Bend Her novel · Chapter 15 of 24

Chapter 15: Walking Out

Linnet's POV

I unlocked his chains with the key on the nail by the door.

He let me.

He sat on the straw with his wrists in his lap and did not look up.

"I am not learning any more," I said.

"Linnet."

"Not one more spell. Not a candle. Not a cup of water."

"You must pass the Trial."

"Then I'll fail it."

His head came up.

"You would be married to a stranger within the month."

"I know what I'd be."

"Then you cannot say that."

"I can say whatever I like. It's the only thing I've ever owned."

I found my nightgown and pulled it on.

My hands were steady, and my voice was not.

"You let me think you hated me," I said. "For six weeks."

"I never said I did."

"You never said you didn't. I thought the king's seal was the only reason you could stand to look at me."

"The seal was the reason I could touch you," he said. "It was never the reason I looked."

Something in my chest turned over.

I had wanted to hear that since the bridge.

I heard it now, in a cold cellar, from a man who was dying of me.

I could not take it.

"That's not enough," I said.

"I know."

"I asked you for one thing. You teach me everything, and you never lie to me."

"I have not lied."

"You let me stand in that courtyard for a month, proud of myself."

"Linnet..."

"Every time I got it right, you said again, and I thought you were being hard on me. You were bleeding."

"Yes."

"Say something else."

"What would you have me say?"

"Anything but yes!"

He stood.

He was human again, tall and scarred and tired, with a chain mark on each wrist.

"If I had told you the first day, you would have looked at me as you are looking now," he said.

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