Corinne Duyvis - Otherbound

That would make it easy for Amara. Not having a choice was always easy. It was always safer. However bad things were, you kept your head down and did as you were told in order to avoid worse.

The world always wanted people like her to believe those lies.

You were never safe as long as you were at someone else’s whim.

Amara’s eyes met Cilla’s, dark and beaten and haunted.

Not having a choice was the worst thing in the world.

Amara pushed the knife down. Nolan didn’t stop her. And in that moment, with her enemy’s knife in her own hand, a point pressing on Cilla’s arm, Cilla’s skin familiar against hers, relief sneaked up on her and refused to let go. Because what she’d told Cilla wasn’t true. It wasn’t that she couldn’t go back to her old life; she could. If she went back, she’d hate herself, but it meant survival. It might be worth it or it might not be, and she’d never have to find out because it would never happen. She wasn’t going back.

It wasn’t because of what Maart wanted, or because of what Cilla asked, or because of what Jorn said. She’d made the choice. It was hers alone. This or nothing.

Blood welled up from Cilla’s arm. Amara let the knife clatter to the ground. She reached for the cut. She was almost smiling now, a desperate smile that had her lips trembling, that came with tears burning her eyes.

This or nothing.

Cilla pulled herself loose. She stepped away from the bars.

Amara reached through. Her fingers found only air. Her smile faded, and she shouted, her voice hoarse. Cilla couldn’t—why was she—

“Ilanne said she was sorry,” Cilla said.

Amara yanked her arms back to sign. “Because she knew she was wrong! You need to—”

Cilla’s dull eyes hardened. “No. Because she knew she was right. She felt terrible, and she did it anyway because she knew she had to.”

“Come back! We need to—we need to try— ” Amara stopped talking. She crouched and took the fallen knife, smearing every drop of Cilla’s that still clung to the blade onto her own arm, but it wasn’t enough. It didn’t compare to the amount of blood on Cilla’s arm. And more kept coming, and once the curse hit, there would be more and more—

Cilla went on. “No more Nolan in your head. No more ministers. No more backlash. No more curse. You’ll be safe, and his family will be safe, and the Dunelands … We won’t have to run anymore.” A drop of blood trickled down Cilla’s arm, changing its path when Cilla reached up to unwind the bandages from her chest, letting the glow from her false, torn-up mark shine through. “I don’t know what else to do,” she whispered as the rocks in the walls started to shift.

Amara couldn’t make signs anymore. Her hands wouldn’t listen, and she didn’t know what to say if they did. She clawed through the bars. Her muscles stretched so far they hurt, the beams pressing into her shoulder and against the side of her face until she couldn’t go any farther. Cilla stood footlengths from even the tips of Amara’s fingers. She backed up farther. Stepped onto the cot without looking.

“I’m sorry. For this and for everything else over the years. It wasn’t right.”

Amara knew it wasn’t right, she knew , but it wasn’t Cilla’s fault, and if she got down from that mattress, if she just—if she just came toward the bars, they could try—fix it—

“You probably shouldn’t look.” Cilla smiled wanly. “It’s not pleasant.”

It wasn’t.

Cilla’s turn to hurt. Amara’s turn to watch.

Amara screamed so loudly she didn’t recognize her own voice as the first stones wrapped around Cilla. They pulled her into the wall. They pressed her tightly. Stone crunched. Other things did, too. Amara kept screaming. As long as she kept screaming, she couldn’t hear Cilla’s.

She screamed until footsteps came down the hall, finally, finally , until Jorn’s arms circled her and yanked her away from the bars. Metal clinked against metal even through Cilla’s cries tearing the air in half. Someone had the keys. Someone opened the cell. Jorn pushed her inside, and Amara stumbled and almost fell.

“Go!” Jorn shouted, but there was no point. No amount of Cilla’s blood on Amara’s skin would distract the curse this time. There was too much of it, and even more kept coming.

Cilla’s scream ended in a choke.

If Nolan took control of Amara, he could take those steps forward so she wouldn’t have to; he could reach for Cilla’s battered body in the wall and take whatever blood would stick to him.

He couldn’t. He was trapped, the way he’d been before he’d ever taken the pills.

At least Pat would be safe with Cilla dead, he thought distantly. At least Nolan would have his life again.

But for now … for now, he was here, watching through Amara’s eyes fixed on Cilla’s broken face, and Nolan could only repeat to himself, This isn’t my body, this isn’t my pain, this isn’t my world, this isn’t my love.

Stones on each side. Cilla’s eyes forced shut. Lips that had kissed Amara’s, torn beyond recognition.

Not my pain not my pain not my pain I don’t want to feel this not my pain.

The hands Cilla had revealed her royal mark with, swallowed by stone. Amara’s hands had looked just like that, mangled on the floor in that other cell. Nolan had put them back together. This time he couldn’t do a thing. Only watch and wish he wasn’t. He’d tried to climb into Cilla’s body at Olym’s farm, and it hadn’t worked, for all his extra pills, for all that he’d focused and wished and concentrated so hard—

It hit him so clearly that the cell went quiet for a full second.

He’d done it all wrong.

Instinct. That was how he’d first controlled Amara. He’d wanted her to run from the mages—urged her on—slid into her mind without realizing it. It was how he’d first left, too. Her pain had cut too deep.

Emotion and instinct. Only with those could he take control.

And now, with Cilla dying and Amara screaming and the palace shivering and crying with magic and the rock still churning … This wasn’t like sitting in his safe, sunlit room and squeezing his eyes shut to concentrate. This was not a school assignment. This was not a world to chronicle in his notebooks, to distance himself from.

This was real.

My pain , Nolan whispered. Mine . He couldn’t control Amara anymore, but he’d never needed that to make her heal. He only needed to be present. If he could slip into Cilla’s body … if the pills still offered him control over that …

He opened himself to Amara’s panic until it seared through him so hot and sharp he could no longer separate it from his own.

The air smelled of dust and blood. Cilla wouldn’t last much longer. He’d lose her like he’d lost Maart.

That thought did the trick.

Nolan abandoned Amara’s panic for Cilla’s pain, for blackness, for crunching in his ears, for pressure on every part of his skin. Pushing and breaking and digging in deep. The pain ebbed, flooded back in. At this point, Cilla should have been past the pain. Her nerve endings were destroyed. She was supposed to fade and die.

Instead, her bones snapped into place, broke again from continued pressure, mended themselves a second time. Cuts healed over. Blood drained from places it shouldn’t be, slipping back into burst vessels that shuddered deeply under her skin. Muscles braided themselves back together.