hurled everything in my guts up. I'd curled up on the forest floor and wept like a fucking baby.
Like the Uzrek had said, I was a death-dealer. That was my purpose amongst the Houses—a weapon in the form of flesh and bone. It didn't matter that who I'd killed was dark and deserved a swift death. Something had died inside of me, the last flickering goodness of my mother had winked out.
Had all my brothers felt the same when they'd taken a life?
Kenton, no. Ice-cold, just like our father and our aunt.
But Jett, probably. He'd made himself scarce the day he'd taken a life for the first time. Caidan, I knew for sure, because I'd spied on him when he'd returned from the Widowmakers with dried blood crusting his sword. He didn't even make it as far as I had. He'd stumbled in through the massive front doors and emptied his stomach all over the stone floor. He'd locked himself in his quarters for the rest of the day.
Nelle lifted her grime-smeared face, and her haunted gray eyes met mine. I wiped her tear-slick cheeks but only managed to smear the soot and grime further. "I reacted much like you." I tucked a lock of wild hair behind her ears. "After I killed for the first time, I cried like a baby."
She blinked, sniffing. Scrubbing an eye with the back of her wrist, she said, "A baby?"
"Tell anyone that and I'll make your life miserable," I half-teased.
She attempted a smile, but it wobbled, and her brows slashed up as silver filled her eyes. Her little fists bunched the soft fabric of my shirt. "I can't stop shaking," she whispered, fresh tears spilling down her cheeks.
"It's the adrenaline. You're in shock."
I tucked her back against my chest and gently stroked her head. The ash that blanketed her pale tresses coated my fingers. The only other girl I'd comforted this way was my baby sister Ferne when she had hurt herself, tripping over her feet or bumping into something unforgiving. And it didn't feel so bad holding Wychthorn like this either.
