by Bree Barton
“Go to sleep.” She kissed his thumb. “When you wake up, we’ll try again.”
Pilar knew how to touch herself. She’d figured that out when she was nine years old. In the beginning, she’d used her magic to whip herself into a frenzy—what Dujia hadn’t? But before long she discovered she preferred just her fingers. They were magic enough.
Once she began training, she learned to do other things with her fingers. Curl them into a fist. Test the sharp point of an arrow. At seventeen, she stopped touching herself completely. After what happened in the cottage, her own fingers felt dirty, poisoned. The shame was much bigger than the pleasure ever was.
But there, in the room above the tavern, something shifted.
Pilar awoke in the middle of the night, Quin pressed beside her on the too-small bed. Her body alive with desire.
She kissed his bare shoulder. “Are you awake?”
He stirred. Still dreaming, maybe.
For a moment she doubted herself. What if he was pretending to be asleep? What if he didn’t want her?
Her flesh was singing. She wanted to touch herself, but she wanted Quin to touch her more.
Then he leaned his head into hers, nuzzling the side of her face.
“Not awake,” he murmured. “But I bet you could wake me.”
She climbed on top of him. Leaned down to kiss the scar on his chest. The scar she had given.
When she sat back up, he was looking at her, a strange smile on his face.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Nothing. It’s just.” He traced the shape of her mouth. “You’re so tender. I didn’t expect that.”
She bent and kissed his brow, his nose, the curve of his jaw. Grazed her teeth along his perfect lower lip.
This time, everything fit.
Her lips lingered on his as she began to move her hips in a slow, easy rhythm. A warm wave of sensation curled inside her. Pilar wanted to cry from relief. Her body felt like hers again. She didn’t think she would ever feel this softness again.
The wave rose from her hips and flooded her belly, blooming in her chest. Her body thick with pleasure.
This was not the first time she had been with someone.
It was the first time she’d enjoyed it.
Chapter 32
Cottage by the Lake
PILAR AWOKE TO QUIN kissing her shoulder. His warm mouth sent shivers tumbling down her spine.
“You make little noises when you sleep,” he whispered.
“What kind of noises?”
“Charming ones.” He tucked a strand of black hair behind her ear. It slid out again. She could have told him that would happen—her hair didn’t like being restrained.
“You’re beautiful,” he said. “And I’m not saying your worth is in any way contingent upon—”
“Oh please.” She nipped playfully at his nose. “Don’t ruin the moment.”
“You’re so beautiful I want to kiss you again.” He kissed her forehead. “And again.” Her eyelids. “And again.” Neck. “And again.” A little lower.
“We’re going to need another sheepskin,” she murmured, her skin tingling with desire.
She wanted to stay in bed with him forever. In the past she’d never felt that way. To be fair, she’d never been in a bed, only on a hard dirt floor. Staring up at the thick wooden beams, counting the seconds until it was over. Sometimes her mind left her body, floated up to the rafters and watched the scene unfold from above. In those moments she would have sold her soul to be anywhere else—another cottage, another kingdom, another skin.
Pilar closed her eyes. Those days felt very far away. Now, as Quin planted kisses down her stomach inch by inch, her body hummed with pleasure. She couldn’t remember the last time being in her own skin felt so delicious.
I never have to go back.
The same thought welled up from the night before, filling her with wild, giddy hope. She never had to go back to Glas Ddir or Refúj. With Quin at her side, she could go anywhere she chose.
Assuming he wanted to go with her.
“What do you like about me?” Her voice was soft. Vulnerable.
“Other than you’re beautiful?” He trailed a lazy finger around her navel. “You’re brave. Obviously. You know how to give and take a good punch. Since you don’t practice magic, I never have to worry you’re enthralling me. So that’s nice. Oh and you’re an uncommonly fine violinist. I want to make music with you someday. Promise me we’ll play a duet—and I mean a real duet, on violin and piano, not the lovely song our bodies made together.”
Pilar groaned. “Did you really just say that?”
Quin smiled. “That might be the very best thing about you. You don’t lie. To anyone, ever. You’re brutally, unabashedly, brilliantly honest. And you never apologize for who you are.”
The words looped a knot in Pilar’s belly.
She didn’t want to dredge up the memory, to ruin this perfect moment of being kissed, being held. But she was sick of keeping secrets. If she wanted him to understand who she was, he needed to know what she’d done.
“Quin?” she began. “There’s something I want to tell you. Something that happened.”
He grew serious. “Is it about one of your Reflections?”
When she nodded, he sat up. “I haven’t wanted to ask about it. But it’s not because I don’t care. I do care. I knew you’d tell me if and when you chose.”
“I do want to tell you.” Pilar hugged the sheet tighter around her bare chest so she didn’t feel so exposed. “No. I don’t want to. I need to.”
He wrapped his arms around her. She could hear the thump of his heart.
“Whatever it is,” he said, “it’s not going to change how I feel about you. I promise.”
A heavy thud sounded from the room next door. Followed by a deep, throaty moan.
Quin raised an eyebrow. “Thin walls.”
A girl cried out, quick and sharp. Then a man laughed.
Pilar felt the hairs on her neck rise. There was something not right about that laugh.
“Should we do something?” Quin asked, reaching for his clothes.
Pilar already had her feet halfway through her trouser legs. On instinct she snatched her frostflower. Yanked her shirt over her head and stumbled forward. She unhooked the latch and the door swung open, spewing them both into the corridor.
The sounds from inside the room were louder now. Inside the room, the girl was crying.
“Should we get the innkeeper?” Quin said, his voice tight.
“No time.”
Pilar slammed her hip into the door. Again. Three times, until she heard something snap. She shoved the door open.
The red-haired girl huddled in the corner. The sorceress. A large blond man loomed over her.
“Please,” the sorceress begged. “Please.”
Pilar knew exactly what to do. Left hook to the back of his skull. Punch the mirror above the washstand, seize a shard of glass, split his throat into two equal parts.
But she did nothing. Just stood on the threshold, paralyzed.
“Get off her!” Quin shouted, and the man whirled around. But he wasn’t a man at all. He was the blond boy from the card game—the one with the yellow tuft of hair above his lip. For the first time she saw the white carvings on his belt. Frostflowers.
Pilar tried to move forward, to make her feet work. But she was no longer in the room. She wasn’t in the tavern, wasn’t even in Luumia. She’d traveled all the way back to Refúj.
She was in Orry’s cottage by the lake.
Chapter 33
Liar
IN THE BEGINNING, SHE’D wanted him.
That was the worst part. The part that made it impossible to forgive.
Pilar was fifteen when Morígna and Orry arrived on the island. Many of the Refúji—especially the older, crabbier Dujia—weren’t in favor of husbands accompanying their wives. But everyone adored Orry. The young couple was a bright spot in a d
ark, ugly world. Orry with his underground fight school, teaching girls to keep themselves safe. Morígna with her music.
Soon Pilar began finding excuses to drop by their cottage. They weren’t old enough to be her parents, but she liked to imagine it. They were funny, playful, beautiful, kind. Best of all, they cared about her. They knew she was lonely, and they gave her ways to make the loneliness bearable. Morígna taught her to play violin. Orry taught her to fight.
Over and over, they told her she was special. “You have an ear for music,” Morígna said.
“You’re a natural fighter,” Orry said. “You have a gift.”
Pilar loved them both. But it didn’t take long for that love to blossom into something more specific. She thought about Orry when she went to sleep at night. His wavy brown hair and clear blue eyes. The curve of his forearms. The scruff on his face that wasn’t there in the morning but always started to grow back by the afternoon.
For three long years she wanted his attention. Craved it. Every time he corrected her right hook or demonstrated how to land a dropkick, she welled up with longing. And whenever he complimented another girl during a sparring match, her jealousy flared. Orry was her teacher, her friend. He’d told her she was special—and she believed him.
And so, the first time his hand lingered on the small of her back after adjusting her stance, she let him. When he pulled her close and pinned her arms to her sides, testing her reflexes, she let him. When he peeled off his shirt, claiming to be too warm, she let him.
When he peeled off her shirt, she let him. Even as dread knotted in her stomach. Even as the nervous flutter in her chest turned to hot bile in her throat.
She didn’t want it. Not anymore. But she never said no.
Orry only touched her when his wife wasn’t in the cottage. Morígna left often, to shop at the merqad or visit her pupils for their music lessons. “Save enough energy for the violin once I’m back, love,” she’d say to Pilar, giving her a peck on the cheek. “And don’t let Orry wear you out. You know he’s only hard on you because you’re his favorite.”
The word sank like a brick in Pilar’s belly every time. Favorite.
Wooden rafters. Hard dirt floor. Gravel too small for anyone to see, big enough to bite holes into her back.
“You know we can’t tell people about this,” Orry would say afterward, buttoning his trousers. “They wouldn’t understand what we have.”
Pilar figured that was true, if only because she couldn’t understand it. She’d spent three years dreaming about Orry. Now she had him. Wasn’t this exactly what she wanted?
So she smiled. Moaned. Pretended to enjoy it. She never used magic to defend herself—and she never said no. Every time scared her worse than the time before.
And she lied. Lied. Lied. She couldn’t tell anyone, couldn’t find the words. And she couldn’t make it stop. Orry had taught her to protect herself, but in the end, the only person she needed protection from was him.
Even that would’ve been survivable, if not for what happened next.
Morígna came home early from the merqad. She walked in to find Orry, his hairy back slick with sweat. Grunting and panting with Pilar trapped beneath him.
Morígna didn’t fly into a rage: she became rage. She seized Pilar’s horsehair bow and struck Orry’s neck, over and over, until the bow snapped in two. She wrapped her hands around his throat. Used magic to draw the blood to the surface until every vessel popped. His neck folded in on itself. Bones crumbled. Flesh tore.
Then Morígna turned on Pilar.
“Get out,” she snarled. “Never set foot in this house again.”
So Pilar ran home. She went to the cave and called her mother’s name. All she heard were echoes. She spent a sleepless night pacing the shore of the lake, too numb to feel the cold.
The next morning, Morígna called a meeting in the Biqhotz. All the elders—and any Refúji looking for a good scandal—crowded into the sanctuary. Pilar lurked on the outskirts of the circle, confused and heartsick, but grateful someone else would tell the truth. She knew the other girls would judge her for what had happened, but at least Orry wouldn’t be able to hurt her anymore.
Morígna stood tall in the center of the circle. Pilar held her breath. The shame would strike first, she knew. Then surely the relief would follow.
“You may soon hear rumors,” Morígna said to the gathered Dujia, “that my husband has acted in an unnatural way toward one of his students. I assure you, these rumors are lies. My husband wants only to protect these girls, and it is the great desire of his heart to teach them to protect themselves. He has given so much to this community, and the fact that he has been targeted with false accusations makes me angry.”
Morígna turned her head and looked directly at Pilar. She stared long enough that everyone in the circle turned their heads, too. Hundreds of eyes scraped over Pilar’s face, her body. Like being flayed with a hundred knives.
“But I am a Dujia,” Morígna continued, raising her chin. “I hold myself to a higher standard. There will always be girls who are so starved for attention they must lie to get it. Girls who pretend to be victims when they are anything but. So I beg you, my sisters. Do not punish girls like this. They deserve our compassion, not our wrath.”
It was a neat trick. By calling for compassion, Morígna ensured Pilar got none.
The woman who had once been her friend and teacher made a choice: preserve her husband’s reputation—her own reputation—at all costs.
Later that day, Pilar saw Orry buying a stalk of broccoli at the merqad. Morígna had healed him. His neck was back to normal. Everything was back to normal. Fight lessons at the cottage recommenced the next day. Not for Pilar, of course. She would never set foot in the cottage again.
Defend yourself, but do not hesitate to hurt him.
Pilar had failed on both counts. She had not defended herself, and she hadn’t hurt him. Three years of training and she was still cowardly. Still weak.
Nothing made sense anymore. Every Dujia on Refúj looked at her like she was dirty, broken, wrong. And that was when they looked at her at all. When Pilar drummed up the courage to tell one of her sparring partners the truth, the girl called her a liar. Another girl slammed a door in her face.
Desperate, Pilar tried to tell her mother what had happened.
“Orry is a gift to the Dujia,” Zaga said. “Do not poison that gift.”
Pilar had started at her in disbelief. “You’re my mother. Why don’t you believe me?”
“Did you fight? Did you kick and scream and push him away?”
When she didn’t answer, Zaga shook her head.
“Even if what you say is true, you have no one to blame but yourself.”
Maybe her mother had it right. Maybe it was her fault. Pilar knew all the horrible things a man could do to a woman. She’d been trained to protect herself from these exact things. But her memories were chopped into jagged pieces. The wood beams. The broken bow. The way she’d felt lying on that floor, her mind floating out of her body and up into the rafters. She could no longer remember exactly what happened—the images were tangled and unclear.
Pilar started to believe Morígna’s version. Maybe she had been lying. Pretending to be a victim when she was anything but.
So when her mother gave her the chance to be a spy in Kaer Killian, Pilar took it. Refúj had become unbearable. She was downing half a dozen nips of rai rouj every night just to drown out the silence.
“You must kill Mia Rose,” her mother said. “Perform this task and you may win your redemption.”
Pilar wanted desperately to prove herself. Show the women of Refúj she wasn’t the liar they thought. But it gnawed at her, the mission she’d been given. To reclaim her place in the sisterhood, she would be forced to kill a girl who—under different circumstances—might have been her friend.
But then she heard Mia Rose speak in the Grand Gallery the night before the wedding. The way the word Gwyrach was a cur
se in her mouth. Instead of standing beside her fellow women, Mia wanted to strike them down. This spoiled and cocky river rat would never be a true sister to the Dujia.
Honestly, none of the “true sisters” on Refúj had turned out to be so true.
Pilar knew weak men had always been afraid of powerful women. What she’d never expected was that powerful women would turn their power against one of their own. Orry hurt her, but her Dujia sisters hurt her worse. They had remade her into something she had never been. Two things.
A liar.
Ashamed.
“Her.”
The word wrenched Pilar back to the present. She was in the room above the tavern. Frozen in the doorway. The sorceress on the floor, pinned down by the blond boy. But something had changed.
The girl was pointing at Pilar.
“Her,” the sorceress gasped, tears streaming down her cheeks. “She has magic. She’s the one you want!”
The boy lurched toward Pilar, reaching for her throat. A solid thwack pulled him up short. He groaned and sank to his knees, collapsing face-first onto the floor.
Behind him was Quin, holding a plank of wood. His face white as bone.
“Pilar,” he said, but she didn’t wait to hear the rest.
She turned and ran.
Chapter 34
As Good as Dead
PILAR SHOT OUT OF the tavern, feet pounding the hard-packed snow. She didn’t know where she was going. Didn’t care.
The boy in the tavern had brought everything back. Orry’s touch. Morígna’s betrayal. Her mother’s cold indifference.
And everything that happened after. Karri. Mia. Buckets of blood on her hands.
When forced to choose between shame and rage, Pilar preferred rage. At least anger was a kind of fuel.
But as she ran, she thought of something Quin had said. Every time I try to feel that rage, all I feel is shame.
She wondered if, when you cracked rage open, you’d always find shame at the core.
What good was Quin’s forgiveness if she couldn’t forgive herself?