To Bleed a Crystal Bloom by Sarah A. Parker

Ablade of sun strikes my face, rousing me, and I unleash a raspy groan. Though I shield my eyes with a limp hand, I steal a moment to bathe in the soothing luster before rolling in the direction of my bedside table.

Something hard thuds to the ground, and I frown, cracking an eye open as I peer over the edge.

My wooden sword lies nestled amongst bits of discarded clothing.

“Shit.”

I’m late.

Groaning, I tumble out of bed in an ungraceful heap, my tender brain bouncing around inside my skull.

My stomach twists, bile threatening to erupt up my throat.

Eyes slitted, I peel the rug, shift the stone with trembling hands, and dig into my hidden compartment. I twist the lid off the first jar my fingers collide with, retrieving three nodes and jamming two under my chalky tongue before flopping backward.

The cool stone eases my sins while I gather the will to move again.

Crawling to my refreshment table, I pull myself up and pour a glass of water, tossing it back before gripping the vanity and braving the mirror for the first time in a very long while.

Another groan cracks out of me.

I pinch my pallid cheeks, lick my chapped lips. My braid is matted, eyes flat and gray rather than the usual lilac that sometimes lures me strange looks, the skin beneath them dark ...

Hell. I look like hell. Probably because I dosed up before I went to bed, then twice again when I woke throughout the night, hoping to avoid another nightmare.

Stupid, considering I’m on the last of my caspun, but I wasn’t thinking about that at the time. I was too preoccupied with my determination to escape for a bit.

I stuff the third node beneath my tongue for good, counteractive measure. I’ve never taken three before, but if I go to training looking like this? Well. Baze will make me eat stone.

I’m dressed, watered, and lugging my sword behind me like an anchor when the drugs kick in. By the time I’m pushing open the doors of the large, circular hall with a glass roof and absolutely no purpose other than my daily torture sessions, my heart feels like it’s shooting little bolts of lightning all through my veins.

I sway into the room, a cocksure grin splitting my face. Spotting Baze standing by the window, I fling my sword into the air and swipe it up. “Watch out, Baze. I’m feeling it. You won’t be riding my ass today ... it’ll be the other way around.”

I toss the weapon again just as Baze turns.

That’s not Baze ...

The sword clatters to the ground, making me flinch.

“Is that so?” Rhordyn snips, stalking forward, his own wooden sword swinging from his hand.

“Fuck.”

I slide back a step, trying to swallow my heart that somehow managed to worm its way up my throat, and take a second to peer around the room.

We’re alone.

Double fuck.

“Where’s Baze?” I squeeze out, crouching to retrieve my sword while Rhordyn circles me with long, prowling strides.

“Probably using the spare time to ride someone else’s ass,” he burrs, and I leer at the roof. “Don’t roll your eyes at me, Orlaith.”

He sure knows how to set a tone.

I peek at the door, contemplating a quick dash to freedom. I’m more jacked than I’ve ever been. If I flap my arms fast enough, I could probably flutter out of here like a mail sprite.

I draw a deep breath, trying to calm the erratic sledge of my heart ...

Our gazes collide like rocks smashing together, and his nostrils flare, eyes narrowing. “You’d make it halfway to the door if you’re lucky. But by all means,” he says, gesturing toward the exit with a wave of his hand, “give it a shot.”

My head kicks back as if I’ve been slapped.

Am I that transparent?

“Yes.”

The word punches down my throat and lands a weight in my stomach. Apparently my opiate-smeared brain didn’t realize I asked that question aloud.

“How long have you known?”

“About your ... training camp?”

There’s an edge to his voice that wasn’t there before.

Balancing on it feels dangerous. Deadly even.

“Yes.” I pivot slowly, sword perched at the ready. “And just so you know, Baze said you wouldn’t like me learning to fight. I was the one who begged him to let me do it.”

Rhordyn’s eyebrow pops up, but I keep talking. Keep attempting to climb out of this deep, gloomy hole I dug for Baze and me.

“He was just following my orders. I swear.”

Ish. I swear-ish. There was certainly no begging involved, but the last thing I want is to drag Baze under. Only one of us needs to take the fall, and I’d rather it be me.

“Interesting tactic ...” Rhordyn muses. “Though not nearly as interesting as the fact that it worked.”

What?

My overstimulated mind churns, trying to unscramble his riddled words. “I ... I don’t get it. You’re not angry?”

“I am, but not for the reasons you might expect. And you can save the martyr bullshit.” He crosses through a slice of light, the morning sun glinting off his eyes as if they’re hard, polished surfaces. “The training was never your idea. It was mine.”

My mouth pops open.

Baze, the bastard, is going to die.

Rhordyn launches, his wooden blade flaying the air so fast it sings.

I block his strike with the swift twist of my upper body and a delicate flick of my wrist, but the hit is hard—clanging through the air.

Through me.

Somehow, I resist the urge to clamp my hands over my ears and scream.

Perhaps the Petrified Pine is finally growing on me.

Face to face, weapons locked, we hold our ground. From my vantage point, I can see beneath the weave of Rhordyn’s hair to brows kicked high on his forehead.

“Sharp refle—”

I shift, ducking and wheeling around until my chest is flush with his back, the sharp part of my sword kissing his throat with dispassionate vigor. “Apparently I’m a natural,” I spit, not wanting to hand him credit for something he barely lifted a finger for.

“You’re cocky,” he answers in a razor voice that makes me picture an arrow being notched. “And high functioning.”

What?

He spins out of my hold like smoke on the wind.

I’m still swallowing my shock, blinking at the feline smile pretending to soften his features, when he unloads.

In three swift strikes, he has me disarmed and stretched on the ground, wrists pinned to the stone with one powerful hand, my sword lying discarded somewhere behind me.

I gasp as the sharp edge of his weapon comes to rest across my throat.

Though his eyes are half-hidden behind the flop of his hair, I still feel the chill of his invasive gaze, his breath a frost on my face.

“What the fu—”

“Pathetic,” he growls, sword digging in. “Perhaps I finally understand.”

My heart flips a beat.

“Understand what?”

“Why you cower from the world like it has you beat.” He dips down until his lips are brushing my ear, then whispers, “Perhaps you did die that day, after all.”

How dare he.

“Get off,” I hiss, thrusting my hips.

His own pull back, and he makes this low, vexing sound.

A disgusted sound.

“Or,” he spits, tightening his grip on my wrists, head canting to the side while he guts me with his narrowed eyes, “perhaps I’m wrong. Perhaps you’re fighting like a corpse because you’re high as a fucking kite right now.”

Never has a sentence landed such a pulse-scattering blow.

I can’t breathe. Can’t speak. So instead, I slam my knee toward his junk.

If he’s focused on the fact that his balls feel like they’re going to explode, perhaps his brain will empty.

He buckles the moment I make impact, something between a groan and a laugh grating out of him. “Cheap”—he tips heavily to the side—”shot.”

I kick off the ground and slide backward, snatching my sword before I leap up. “It was.”

It was also an impulsive shot. One I blame on the fact that I am, well ... high as a fucking kite.

“Need a hand up?” I ask, watching him unravel in slow, ungraceful increments.

“No,” he grinds out, pushing to a crouch, drawing a few deep breaths before he rocks onto his heels and stands. He clears his throat and advances, hobbling only half as much as I’d expected him to, the wide breadth of his shoulders swaying with his advance. “But I do require you to hand over your stash.”

My heart stills. The blood in my fucking veins stills.

He can’t possibly know about that.

Somehow, I keep my features smooth, voice steady. “I have no stash.”

He makes a clicking sound with his tongue and prowls closer. “Such a pretty lie. Under the carpet?” He flicks his sword into the air, then snatches it and points the tip at my face. “In that little hole you think is so well hidden?”

Motherfucker.

“Screw you.”

He releases a dark, humorless laugh that boils my blood. “No, Orlaith. The sentiment points in the opposite direction.”

Something inside me goes deadly still.

He flashes a cruel, unmerciful grin. “But you live under my roof, and you will hand over the Exothryl.”

No.

I need it to bring me back from the dead every morning. To remind my body how to function after the anesthetizing balm I glug down night after night to ease my terrors into submission.

It’s a delicate balance, and he’s snatching the pin that holds it all together, assuming he knows what’s best for me.

He doesn’t.

I launch, snarling, slicing through the air, letting all my rage and pain and pent-up hatred bubble to the surface as I swing and swing and swing—immune to the sound and the weight of this sword I hate so much.

My vision narrows on his wide, quicksilver eyes ...

In my mind, they’re black.

They’re the eyes of those feral, circling creatures who choke my subconscious, because he’s restoring their power to ruin me.

He dances back, smooth and dextral, like he’s reading every move before I decide to make it.

I swing, he shifts.

I swing, he shifts.

My sword is an extension of my body, lashing at the man who’s standing between me and the pretty lie I paint over the jagged surface of my heart. And I don’t stop. Don’t relent.

But neither does he.

He’s just as hard, just as unbreakable as he always is, while my flesh yields for him every single day.

I’m not seeing any effort to overcome your fears, and my string of patience is thinning. Fast.

Something inside me snaps.

A haunting sort of calm laces through my veins and sets like mortar, lining my insides with that concrete grace he wears so well.

I blur.

Leaping forward, I drag the tip of my sword through his top. The material splits like a severed wound, and I slam to a stop, sobering, the weapon slipping from my hand.

My mouth falls open ... nothing comes out.

I’ve wounded him.

I stagger forward, splayed hands colliding with his warring chest, frantically peeling fabric back to inspect the damage.

There is none.

No cut exposing his insides ...

No blood.

Glancing up, I become hooked on his chilling stare, almost buckling under the weight of it.

His heart is a hammer against my palm, his beat slow.

Tooslow.

Whipping my hands away, I stumble back.

He lifts a brow, drops his gaze to the bare skin exposed from my brutal strike, and grunts. Crushing the tattered material in his fist, he snaps his arm down, ripping the shirt right off his back and tossing it aside.

I stare at him, unable to look away from the smooth slabs of muscle he’s made of—like every piece is a perfectly crafted stone. Stacked together, they form a work of art.

He reminds me of my wall in Whispers, but instead of mortar holding him together, there are words. Delicate words I don’t recognize, the script stained silver like the ocean goes when the sky is crammed full of clouds. Lines yield and interact with the phrases, linking them, so if I were to transfer his body art to a sheet of parchment, every detail would be connected in some way.

“Your tattoos,” I rasp, hand hovering in the space between us.

An illuminated pulse is throbbing through the markings, as if they have their own entity.

Their own soul.

It’s a slow, sludgy beat I find myself timing my breaths to match ...

Thud-ud.

Thud-ud.

Thud-ud.

A wintry perusal scores across my face, luring me to seek the source.

My hand drops.

In those stony eyes I see more than just the hard man who stalks these halls and rules with a rigid regard.

I see a predator. I see my own morose oblivion.

He strikes.

If I thought my movements were quick, I was kidding myself. He’s lightning—sharp and sporadic.

Impulsive.

There is no rhythm to his crippling lines. They’re all power and destruction, meant to maim and disable and kill.

I swerve the advancing storm of his body, dodging blow after blow, retreating from wild, reflective eyes I don’t recognize. Steered further and further from my sword lying discarded on the ground.

My back collides with stone, and he’s on me, his blade a cold line across my throat, our shared breath intoxicating in its own malignant way.

My chest rises and falls in erratic bursts, mind racing. But though he has me caged between him and the wall with a death strike at my throat, something inside me has my chin lifting ...

His upper lip curls back, exposing teeth I picture ripping into my neck.

My gaze snags on them and struggles to unstick, until he growls low, weakening my knees, threatening to leave me hanging on the line of his sword.

“That was—” my tongue darts out, tasting the icy air as I flounder. “You’re ...”

Something flashes in his eyes, reminding me of a thunderstorm rolling off the ocean.

The space between us shrinks. “I’m what, Orlaith?”

Dangerous.

There’s a cough, and my eyes chase the sound, though I can still feel the chilling brand of Rhordyn’s stare tacking me in place.

“What?” he snaps.

Baze, standing by the entry with his hands dug into his pockets, seems entirely unfazed by the fact that Rhordyn has me pinned against the wall with a killing blow at my throat. In truth, he looks far more amused with the glare I’m practically flaying him with.

Not the response I’m looking for.

Rhordyn’s been orchestrating my training for the past five years, and Baze led me to believe it was our little secret. The bastard.

He doesn’t even have the decency to look sorry about it.

“You wanted to be notified when the High Mistress crossed the border,” Baze states, chocolate eyes detangling from my threatening stare.

Rhordyn releases an almost indiscernible sigh.

He pulls back, tossing Baze the sword while looking me up and down. “You finish up with this,” he says, jerking his chin at me before retrieving his shredded top off the ground.

“But I agreed to this under false pretenses!” I protest, eyes darting from one to the other. “I quit.”

Rhordyn stops cold.

A few long seconds pass, feeling like a small eternity. He finally unravels, shirt held in his white-knuckled fist as he looks my way. “Then your training will be replaced by daily trips to nearby villages. Escorted by me.”

Not a single cell in my body escapes the attack of his words. Even my bones want to crumble from the blow.

I find myself mouthing the word no ... unable to draw enough breath to say it.

Rhordyn’s eyes harden. “Training it is, then. I’ll be back tomorrow night.”

My heart drops.

Tomorrow night ...

He’s reneging on a blood-letting. Possibly two. Something he’s never done before.

“But ... but don’t you need me?”

“No,” he growls. “I need you to sort your shit out.”

Asshole.

“Ride her ass, Baze. Keep going until you can see the color in her eyes again.”

“I hate you,” I manage to whisper, watching him stalk toward the wide-open doors.

He grinds to a halt the moment the words slip off my tongue.

A small, humorless smile curls his lips into something almost painful to witness—a wicked sharpness that reminds me I don’t know this male despite all the years we’ve lived under the same roof.

All the droplets of myself I’ve shared with him.

“Oh, precious,” he says, surveying down, then back up the lines of my body still pinned to the wall by his phantom touch. “You don’t even know the meaning of the word.”

And then he’s gone.