Page 64 of Bitter Burn
“I don’t like it,” Tristan says the next night as he rakes his hands through his now-short hair. “The perception of the club isn’t worth this.”
“Then we are in agreement,” Mark says calmly. “Nevertheless, here we are.”
It’s only the three of us in the wings of the stage, Mark and I sitting on stools facing each other while Tristan paces behind me. Mark is holding my hands in his, his grip anchoring and certain. I think of how we sparred with knives the first time we met, how easily he held on to his blade even as we wrestled and fought.
“It’s okay,” I say, trying to steady my voice. The nerves are coming through against my will. “It’s going to be okay. It’s just an hour on the stage. I can do anything for an hour, and anyway, Mark won’t test me beyond what I can bear.”
“Even God reneges on that promise,” warns Mark softly. “Don’t trust me with such things.”
“I shouldn’t trust you at all,” I say as I look down at our hands. “But we don’t require trust from each other, not in the normal way.”
“No, not in the normal way,” Mark agrees. “We have something different.”
Something primitive and beyond language. Something dark and old. The shared hunt of the wolves, the ruthless but eternal mating of corvids.
“I’ll say my safeword if I need to,” I say after a minute. “This isn’t the hardest thing I’ve done, and it won’t be the most fucked up, not by a long shot. This isn’t like walking into a battle—something you’ve both done, by the way.”
“It’s different,” protests Tristan. He comes to kneel beside me, and his eyes lift to mine in a flare of imploring green. “This is designed to test you, and more importantly, it’s designed to humiliate you. And for what? The approval of people you don’t care about?”
“We need their approval.” I know my impatience is part defensiveness, that I’m revealing how uncomfortably prescient his question is, but also the three of us have known this math for half a month at least. It hasn’t changed. “If the club doesn’t trust me, they won’t trust Mark. If they don’t believe in my marriage, my uncle won’t believe in me. The opinion of the club might be the difference between life and death for many people, myself included.”
“I don’t care,” Tristan protests, his voice growing a little louder. “I don’t care if you going out there is a literal stay of execution! There has to be another way!”
“Did I hear stay of execution?” Dinah cheerfully inquires as she clicks her way toward us in thigh-high vinyl boots and a zip-up bodysuit. She’s dyed her hair back to a shocking purple and wears a purple matte lipstick to match. “You know that’s how these trials used to be, back in the mists of time. They loved doing shit like this whenever they thought someone was guilty of witchcraft or infidelity or treason. And if an adulterer was a queen, infidelity was treason, since you were potentially bastardizing the line of succession and also showcasing the king’s weakness. If he can’t even control the body of his wife, how can he control a kingdom? You might as well hang a sign on him that says usurp me now. Therefore: unlawful queen fucking is punishable by death. Everybody’s death, including the queen’s. So in a trial by ordeal—any trial where innocence was decided by some public suffering or physical feat—the stakes were always life and death.”
We stare at her.
She runs a finger under the vinyl hem shining against her thigh and then looks up to see us staring. “I took medieval lit at MIT. I remembered some things.”
A trial by ordeal. Yes, that’s what it feels like, like I’m being flung into a pond or made to walk across hot coals, my purity made manifest in front of a sea of hostile eyes. If I can bear whatever Mark has devised for me, if my loyalty survives the test, then maybe something like absolution will come after. Not proof of my innocence—rather difficult for anyone to claim that after literally running away with another man—but proof of my very real devotion.
“It’s almost time,” Dinah tells us. “The grand drape is still down, Mark, if you’d like to check everything.”
Mark lets go of my hands and stands to follow Dinah onto the curtained stage. His finger trails over the back of my neck as he walks behind me, fleeting but no less possessive for how quickly the warmth disappears.
“Please don’t do this,” whispers Tristan, who is still kneeling next to me. “We can find another way to fix your reputation here at the club. With enough time?—”
I stop him right there. “Time is the one thing we don’t have, Tristan. The conclave will finish any day now, and my uncle will be occupied with his inauguration and initial Curia maneuvers for only so long before his eye turns back to Lyonesse. I have to play my part here carefully. Too little progress and he might decide I’m more of a liability than an asset. Too much progress and he will wonder where his information is. Mark might feed me some expendable secrets to string him along, but it’ll only work for a little while. Uncle Mortimer isn’t easily deceived.”
Tristan’s beautiful mouth pulls into a scowl. “I can’t stand this,” he hisses suddenly. “I want to scoop you up and whisk you away somewhere safe, somewhere no one can hurt you ever again.”
I brush my fingertips over his temple, the hair there tragically short, and smile sadly at him. “We already tried that, remember?”
He closes his eyes. His lashes are long and inky on his cheeks. I hate that this is the most time we’ve had together since he’s come back, that any time we have had has been under scrutiny, around other people.
I hate that time itself has become this nonrenewable resource, scarce as blue garnets, rare as rhodium.
“How are you doing?” I whisper.
He doesn’t open his eyes. “I should be asking you that question.”
“I didn’t have to bury a father this week.”
I’m still running my fingers over his face—cheek, jaw, chin—and I feel the aborted words tensing his tongue. Finally, he says, “I think I could have buried my father a long time ago, and it would have felt about the same. It’s not the same as when my mom died. And I don’t think that makes me a very good son.”
“Nothing will be the same as when my mother died either. Does that make me a bad daughter?”
Tristan’s eyes open. His lips part, and I quickly shush him with a finger.
