A Thousand Heartbeats

“Stop it,” he said angrily. “I don’t want your pity.”

“You don’t have my pity,” I said, the tears coming quickly now. “You have my understanding.”

Lennox’s face was incredulous. “How could you poss—”

I held up my hand, and he fell silent. “Promise me that one of us will die.”

He flipped his hands over and back, almost flippant about the idea. “It’s inevitable.”

“You promise?”

“Yes.”

I nodded and watched him go wide-eyed as I lifted the hem of my dress. I’d sworn to myself that no one but the doctor, Noemi, and my husband would see these scars, but Lennox wouldn’t believe me unless I showed him. He stared with transfixed eyes upon the length of my leg . . . until I reached the back of my upper thigh, and his expression turned to one of disbelief.

“What in the world are those?”

“Scars,” I said matter-of-factly, walking back to the wall by the fire and sitting down.

“Who? How?”

I straightened my dress over my knees, telling myself not to cry again. Not just yet.

“My father has been . . . different since my mother went missing. Sometimes he’s the firm but tender man I knew as a child; sometimes he’s another creature altogether. He goes into fits of anger, driven by fear. He’s kept me under lock and key for years now, planning out my life. . . .” I sighed. “I know he means well. But when my father told me I was to marry Nickolas, I didn’t agree with the decision. In fact, I outright objected. It was the one time in my life I’d taken a stand on something, so I suppose he had no idea what to make of it. To his credit, he didn’t get angry right away. He came to me with multiple arguments. He came to me with bribes. He came to me with promises. I refused them all.

“It’s not as if I didn’t know we were supposed to end up together; it’s been talked about since I was a child. Marrying Nickolas is advantageous for everyone else, so I was supposed to accept it. But I couldn’t. We got into an argument, and he pushed me. I fell onto a glass table, and . . .”

I swallowed hard. “He looked sorry, but he never apologized. I was left sleeping on my stomach for two weeks to heal, and I emerged from hiding to all the plans being arranged on my behalf. That very night, I was engaged.”

I looked away to wipe the tears. “I know it was an accident, and I know he’s made his rules because he’s afraid of losing me. I remind myself of that when I think I can’t forgive him. Sometimes, I’m more sad than angry. Even though he’s still here, it’s like they’re both gone.”

I finally risked looking at Lennox. I thought I saw sorrow in his eyes. “When the doctor was pulling out the glass, he told me that if I’d simply been obedient, it wouldn’t have happened.” I had to pause to shake my head. “I was so enraged at that doctor, I wanted to kill him in that moment. . . . Not that I would have, but I thought it. I wanted to hurt someone else to make my pain a little easier to bear. So, I’m afraid I can’t judge you.”

I wiped away the moisture above my lips and on my cheeks. “I can’t tell you how I’ve been dreading my wedding night. How am I supposed to explain those marks? I’m a princess. I can’t . . .” I shook my head. “I hope you won’t mind too much, but if I get out of here alive, I intend to say you tortured me.”

There was undeniable pain in his eyes, and he sounded so disappointed when he spoke. “No one will doubt you, that’s for sure.”

“True.”

For a moment, there was nothing but the rush of rain and the crackle of fire. Then Lennox readjusted the way he was sitting, inching slightly closer than before.

“Listen. After I kill you, I’ll have a lot of free time on my hands, so if you give me a list of names, I can make sure that doctor dies, too. Nickolas as well, if you like. Personally, I can’t stand him.”

I scoffed. “You don’t know him.”

“That’s hardly the point.”

And, out of the depths of my sorrow, I laughed. It wasn’t bright or beautiful; it wasn’t the guarded, ladylike giggle of a princess. It was a raw moment of hope in the midst of impossibility.

“First of all, that doctor was removed from his post, so I don’t even know where he is now. Second, Nickolas is . . . a pain, but he doesn’t deserve to die. And third, I don’t want you to kill anyone, Lennox. I want to be able to forgive them. That’s what my mother would have done.”

So quietly, I wasn’t sure I heard it, he said, “I know.”

I wasn’t ready to ask how.

“But there are worse things to do to someone than kill them, Annika. Surely you know that.”

I shrugged. “But it’s so final. Every hope, every ambition, every plan . . . all gone. You and I, we’ve had our dignity stolen . . .” I had to stop. My breathing hitched over the ache of it all. “At least for a little while. But to take our chance to hope for a better life, wouldn’t that be worse?”

He took a stick and poked at the fire. “Isn’t our hope already gone? Think about it. If you win this war, you keep the kingdom, and marry a man you despise while I return to the shadows. If I win, your country is gone. You have nowhere to go. And I will have to find a way to either follow Kawan or add yet another person to the long list of deaths at my hands. What hope is there really at the end of this for either of us?”

“You must be so much fun at banquets,” I said, my voice dripping with irritation.

He laughed. “We don’t have a lot of banquets.”

“Then what’s the point?” I exclaimed. “Why go through all the trouble of getting back something you think is yours if you have no idea how to celebrate?”

“One, it absolutely is ours. Two, I have my own way of commemorating things, good or bad.”

I crossed my arms. “Fine. Tell me. How do you celebrate?”

He rolled his shoulders back. “If we both survive this, I’ll show you someday.”

“No. One of us has to die. That’s the only reason you get to hear the truth, remember? So, death or nothing.”

He smiled. “Fine. Death or nothing.”

I sighed, frustrated. Lennox was too human for me to hate. In fact, this conversation that should have been uncomfortable, painful even, was so reassuring that I hoped the rain lasted a few more hours.

“It doesn’t look like I can kill you yet. Do you have any more secrets you want to tell me?”

“Actually, I have a question.”

He huffed, still smiling. “Here we go.”

“Tell me about your girl.”

His smile faltered. “I told you, she’s not my girl.”

“Even so. What’s she like? Besides being really good at making people’s faces feel like they might explode.”

He missed my joke completely, shoulders slumping as he searched the cave, like perhaps the words he was looking for were carved into the walls along with these unreadable lines.

“Blythe is smart. And determined. And I appreciate that she cares about me. She literally might be the only person in the world who does. So, it’s not that there’s anything wrong with her, exactly . . . she’s just . . . she’s . . .”

“All flint and no kindling?”

He looked at me, wide-eyed. “Yes. Yes.” He collapsed back into the wall, looking as if a great weight had been tossed off his shoulders. “I’ve never known how to say it.”

“Happy to help. But you’ll go back to her if she’s still alive?”

He sighed. “I think so.”

I chuckled. I kind of liked this girl. I wondered what the world would look like if she and I could be friends. That world didn’t exist, though.

“What about you? Tell me about Nickolas.”

I stuck my tongue out like a child, and he laughed.

“I’m convinced now that he cares for me, on some level at least,” I said begrudgingly. “But I look at him, and I feel nothing.” Felt nothing. Heard nothing. “He doesn’t seem to realize how inconsiderate he is. And he’s so serious.”

“Well, I’m serious,” he countered.

“It’s not the same. Nickolas is like, well, if Blythe is all flint and no kindling, he’s the water coming to kill whatever spark you might build.”

“How does he keep up with you, then?” he asked. “You’re all fire.”

All fire. Hmm.

“He doesn’t keep up. He’s either in front of me setting up a wall to hem me in or far behind, trying to catch up. We’ve never quite been on the same page at the same time . . . and it devastates me.”

There. I said it.

“Well, that settles it, I’m afraid,” Lennox said, very officially. “I shall move him to the top of my kill list.”

I glared at him. “No. No kill lists.”

“But it’s all I have,” he replied, clearly playing with me now.

“Nonsense. You need something much more calming in your life. My brother does embroidery. Maybe that would work for you.”

He started laughing. It was cautious, but still. “Embroidery? You must be joking!”

“Not at all!”

“Embroidery,” he chuckled.

After that, he went quiet, and we sat side by side, watching the fire. I couldn’t help but notice how close he was. And that, perhaps foolishly, I couldn’t bring myself to fear him.