Page 278 of Burn Her They Said
“Broken ankle,” Cirrin corrects, and I huff out a breath.
“Stop emulating my kind with your stubbornness and accept his healing, Varic,” Minea projects, as I try to pull myself up by grasping onto his scaly leg.
“You know I can heal you from here. However, it will be faster if you allow me to hold it.” His boots clomp closer, and my heart hammers with the stress of having to be tended to like this. So used to letting injuries take their natural time to heal in whatever way they would otherwise.
You only deserve healing if you didn’t cause the injury, Father’s voice reverberates.
And he’s right. So I will take my punishment without complaint. Yet when I go to step down again, pain explodes across my vision. Which I must indicate in some way, as Cirrin drops down to inspect the injury without my consent.
“That’s not a good sign.” Cirrin carefully works the boot off, then pulls off the sock to display deep bruising and swelling.
“No, it’s not. But you’re too depleted. And besides, we need to keep apprised in case the Emperor’s Guards or any others come before Lars and Malin get here.”
“Varic, I will heal your ankle with or without your consent.”
My brow furrows as I turn back to glare at him. “What has gotten into you tonight?”
“I believe it’s called ‘survival instincts,’ Leader.”
I snort in response to his nickname, then freeze in place as his healing penetrates, relieving some of the pressure while taking the throb away.
“Damn, Varic. This is a bad break.”
“Yeah, well, you saw what happened when I tried to move the boulder with and without my magic. I probably fucked it up worse.”
“You mean how you tried to pry the stone off with caution, before attempting to move the rocks which wedged it in? Or how we both tried to lift what we could by hand.” His eyes cast up to me in sympathy. “Hey, are you blocking me?”
I shake my head as my brows meet in the center.
“You must be. I’m more than capable of healing this, but I can’t get through anymore.”
I stare down at the glittering ice crystals lining the stalks of dead grass as Minea jostles me. “Be honest.”
“Varic. You’re causing more damage the longer you refuse to let me in.”
His message infiltrates, and swells from my chest to grow up my throat, where I can neither swallow it down nor cough it out. The kind of message which refuses to abate, no matter how hard I might try to ignore its insistence.
“He’s right, you know,” Minea intones. “I will alert you if anyone dares to come for you.”
“What, by charring them to a crisp and eating them?”
Minea grinds his throat in a churning sound that grates on my ears while also lightening the weight in my chest.
“You need to get better at accepting help when it’s offered. You deserve to be healed, Varic. I don’t know what it’s going to take to convince you that you are worthy of care, but you do not have to suffer. No matter how much your mind claims you deserve this pain as a punishment.”
Tears pool along the edge of my mask, and I let out a pained groan. I press the heels of my hands to my eyes in a vain attempt at preventing more from joining them.
“You have to stop warding yourself off from us.” His words crowd my chest, pressing outward against my ribs.
I can’t stop. I can’t let them in. It’s not safe. It’s never safe.
No. That’s a lie.
Because Tasch has proven the opposite.
Because I have never felt anything but safe with her.
With her eyes as blue as the ocean—or the sky on a rare, cloud-free morning—filled with so much life, so much light, anytime they stare back at mine. Seeing past the shield I’ve been made to fashion, then wield, before my chest, arms, and muscles burn from the weight of it. Piecing together the parts of myself the Empire has shredded. Unrelenting, ever-searching for what I never considered to be missing. Convincing myself otherwise when those fractured parts know better. Exploited for my utility, rather than recognized for anything related to who I am, or who I could be. That’s what she’s able to glean—that’s what Tasch’s aquamarine eyes see in me.
