Breaker (Ondine Quartet Book 4) (37 page)

“Let me go!” Aubrey struggled. “Please! I need to see him!”

Chloe’s expression crumpled. “Aub—“

She broke through and yanked the sheet away, exposing Ian’s pale, emaciated frame.

I wanted to pull the sheet back over him, shield him from the harsh, fluorescent lights brutally displaying every scar, ridge, and hollow.
 

I wanted to protect him in a way I wasn’t able to in life.

“Tell me.” Her voice was completely empty.

Daniel sighed and moved beside Aubrey. He spoke, his tone soothing.

“Severe knife wound to the gut. Repeated dehydration and starvation. Several bones were broken and re-healed. Sores on his back and lower regions were infected causing…”

I walked toward them, watching her as if in a dream.

Aubrey’s gaze floated over Ian’s body, tracing the path of destruction Daniel laid out.

Until those sharp emerald eyes finally rested on the broken skin along his ribcage.

“…all of which combined to significantly weaken Ian’s ability to recover,” Daniel finished.

“What was the cause of death?” Aubrey asked.

Daniel gently attempted to steer her away. “It’s not the right ti—‘

“Cause of death, Daniel!”

“Me,” I said flatly. “I killed him.”

The words I could never take back sank between us.

Her gaze flitted to his neck. “There’s no Origin scar. Was he an Aquidae?”

She still spoke in that empty tone.

The memory of Ian’s dead eyes and the relentlessness with which he’d brutalized me flashed through my mind.

He’d spent a lifetime protecting the abused and abandoned. Becoming that person had been his worst nightmare.

That had been the Shadow’s real torture, not the physical wounds he’d endured.

I’d failed Aubrey in other ways, but I would not fail her in this.

She would remember Ian as she knew him.

“He wasn’t an Aquidae.” I swallowed. “He—he was in a lot of pain.”

She touched the scabs on his arms, the hundreds of self-inflicted scars.

“Did the Shadow do this?”

“Yes.”

Her fingers trailed over the gash on his stomach, the ragged edges of flesh where the
kouperet
had entered his body.

“And this?”

“Yes.”

Daniel shifted, but remained silent.

Her fingers moved up the jutting ridges of Ian’s ribs, stopping beside the slash made by my hand.

“You help a person who’s hurt. You don’t kill them.”

“I didn’t know when or if help would come…” my voice trailed off.

“The extent of Ian’s injuries indicates he was undergoing sepsis. Even if help arrived within an hour, even if a Healer had been there, the injury was irreparable. He wouldn’t have lasted another forty minutes, all of which would’ve been excruciating. Death was immediate,” Daniel said quietly. “It was a humane act, Aubrey.”

What an odd word to use.

How had we become a world where killing your friend was the humane thing to do?
 

In that moment, I would’ve given anything to change places with Ian.

The nix who, despite being mocked and derided, had been brave enough to fight for a different future should’ve been the story’s hero.

Blank-faced, Aubrey stepped forward.

I steeled myself. “Aub—“

The crack resounded like a gunshot.

Pain blossomed across my cheek, but it was nothing compared to what I felt at her words.

“You were supposed to protect him.”

Something peeled away inside, as if a part of my soul ripped apart.
 

Survive
.

I looked her straight in the eyes. “I did.”

Moisture shimmered across those green pools, sharp and sudden. She turned and ran out of the room.

“Aub!”

“No.” Chloe stepped in front of me, her eyes bright and fierce. “That’s enough.”

Another piece broke off inside me at the look in her eyes. But I couldn’t blame her.

I’d just admitted to killing my friend.

“Did you find my father?”

“We looked. But Bastien had cleared out. The hotel was empty.”

“Except for Ian.”

Misery clawed at my throat. I wouldn’t tell her about everything else. About what had happened in the darkness, the things that could never be brought to light.

“I had to,” I said softly.

I needed her to understand that.
 

“I know. You’ll always have the strength to do what’s right, Kendra. It’s what makes you the
sondaleur
.” Sadness drifted around her like a veil. “It’s also what makes you a terrible friend.”

My mother’s face swam before me.

You can’t have what others have.

She left. Daniel touched my arm. “Let’s have a look at that knee.”

Frozen, I let him guide me to an exam table. He asked me a series of basic questions, about pain and bones and muscles and things that all blended together into a mess of unintelligible words.

He didn’t believe me when I told him I had no pain because he dragged me to another room and took X-rays of everything.
 

To make sure there were no hidden injuries, he said.

If he only knew.

I flinched when the Healer bent over me, my body expecting the same torture it’d received under Leah’s psychotic hands.

If Daniel noticed the reaction, he didn’t remark upon it. I gripped the edge of the bed tighter and forced myself to remain still.

I let him cluck in concern over my damaged knee. The injury had gotten so bad the Healer couldn’t completely fix it back to the way it was.

Which made sense because I didn’t think any one of us could go back to how things used to be.

“Kendra.”

Daniel stood before me, a sheaf of papers in his hands.

How much time had passed?

My mouth turned dry. I swallowed. “Yes?”

He showed me a diagram of a female body. Each section featured a different color.

Bright green colored the area near my clavicle, shoulders, ribs, and arms. Lighter colors in pinks, blues, and purples filled in other sections.

“This is something I use when I do a preliminary exam on an elemental,” Daniel began.
 

He gestured toward an instrument on a table against the wall. It looked like a mash-up of a computer printer, a toaster oven, and a USB hub.
 

“After what happened at the Elemental Conference, I worked with a few Healers to create a technology that allows us to track magic. These colors indicate where magic has been applied.”

He paused.

“This scan indicates heavy use of Healing magic. The intensity of these colors leads me to believe your bones,” his voice softened, “have been broken and healed multiple times within a short period.”

“Seven.”

“Excuse me?”

“Arms broken seven times. Ribs broken four. Shoulder was five.”

He stared at me, eyes horrified.

I hopped off the bed and put on my shoes.

After a few seconds, Daniel recovered and gave an extended lecture on the importance of staying off my knee. He made me swallow a bunch of pain killers and insisted I not run, train, or engage in any strenuous activity.

I barely heard a word.

He finally let me go. When I opened the clinic door, Tristan was waiting for me.

His warm hand cupped my face. “Let’s go home.”

I nodded numbly.

We headed down the east corridor. Judgmental eyes watched me, distrustful and disappointed, angry and afraid.
 

Ondine.
Sondaleur
. Chevalier. Governor. Rogue. Killer.

Holden emerged from the faceless crowd, Tara, Will, and Grady behind him. He blocked my way, his face twisted with grief.
 

“I found Ian when he was eleven.”

He spoke loud enough that the faceless crowd stopped to listen.
 

“Found ‘em cryin’ outside his home, his dead mother and sister inside. Took care of him for six years.”

He got up close, his face inches from mine. I flexed my hand. I didn’t want to hurt him, but if he took a shot right now, I’d have no choice.

Raw emotion momentarily flickered across his hungry face. “Thank you for bringing him back.”

I swallowed and nodded.
 

He stepped aside. Tristan and I kept walking. Down the central hallway. Out the back exit into the Royal Gardens.

You’ve chosen being a Governor over being a friend.

I felt the eyes watching me through the Governing House windows.

I kept my back straight. No weakness, no vulnerability.
 

It’s what makes you the sondaleur. It’s also what makes you a terrible friend.

Pain ricocheted off my ribs, my knee. Daniel would kill me if he saw the way I walked on it now.

Ten more steps.

You fix the ones who hurt. You don’t kill them.

“Almost there,” Tristan murmured.

A Royal Gardinel opened the door to the cottage, his blank eyes tracking my every move.

Thank you for bringing him back.

Five more steps.

You want the love you are unable to give.

One more.

The door shut behind me.

I sagged.
 

Strong hands gripped my waist before I hit the ground.
 

“I got you.”

He effortlessly lifted me in his arms and cradled me against his chest.
 

I nestled against him, weak and helpless as a baby. His breath warmed my head.

He carried me upstairs and with each step, my muscles loosened, stretched.

In the bathroom he removed my shoes, my clothes.

I was so tired. My arms were too heavy, legs too weak.

He brought me into the shower and walked in with me, still fully dressed.

I murmured a slight protest but he ignored me.

The water was warm. I leaned back against his chest and let him do what I couldn’t do myself.

He washed away the filth and the dirt and the smell of the rotting hotel.
 

He replaced the remembered pain of blows and punches and starvation with kindness and care and soothing strokes.
 

And once I was clean, he gently dried me with a fluffy towel and carried me to bed. I crawled under the cool sheets and he slid in beside me, his arms strong, his scent comforting.

For long minutes, we lay there, breathing in each other’s warmth.

“What happened?” I finally asked.

“For the first nine days, nothing. No one knew where you’d gone and no one at Daniel’s cabin would say anything.”

“What happened after nine days?”

“The Armicant,” he said simply.

It was our first day in the GrandView when the Shadow used Ian’s blood to suppress my magic.

“He sent a message?”

“‘She’s gone’. That was it. I…” His arms tightened. “I went back to Holden and Dax. This time, they told us about Eleanor in Portland. But after that we lost the trail. Will accessed your Lumiere records and we went back to every school, every city you’d ever lived in before arriving in Haverleau. Virginia, North Carolina, Florida —”

“Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas.”

“They tracked down everything they could find on you, your mother, and your various identities. We turned every city inside out but couldn’t locate you.”

Because the hotel wasn’t in any of the cities I’d lived in. It’d been a special excursion, the last summer vacation with Dad before he died.
 

“It was luck.”

“What was?”

“Being in Montana. We’d gone through half the cities on our list when Augustin remembered Vittorio once visited you in Montana. It had to be near water so we started with the lakes. Flathead was our fourth stop. We were about to leave when the Armicant spoke.”

“He told you where I was?”

“No. He just told us to stay. So we did and a few hours later you came down that mountain.”

After a few days, Gabe had tracked us from Portland to San Aurelio and had managed to follow us to Montana. . Once he made it to town, he found out we’d been asking questions about the abandoned hotel.

He’d waited a few days to see what we were up to. When we didn’t return he’d taken off after us.

Julian and Cam ran into him halfway down the mountain and they’d driven up to get me and Ian.
 

“Did you talk to him?” I asked.

“I tried to get him to come back with us but —“

“He didn’t want to.”

My uncle had given up everything, including his human life, to be with Marcella.

He must feel like he belonged nowhere now. A demillir, not born an elemental but made into one. Someone who hadn’t inherited this war, but had chosen to participate.

Just like Lucas and his family. Oriel and Daniel.

“He’ll come back eventually.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because you’re here.” His thumb stroked my cheek. “He’ll come back for you.”

My throat hurt. “We only escaped because the Shadow allowed it.”

The undone clasp. The unlocked doors. The flashlight and supplies.

Without them, we would’ve been trapped in that abandoned hotel, locked by memories of the past, our minds gone, bodies wasting away.

Bastien was right.

It wasn’t that I got out.
 

It was that he let me get out.

He had all the power.
 

An involuntary shiver raced through me. Tristan’s arms tightened.
 

“I want to tell you —“ I began haltingly.

“You don’t have to,” he murmured. “I just want you to know I’m here. I’m here, Kendra.”

His voice curled around me, its dark tones reverberating with life, beauty, goodness, hope. Everything that had been taken away in that hellhole.

“I will tell you,” I whispered.

Just give me time.

He brought me closer to his warmth. “All right.”

We listened to the waves ceaselessly brushing against the shore, our bodies curved around each other in a mirrored promise.
 

***

We sit on the cliff outside his cave and watch the white palace glitter against the lavender-blue canvas of the sky.