My body felt heavy. It was still just as hard to move, even after I had warmed up. Physically I was capable, but mentally I was completely drained of all willingness to do so much as twitch. The pain was gone though, at least mostly.
I sank deeper into the hot bath. ‘Just how long have I been in here now?’
“How are you feeling Siya?” Mara asked. I was sure she had asked more than once, but my response was still so slow that by the time I started to get around to it, I had forgotten she asked at all.
I raised my hand to my brow where I was bleeding from earlier. With the numbness of the cold gone, I could feel the pain. “I… mm…” My throat was completely dry from being frozen, and it made it nearly impossible to form proper words, instead I ended up violently coughing, making my eyes water from the pain of air passing through my dried lungs.
“Don't force yourself if it hurts. I'll go and get you something for your voice… I should have done this earlier…” She stood up out of the bath, creating waves as she left my side but I grabbed her hand.
She was still covered in wounds from when she had fought the ghoul in my stead and needed to rest as much as I did, maybe even more. “I—-t’s Fine—-” I spat out
She let out a soft sigh, rubbing my head as she shifted all her weight back to her left leg, slowly sinking back down.
I gasped. ‘Her leg!’ I had completely forgotten about it, but her right leg had been broken in three places. It was so bad It didn’t seem real she could stand up afterward, and yet just moments ago she had carried me across the castle grounds.
Once again I found myself holding back tears. ‘Idiot… Stupid… Why would you carry me? You were so worried about my arm healing properly and you go and do this?’
She leaned back, stretching out her arms on the side of the tub, revealing long strikes of ice burn across her arms and her front.
I forced myself to swallow, my saliva helping to soothe my throat so I could speak again. “What's, that…” I mumbled. Pointing to her burns.
My father's words echoed through my mind as he warned her not to touch me. ‘Is that my fault?’
She looked down as if realizing they were there for the first time. “Oh, these?” She leaned her head back, closing her eyes and speaking confidently. “I was out helping the soldiers harvest some of the winterberries. Turns out grabbing a frozen basket with you’re bare skin isn’t the best.”
For a moment I almost bought her story, but as I looked closer I could see marks from little fingers, right where I had grabbed her.
“Liar…” I said softly…
“S-Siya.”
She stuttered… She never stuttered, She looked worried, almost terrified as she stared back into my eyes.
I heard a drip splash into the tub with a plop, and after a moment I began to understand why. Tears were streaming down my face like rivers.
“Siya, are you feeling alright? Did something happen?”
I wiped my tears, but they wouldn’t stop, even after I started laughing at how ridiculous it was that of all things that was what finally made me start to break down. “I’m– I’m alright. Now at least.”
She placed a hand on my shoulder and made me look her straight in the eyes. “I didn't ask whether or not you were hurt… I asked how you were feeling.”
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My eyes kept drifting back towards her burns, and I couldn’t stop thinking about how she carried me on her broken leg. “I’m sorry…”
I started to feel ashamed, not just of how everything had turned out, but even the fact that I was crying in front of her. I let her see me cry, not just shed a tear or two, but full-out cry. It was something I swore I would never do in front of her…
Tears kept dripping from my face down into the water, and even though I couldn’t feel them at all I could see them ripple before my eyes as they created small waves. “I’m so sorry…”
‘I can’t even hold myself together anymore…’ In truth I wasn’t just apologising for hurting her, but for everything. Even the things I didn’t feel like I had to apologize for, and the times I still felt like she was in the wrong. Every cruel joke I made, every time I disappointed her… Everything.
It wasn’t… That I had forgiven her yet… But to have her hurt herself… Just because I was cold… Even when she was told it wouldn’t kill me.
I sniffled, suddenly finding it impossible to breathe through my nose.
“It’s alright Siya, it's all over now. You don’t have to apologize for anything…”
She echoed the same words I told myself every single day, but it was a lie. It wasn’t over, there was no “done.” It was never finished, there was always more training, more torture, more pain, and it had finally started to break me. I couldn’t even respond, all I could do was sit there, crying like a baby.
My tears only fell thicker until I felt like I couldn’t even breathe. ‘Why, after everything that I’ve been through, why am I breaking down now? She’s right, I finished my training, and Father even said it was promising how much magic I had, so why am I breaking down now… Just because she lied… And said those marks were carrying a basket of all things…’
I tried to put it in the best way possible… But even saying it like that I couldn’t forget about everything else that had happened.
Mara wrapped an arm around me and pulled me to her side. “This will not break you, you're stronger than what you're feeling right now. Even if you have to cry, even if you feel like you're breaking, you will always be strong enough to work through it because that’s who you are.”
She wiped my nose with a washcloth and dried my tears, giving me a soft smile that seemed so natural I almost forgot what she looked like without it. “Sometimes I forget you’re human just like the rest of us.”
‘I can’t believe she, of all people, is saying that to me.’ Somehow I managed to let out a chuckle, my tears finally starting to slow down. “I guess that’s supposed to be a compliment.”
She gave a small laugh of her own. “Well it is one, so you should.”
I wiped the last of my tears, finally calming down. “Oh? Finally getting a compliment from you? I’m honored.” I said jokingly.
She chuckled again. “Well, it’s not like you’ve ever needed them.”
‘Is she serious?’ “Is that why you never said anything good about me?”
She threw another hot stone into the bath from a bucket over the edge, further heating the water. “There were other reasons too of course. You’ve never been the type to be motivated by making other people proud, so I didn’t see any purpose in it.”
I took a deep breath and let out a sigh. “Everyone likes to be told they're good at something you know. I never felt like anything I ever did was good enough…” ‘Although… With how I always thought of her… She isn’t wrong.’
Again, without realising it I started to hear to trickle of tears drops down into the water. I quickly wiped them away. “Sorry, I don’t know what's happening.”
A pause hung in the air as I managed to get a hold of myself again. ‘I have to run out eventually right?’
“You're beautiful.”
A longer pause hung in the air as my eyes went wide, struggling to understand if I had heard her right. “What?”
It was the kind of scene that I thought only happened in the movies. Steam clouds rolled through the air as her massive arms sprawled out over the sides of the tub, and her eyes gazed longingly at the stars through the skylights.
‘What… is she even saying?’
“And kind.” She continued, without so much as a glance. “Although a little snarky sometimes.”
“I’m… I’m not… I don’t even like most people.”
“But you still don’t kill them.”
I was starting to get concerned about the standards of the world I was living in. After all, this was the second time I had heard someone say that like it was impressive somehow.
She finally turned her head, ever so slightly to glance down at me. And suddenly I realized what she meant.
I thought back to when I fought Bhaltair. That was the only real time I had been close to taking a life. The only time I had a real opportunity to kill someone… And I did in fact choose not to do it, but… ‘How did she know?’