As he trailed off, she knew he was not solely considering her rejuvenation of him. He was thinking about what she had done at that castle. To the guards who had sought to keep her therein, and especially to the aristocrat who had so violently abused her body.
She had killed a dozen or more males that night.
And brutalized the one who had taken her virginity with force.
“Where did you go after you left that castle?” he asked absently, as if it was another inquiry he had pondered many times by himself over the centuries that had separated them.
“I was in time,” she murmured. “I told you.”
“I don’t even know what that means. I don’t understand any of this.”
Rahvyn sat up upon the bed. As she looked down at herself, she found that a blanket had been pulled over her. She was still in the same clothes—the black sweater, the jeans—and she brushed at the dried blood.
Even after she washed them, she was never going to put on this outfit again.
“I am sorry,” she said. Because it was easier than telling him she had to leave.
“I used to think this… immortality thing you gave me… was a curse.” He shook his head and spoke slowly. “But if you hadn’t given me this… new life, whatever it is, I wouldn’t have my Mae. I couldn’t have protected my Mae.”
Rahvyn wasn’t sure what to say to that.
“Anyway, thank you,” he said roughly. “I can’t… thank you enough.”
He took her hand, holding it gently in between his much larger palms. And then he lowered his forehead down and placed it on the clasp that joined them.
Reaching over, she stroked her cousin’s hair. Again, she found that she had nothing to say. Whether it was because of the amount of effort she had had to apply unto the saving of Nate or because—
The knocking was quiet. As if whoever were on the far side of the door was concerned about interrupting something. And then she caught a scent she recognized.
“Nate?” she said.
The door into the room swung wide, and there he was, up on his feet, his color bright and healthy, his balance buttressed on a rolling stand on which was suspended a deflating transparent bag full of some kind of liquid. Behind him, both his parents were shaken, but no longer crying, the twin sentries of his well-being having clearly had one hell of a night.
As she met Nate’s eyes, her own filled with tears, and he rushed forward—even as his parents tried to keep him from bolting. But he didn’t need any aid to walk. He didn’t need whatever was being transfused into his arm vein. He was not going to require help with his physicality in any fashion, ever again.
Rahvyn sat all the way up at the same time he came upon her, and then they were embraced, his arms around her shoulders, her own tucked around his waist. As she ducked her head into his neck, she was dimly aware that the others in the room were speaking softly… and then retreating out into the hallway.
After a long moment, Nate eased back and sat on the side of the bed more properly. “So were you shot, too? Are you okay?”
“Yes.”
He paled. “Yes, you were shot or—”
“No, I mean, I was not injured, therefore I am okay.”
“Thank God.”
There was a silence, their eyes clocking the details of survival in the other. And then he looked down, and she braced herself for what he was going to ask. What he had every right to know. What she could not explain.
Dearest Virgin Scribe, who was she to wield this power.
“What happened, Rahvyn. No one really wants to tell me.”
“I am so sorry.” When he went to respond, she stopped him from speaking. “I wish I could have asked you whether you wanted to come back.”
“Of course I want to be alive—”
“Yes, but there is a price, and you deserved to choose. I just did not know what else to do—”
He put his hand out. “We’re not talking about CPR, are we.”
“What is that?”
“Cardiopulmonary resus—” He shook his head. “Never mind.”
There was a pause because she did not know where to begin. And that was when his expression changed. She had seen as such many times before, back in the Old Country, back even when she had been a young and not understood herself any more than anybody else did: Wariness and a little awe.
Meanwhile, she had lost her voice. This was perhaps good. There was a truth she refused to share with anyone, even herself, and she worried over what would come out of her mouth.
“The night that the meteor landed behind Luchas House,” he said slowly. “And I saw you there, by the impact site…”
She watched his mind work through the subtle shifts in his facial muscles, his lips tightening, his brows dropping and raising, his jaw working as if he were grinding his back teeth. Indeed, he was stitching together things he had overlooked, pulling the truth out of a series of previously unconnected details. And that was life, was it not. One went about, not aware that the superficial details were but a screen for a revelation yet to materialize.