He remained silent for several heartbeats. Of all people, he would know. He’d had to take a life. Though the person he’d killed had been someone he loved, he would understand the necessity that had forced my hand. I’d detested Harvey, and maybe the world would be better without him, but I didn’t like that I had to be the one to do it.
Ice wrapped around my heart. It chilled my ribcage until my entire torso felt encased in glass. Through it all, I could feel the smoky presence of my arcana. I felt, all at once, stronger and more fragile. Something had happened to me. It was as if taking a life had triggered something in me.
I hated it.
I never asked to be a Barghest. The arcana sitting deep within me was so much darker than I’d ever anticipated. Did it feed on death? Or was it judgement that powered me? The second was a cruel burden that I wasn’t even sure I wanted, even if it did seem like the better option.
“You did the right thing,” Ryder said. His chest rumbled under my ear.
I made a sound in my throat.
Ryder ran a hand down my back. The warmth of his touch melted a bit of the ice wrapped around my soul. This might not be so hard if I could have him in my life forever.
“I’m sorry it had to be him. There won’t be a morning where he isn’t on your mind. I hope that, in time, his ghost won’t haunt you. If I could have done it for you, then I would have. Believe me. I wanted to break every one of his slimy fingers.”
I doubted Ryder understood what I was getting at. This cold feeling writhing alongside my arcana wasn’t normal. It wasn’t there because of my guilt. This was me. Taking a life had awoken something in me, and I hated it.
“One way or another, Beryl got what she wanted. Why do I have a feeling she won’t be happy?” I asked, changing the subject.
I wasn’t ready to reveal this odd new part of me to him yet. A part of me feared that he would see this ice and know that I was a monster. I’d never asked to become this, but it was a part of me that I could not separate from myself. No matter how I wanted to ignore it, I couldn’t change myself.
Ryder tensed beneath me. A low growl hummed inside of him. “Let me deal with her.”
“That’s how you got into this mess to begin with,” I reminded him.
“One problem at a time.” There was a note of warning in his voice.
I chose to ignore it. Despite the aches permeating every inch of my body, I knew that my fight wasn’t over. Soon, I would have to face Alvin and atone for what I’d done. Then, Ryder and I needed to find a way to release him from Beryl’s service.
I doubted that Beryl would be pleased that I’d been the one to kill Harvey. She’d specifically asked Ryder to do it. Since Ryder hadn’t taken part in Harvey’s death, his part of their pact was still unfulfilled. Beryl would use that against him. She would find another use for him, and I was afraid of what she would ask.
Ryder never had any hand in this. He’d stopped in Lakesedge to ask for a favor, only to get trapped here against his will. While I was thankful for his presence, guilt soured my happiness.
“What happened to Harvey’s body, anyway?” I asked.
I hoped that someone had been smart enough to go out and take care of it before the humans returned home. They would have been in for quite the shock if they’d come back to a charred wolf body in their backyard. That was, if Harvey’s body hadn’t shifted back to his human form.
That happened sometimes. We didn’t always know how the arcana would work. Sometimes, if a shifter died in their animal form, they would return to their human form once their soul passed on. It was as if their body wanted to be remembered one way. For someone like Harvey, who’d been nothing but a monster, I doubted he’d shifted back.
“We called Alvin,” Ryder said.
I stiffened.
“I told him to go pick up his own mess.” Ryder’s voice was hollow, devoid of even anger at this point. He shouldn’t have had to do this, yet he was trapped in the middle of this war.
Guilt prickled at me again. Were it not for the ice still wrapped around my heart, I would have sobbed into Ryder’s shirt. I would have begged for his forgiveness, too. This was my fault, after all. None of this would have happened were it not for me.
“That’s what Alvin gets for raising a piece of shit,” Ryder said. “He can go pick that piece of shit up off the floor and mourn for him alone. Maybe I should have more reverence for a life, but Harvey…”
Ryder’s growl echoed in the small room.
I should have told him to show more respect. Even Harvey deserved that much. The ice around my heart, however, kept me from caring. While I knew that we should have been kinder, I couldn’t find the kindness in myself.
That was how I knew I needed to go speak to Addie. Her arcana dealt with death. Out of everyone I knew, maybe she could shed a little bit of clarity on whatever was happening to me.
My body wasn’t ready to move just yet. I drifted in and out of sleep on Ryder’s chest. He didn’t move, even though I knew he must have been uncomfortable in the small tub. His broad shoulders and long legs didn’t even fit.
Still, he waited for me to wake and climb out of the tub on my own. Shaky on my feet, I paused and looked back to him as he climbed out of the tub. He wouldn’t look right at me, but I could tell that he was aware of my every movement. If I’d collapsed right then and there, he would have caught me.