The thorn crown

The riverbank was still stained.

Not with blood.

With ash.

The kind that doesn't blow away.

It clings.

To skin. To memory. To soul.

Kael hadn't said a word since we left the bodies behind. Not because he blamed me.

That was the problem.

He didn't.

And I needed him to.

I sat in the shallows, water licking my legs like it could cleanse me.

It couldn't.

"You okay?" he asked behind me.

The question made something twist in my chest.

I wanted to laugh. Or scream. Or both.

"I killed them," I said.

"They would've killed us."

"That doesn't make it better."

"It makes it true."

I turned to him, soaked and shaking.

"I didn't choose to kill them, Kael. I didn't even know I could."

"And now you do."

His voice was steady. Too steady.

Like he'd already made peace with what I was.

But I hadn't.

I wasn't a weapon.

I wasn't anything.

Just a hollowed-out girl with a pulse like a grenade.

"You should be afraid of me."

He knelt beside me, hand brushing my wet hair from my face.

"I am."

I stiffened.

"But not in the way you think," he added.

"I'm afraid of losing you to this. To guilt. To fear. To whatever you think you need to become to survive."

I looked away.

"You don't know what I felt," I whispered. "It wasn't just mine. It was everyone's. All of it, screaming inside me."

"And you still chose to protect me."

He leaned in.

Too close.

His hand on my cheek. His breath warm against my lips.

"I don't care how dangerous you are," he said. "As long as you're still you."

But that was the problem.

I wasn't sure I was.