It still didn’t sit well with Dorothea; none of it made sense.

“But then, what does Sirpo have to do with it?” she wondered. “Not making any conclusions now, but if Gren Fall is telling the truth…”

“Do you believe him?” Rhys asked.

Picturing his face made her shiver. No one else she’d ever met possessed the aura of quiet but dominating power he’d mastered, not even Iree, and she didn’t understand it. “I don’t know why he’d lie. He’s got nothing to prove, and it would have been easier for him to just kill us.”

Rhys put a finger to his lips and cupped his chin in thought. “But, on the other hand, why would Iree lie?”

Dorothea shook her head. “I don’t want to talk about her like we’ve already decided she’s guilty. Let’s focus on finding out the truth first. But how can we do that if we’re being monitored?”

His shoulders slumped. “I have no idea.”

She’d never seen a person look so defeated. “Are you really alright?” They hadn’t talked about the things they’d done. Rhys had had to bear the brunt of it, really. She’d just been there behind him, and that was hardly worth anything.

“I’m fine. Good, really.”

“Rhys,” she said softly. “You never need to hold back with me. I think we’ve already established that, right?” She gave him her gentlest smile.

He hesitated, making soft utterances a few times before halting words seemed to tear themselves from his throat. “I…” He ducked his head, mumbling. “I think… I feel like I…” He let out a frustrated groan. “Dammit, I’m hopeless.”

“Hey,” Dorothea crooned, touching his arm. “It’s okay. Take your time.”

Finally, he looked at her, and the anguish and doubt tearing at his face made fear spike in her in return. “I think I… I want—”

A couple stumbled outside, laughing, clinging to each other and already half undressed. They headed into the forest, speeding right past Dorothea and Rhys with no notice.

“That was Hollyhock, wasn’t it…?” Dorothea hid behind her hands until she couldn’t hear them in the distance, then looked back to Rhys. “I’m sorry. You were saying?”

“Nothing.” Rhys smirked, but amusement didn’t reach his eyes. “Yeah, that kind of thing happens a lot at these parties. As in a lot.”

“Speaking from personal experience?” Dorothea mumbled. She had no right to be jealous. None at all. But still, that sticky, unpleasant feeling swirled around in her chest.

“Maybe a little. I don’t expect you’ve had any wild times of your own though.” His eyebrows shot up when she let out a nervous laugh. “Oh. So you have. I’ll admit that’s unexpected.”

Dorothea blushed. “I-It’s not what you think, honestly, I, I’ve never even kissed anyone, but, I think, uh, our definitions of a wild time are different, and, er…” She sighed. “That’s um, that’s why I don’t drink. I get… Well, if I do, I become what one might call…a little bit salacious, past a certain point.”

He blinked at her dumbly. “Wow. Okay. You going to drink that? No? Cool.” Rhys accepted the glass of wine she’d been toting and downed it quickly. “Not what I expected, but, yeah.”

“Er, yes. That said, I feel it’s best not to drink publicly, lest I risk disturbing others with my behavior.” She’d been trying to lighten the mood, but it seemed she’d just made things painfully awkward as usual. “Um, so, my plan,” she continued, “is to do some research, and…” She trailed off with a small gasp as, without ceremony, he swooped in to press his lips to hers.

He waited, still for a few moments, and, when she didn’t protest in her shock, one arm wrapped around her lower back while his other hand slipped onto the back of her neck, shocking in its coolness. She was drawn in closer, and she could feel the bones and pulse of him. The way he was kissing her, with an almost frantic, devouring greed, was getting her lips to open to his, and she put her hands to his chest, bunching up his shirt in preparation to push him away. Or pull him closer? A hazy, lulling heat was overtaking her, confusing her intentions.

She had promised herself to never end up in a situation like this, but she’d never expected it to happen, either. The thought that she could be desired hadn’t occurred. Especially not with a man this lovely, one she trusted, one she admired and maybe even… Her breath trembled between them, and, losing herself for an intoxicating instant, she clumsily pushed back against him.

He broke their contact suddenly, withdrawing to look at her in a surprised, confused way. “You, do you…” He seemed unable to reconcile her enthusiasm. He hadn’t even expected her to like it, she realized. He’d done it expecting to be rejected. But why? On top of that, what was she doing?

Shame and a painful embarrassment replaced illicit feelings of excitement, and Dorothea dropped her hands and ducked her head, trying to hide. She had betrayed herself, and the fact that he had compelled her to do so without even seeming to genuinely want her made it feel as if he had betrayed her too. His hand coming to her cheek and lifting her face back up made the words she was scrambling to configure die in her throat.

Rhys’ brows were knit together. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Dorothea couldn’t speak. She wanted him to do it again. Again and again and again, and the strength of this desire frightened her.

She had tried to deny herself for so long. Her choice had been justified, but circumstances had changed. She had changed, been reshaped by new experiences and people and truths. It demanded admittance now: she was capable of pining and lusting and loving just as much as any other person, even if it was improper for her to do so. Towards him, she did feel such things and more. She wanted him, all of him, every last part.

She wanted to bite down where his throat curved, felt his breath catch. She imagined winding his hair in her fingers and feeling its smooth constriction. What would it be like to be touched by him? Since the first day in the watchtower, she’d been fascinated and perplexed by his hands, how they blended that same thin, bony delicacy with a stunning magnitude of strength. Even now, after witnessing the horrors those very hands had unleashed upon the innocent, he still occupied her.

It was the night in the chapel that had sealed everything, she thought, considering it now and trying to puzzle it out. Lust was an inclination Dorothea was able to suppress, or at the very least release on her own time. Reaching Rhys’ heart as they had whispered before the Gods, however, had changed the nature of this burgeoning, forbidden feeling. The potential to fall in love with him was there, and this made the stirrings in her all the more unforgivable. It was all broiling, churning her stomach and chest in their pits.

“Dorothea?” His soft voice brought her back to him. His hand still on her cheek, apologies and shame and a readiness to accept punishment mixing on his face. Seeing that sadness in a person she so badly wanted to support was hard to bear.

She’d been quiet for a while, she knew, but it was hard to think. The warmth of his proximity almost made her feel dizzy.

She finally spoke, faltering. “I want… I want to tell you about the promise I made to myself now, if you’re willing to listen. But it’s hard to find the words. I don’t go around sharing this with just anyone.” Shark was the only other person whom she’d told about the reasons behind her celibacy.

He nodded, withdrawing his hand and taking a step back. “I know what you mean.”

Of course he did. The secrets he’d shared with her embodied that. She wanted to meet him where he was, give him a piece of herself akin to the one he’d gifted to her. It was in part about respecting his experiences and making their knowledge of one another mutual. There was nothing to do but just talk.

“I watched…when my mother died. That might not seem relevant, but I don’t think you’ll understand if you don’t have the image. It’s like…” Even now, just thinking about that day made her sick to her stomach. “It’s like when you step on a twig. It cracks, and those pieces are broken up into smaller bits, except, with my mother, everything kept breaking and breaking until…” Her breath hitched, and he put a tentative, comforting hand on her arm. “Until I couldn’t recognize her anymore.”

But she hadn’t recognized her for a long time before that. That woman withering away in her bed as sickness wove its way through her, clawing to her very bones, wasn’t her mother. The woman who smelled of cloying, minty oils slathered on her chest to help her breathing, the woman who drank tea of juniper berries, sage and thyme to soothe her ails and didn’t consume much else.

“It was a slow deterioration,” Dorothea said to summarize. “She kept using her magic right until the end for Sirpo’s people… Including me.” It was here. Rhys was going to see the hateful side of her she tried so hard to tamp down, and he might hate her too. She wasn’t sure if she could bear that. “You remember I told you I fell from a tree?”

“Your mother had to heal you, and you felt guilty. But you thought that maybe, to her, it was worth it,” Rhys said softly. “I remember.”

“I… I hastened her death. Maybe, maybe if I hadn’t done that, she wouldn’t have…” Dorothea’s voice caught. “She wouldn’t…”

He shook his head. “There’s no way she would have resented you.”

“I can’t guarantee that, in the moment of her death as she was being ripped apart, she didn’t think of me and hate me for what I did,” Dorothea insisted. “I was a stupid, selfish brat.”

Rhys replied with the same level of insistence. “Don’t torment yourself like that. You were a child. You acted like a child would.”

Grateful for his kind words, his attempts to assuage the guilt that had been eating at her for most of her life, she moved closer and took his hand. “Still… When she died, I promised I wouldn’t do to anyone else what she did to me.”

“Did to you?” Rhys sounded confused.

“After the epidemic, she came down to fight for Sacer even though she was already on her last legs. Because Dadd… Because my father died, she came to get revenge.”

“And?” he urged, putting a hand on her back to steady her, as she had begun to shake uncontrollably in the face of so many turbulent emotions being dealt to her so quickly that night.

“But I was still there! I still needed her, and she came to Sacer to give the rest of her life to all of you when I…!” The full truth couldn’t be contained any longer. “I hated her, Rhys. Right up to the moment she died, I hated her as much as I loved her.” His pitying face blurred as tears overtook her. “Because I wasn’t enough to make her stay!”

And this was the crux of it. Dorothea knew, she remembered from the feeling of her mother’s thin arms around her, that she had been loved. Ophelia had been happy to share her life with her daughter. She had just been happy to give up her life to Sacer in the name of her dead husband, too, even if it meant orphaning her child. That grief, that rage, so long withheld, were now bursting in the form of her helpless sobs, made more painful and pathetic by her attempts to smother them so as not to draw attention.

Now, Rhys’ hands were on her cheeks, wiping her tears, but the undeserved kindness of the gesture only made her cry harder. He took her tightly into his arms, let her snivel all over him, cling to his back. She cried for her mother, father and herself, for the people of Sacer and Ghuria, for the endless cycle of it all.