The Hollow Heart by Marie Rutkoski
NIRRIM
I LEAP AWAY FROM ADEN’Sknife. I am not a fighter, but I thank the god of thieves for taking my heart. Other Nirrim would have been frightened. While she recoils within me at the thought of fighting Aden, I welcome this moment. Other Nirrim saw Aden as a wounded man abandoned by his mother, smart and talented yet too under society’s thumb to live his full potential. So what? I sneer at Other Nirrim as I dodge Aden’s next wild lunge. Everyone in the Ward was wounded. No one was allowed to be special.
Several of my Half-Kith guards cry out. They rush to save me, but others, traitors that they are, hang back to see which of us will win. “No,” I call to the guards. “Leave him to me.”
“Even now,” Aden says, “when you have no weapon, you think you’re better than me.”
All true … except for the idea that I have no weapon. “You dropped your knife,” I start to say, gathering my power to push a false memory into him. He falters, almost releases the blade, and then his eyes harden. With his free hand, he hits my mouth.
My mouth blooms with pain. I taste blood.
“Try that again,” he says, “and I will hit you harder.”
It hurts so much that I can’t speak, which is exactly how he hopes to prevent sly words that will twist his mind. Yet his hand was loose, not quite a fist; he could have hurt me worse. He may want to murder me, but he is not as fully ruthless as he could be. Although he slashes at me with the knife, the cold, clear vision granted to me when the god of thieves stole my heart tells me Aden is not fully committed to the action. He cannot quite bear the thought of stabbing me.
In short: he is weak.
“Aden, I am sorry.”
“You’re lying.”
“Be king by my side.”
He pauses, the hand with the knife lowering a little. “You say that only because I’ll kill you. Later you’ll take it back. You’ll use your power to make me remember falsely.”
“But I’m not using my power now.” I lower my voice so that the guards don’t hear. “You were right, Aden. Our marriage is the perfect way to give our people what they want. It doesn’t matter that I don’t love you. Go ahead, kiss me in front of everyone watching. Let’s make a good show of it, now and forever.”
“You are horrible,” he whispers, and kisses me, knife at my throat.
I spit blood into his mouth.
Surprised, he pulls back, coughing, but some of it must have gone down his throat.
As any councilman knew, and as I learned the day Sid drank a drop of my blood, the easiest way to borrow my power is to drink it. Sid went rigid with memory. The High-Kith man in the market, so long ago, when I left the Ward for the first time, made me give him my blood and the same thing happened to him: he became a sculpture of himself as his mind plunged into the past.
Aden stiffens. “What did you do to me?” His memory, whatever it is, creeps through him and locks his limbs. He drops the knife. It clatters against the tiles, and he cannot see me as I retrieve it. He sees nothing but the past. Briefly, I wonder what he sees. What will be the last image in his mind?
It doesn’t matter. I will never know.
A tear runs down his cheek.
No, says Other Nirrim. Don’t.
He would have killed you, I tell her. He would have forced you to be his. He tried to make you regret who you are and whom you love. He will continue to challenge our right to rule.
You can’t.
I do this for both of us, I say, and drive the knife into his chest.