Chapter 38-4

A small whimper escaped her lips. "But—But what if I did?" I shifted on the edge of the tub so I was looking at her fully. "What could you have possibly done to hurt him, Nadia? You didn't plan that attack. You didn't fire the bullets. You've barely slept because you're filtering every ounce of your ability into trying to save Cohen." I sighed. "You aren't being fair to yourself." Her normally dark skin was unnaturally pale as she shook her head. "You don't understand. I—I'm ruined. Something in me is broken. My ability is broken." "No, you aren't. You're physically and emotionally exhausted, but you aren't broken. Give yourself some grace." She crossed the space between us and crouched in front of me. Before I could react, she took hold of my hand and flipped it, palm up. I thought she was looking at my mark, but then she ran one black-tinged fingertip along a faint, raised scar near the crease of my thumb and forefinger. Caine had done that. A knife, from the dinner table. Kai had stood at the other end of it, begging his uncle to stop. He'd refused to sign a proclamation that would move the majority of Erydia's fabric weaving from Dakolt to Gazda. The smaller city was making too much money—and Caine was greedy. The Synod was greedy. If they could have the fabric produce in Gazda, then they could charge Dakolt taxes and tariffs to import it back for sewing. And outside of the Decca Market, the best seamstresses were from Dakolt. They'd have to pay the fees. And Kai might have signed it. But Dakolt was a city that needed the fabric production to survive. It was the middle of winter and if the factories left and moved further inland, the people who couldn't get the papers to move cities would die. They'd starve. I'd spent all of breakfast begging Kai not to sign it. And he'd listened to me. He'd listened until that knife cut deep into my flesh and I cried out. Then Kai had signed the proclamation. He'd signed it as blood welled from that cut—as it had dripped on the white table cloth between us. And it was only because he'd signed it that I was allowed to see a healer. Afterward, I'd sat there in stunned silence, tears streaming down my face, as the healer had stitched my hand closed. The cut was dangerously close to tendons, the woman had told me. It was a miracle I still had use of my hand. Any deeper and I'd have been in trouble. Next time, it will be fire, Caine had said. And he'd kept that promise. Nadia was still as stone as she looked down at the cut. She didn't ask where it had come from, she knew. Even if I hadn't spoken to any of my friends about it, even if no one quite understood what my life had been like during their imprisonment—she knew. I waited for that flood of healing warmth, but as the pad of her thumb ran across that scar a third and then fourth time, it never came. But something else grew within me—a sense of cold that spider-walked up my spine, injected itself into my veins. I tensed, unsure what was happening—and then the sensation grew, thundering past cold numbness and into searing pain. I yelped and yanked my hand away, nearly topping into the bathtub in my hurry to separate myself from her touch. Nadia remained where she was, her large brown eyes shining with unshed tears. I swallowed, still cradling my hand to my chest as I demanded, "What the hell was that?" She stood up and backed up a few paces, until she'd bumped into the countertop and could move no further. Then, she nodded to my hand—to the blood coating my white nightgown. She pressed the back of her fingers to her lips to stifle a sob as she said, "I told you. I'm broken." I looked down at my hand. The cut was as fresh as it had been all those weeks ago. My gaze darted to Nadia. "How?" Nadia let out a strangled whimper and slid down the line of cabinets until she was seated on the bathroom floor across from me. She pulled her knees to her chest and buried her face in them. "How?" I asked again. "How did you do that?" She lifted her head to look at me, her eyes landing on the blood still oozing from my hand. She swallowed and then pushed off of the titles, moving to kneel in front of me. But as she reached for my hand, I jerked back—alarmed. "Don't—" Hurt flashed across her face, but she didn't try to touch me again. She only said, "It—Sometimes it just bursts out of me. Sometimes—There are other times when I can harness it. I just...It's like my ability, but done backward. Or done wrong. I—um—I can sense injuries, even old ones. And..." She lifted one shoulder and let it drop. "Instead of healing it, I can—I can tear it open again. I can undo what's been done." "Have—" I swallowed, trying to think past the stinging in my hand. "Have—Were you able to do this during the Culling? When—When did—" "After. The first time I did it, it was an accident. It's usually an accident. I don't...It's hard to practice. And I haven't exactly had a ton of opportunities to use it. The first time, we were in the palace cells and there was a guard messing with Cohen and I—I wanted him to stop. But nothing—nothing I said was working. And then he—um—he started to make sexual comments about me and I knew Cohen was about to fight him or get himself hurt, so I just..." She shrugged. "I don't know. One minute he had Cohen up against the wall and the next thing I know, the guard had a nose bleed. A bad one." "And—And—And did anyone realize it was you?" "I think most everyone assumed it was a fluke. These things—they um—they happen." I nodded and pressed my palm to my nightgown, trying to slow the bleeding. "So, then, who actually knows about this?"