CHAPTER 14:
The streets of Briarkeep held their breath.
Hexia and Sirenia walked in silence, their joined hands the only point of connection in a world that had just witnessed brutality refined to art. Blood still stained Hexia's fingers—Fred's blood, already drying to rust-brown flakes.
He should wash it off. Should care that people stared as they passed. Should feel something about what he'd just done.
He felt nothing.
The emptiness was vast and cold and absolute. A void where emotion used to live, where humanity used to breathe. Six months of Sirenia's patient work—undone in the span of seeing Lhoralaine's face and Fred's cruelty.
"There's an inn," Sirenia said quietly. "Two streets over. We should—"
"I need to wash." His voice was mechanical. Dead. "The blood."
She squeezed his hand. "Okay. We'll get a room. You can wash there."
They didn't speak again until the door closed behind them. A simple room—bed, basin, window overlooking the street. Generic. Forgettable. Safe.
Hexia stood at the basin, staring at his reflection in the small mirror above it. Crimson eyes looked back—empty, hollow, the eyes of something that had forgotten how to be human.
His hands trembled as he plunged them into the water.
Red bloomed through the clear liquid like ink through water. Spreading. Staining. Permanent.
I killed him. Broke every bone in his body six times. Healed him just to hurt him again. Made him beg. Made him scream. And I felt nothing.
What does that make me?
"Hexia."
Sirenia's voice. Soft. Careful. The voice you use when approaching something wounded and dangerous.
"Don't." He couldn't look at her. Couldn't let her see whatever his face might reveal. "Don't try to fix this. You can't fix this."
"I'm not trying to fix anything. I'm just—"
"You're wasting your time." The words came out harsh, jagged. "I'm exactly what Lhoralaine said I was. Empty. Broken. A weapon pretending to be human."
"That's not true."
"Isn't it?" He finally turned, and his eyes burned with something that might have been anguish if it could claw its way through the numbness. "I tortured him, Sirenia. Not killed—tortured. And the worst part? I'd do it again. I'd do worse. Because when I saw him hit you, when I saw the blood on your face—"
His voice cracked. "—something in me wanted him to suffer. Wanted to hear him scream. Wanted to break him so completely there'd be nothing left to put back together."
"He deserved it."
"That's not the point! The point is I enjoyed it!" The admission tore from him like a confession at a gallows. "Some dark, twisted part of me that I keep locked away—it came out and it liked it. The screaming. The begging. The absolute terror in his eyes when he realized I could heal him and do it all again."
Silence fell between them. Heavy. Suffocating.
Sirenia stepped closer. Slowly. Giving him time to retreat, to build walls, to push her away.
He didn't move.
She reached up, cupped his face in her hands. Made him look at her.
"You want to know what I saw?" Her voice was steady. Strong. "I saw someone who traveled three days without rest because I called for help. I saw someone who could have killed Fred instantly but chose pain instead—not for enjoyment, but for justice. He hurt people you cared about. He manipulated, gaslit, abused. And you made him answer for it."
"That's not justice. That's revenge."
"Maybe. But sometimes revenge is what broken people need to feel like they have control again." Her thumbs brushed his cheeks—gentle, grounding. "And you know what else I saw? You stopped. You could have kept going. Could have made him suffer for hours. Days. But you didn't. You gave him an end."
"A merciful end," Hexia laughed bitterly. "How generous of me."
"You're not a monster, Hexia. Monsters don't question what they are. They don't feel guilt. They don't stand here drowning in self-loathing because they're terrified of becoming something they're not."
"What if I'm already something I'm not? What if this—" he gestured vaguely at himself "—is the real me? The empty thing that kills without feeling?"
"Then I love the empty thing." The words fell like stones into still water. "I love the weapon. I love the broken blade. I love all of it—the darkness and the light, the emptiness and the rare moments of warmth. All of it."
Hexia stared at her. Processing. Failing to process. "You shouldn't. You should run. Get as far from me as possible before I destroy you like I destroy everything I touch."
"Too late." She smiled—soft, sad, fierce. "I'm already here. Already invested. Already in too deep to back out now."
"Sirenia—"
"No. Listen." Her grip on his face tightened slightly. "I saw what happened in that tavern. I saw you break a man who deserved breaking. But I also saw you heal me first. Before anything else. Before revenge. Before justice. You healed my wounds and asked if I was hurt. That's not a monster. That's someone who cares."
"Caring doesn't excuse—"
"I'm not excusing anything. I'm saying you're allowed to be both. Allowed to be the person who heals and the person who kills. Allowed to be empty sometimes and feel things other times. You don't have to be one thing or the other. You can be everything in between."
The words cracked something in Hexia's chest. Not breaking—opening. A fissure in the ice letting something warm seep through.
"I don't know how to be everything in between. I only know how to be nothing or too much."
"Then let me teach you." She leaned her forehead against his. "Let me show you that there's middle ground. That you can feel without drowning. That you can connect without breaking. That you can be human even when you think you've forgotten how."
Hexia's hands came up—hesitant, shaking—and covered hers where they held his face.
"What if I can't? What if I'm too far gone?"
"Then we'll figure it out together. One day at a time. One moment at a time. I'm not going anywhere, Hexia. Not after watching you cross a continent because I needed you. Not after seeing you fight for me. Not after—"
Footsteps thundered up the stairs outside their room. Frantic. Desperate.
A fist pounded on the door.
"Hexia! Hexia, please! I know you're in there! Please, just let me explain! Let me tell you what happened! Let me—"
Lhoralaine's voice. Raw. Broken. Pleading.
Hexia's entire body went rigid. The warmth that had been building—snuffed out like a candle in a storm. The emptiness flooded back, drowning everything.
"Hexia, please! I was manipulated! Fred—he spent years positioning himself between us! He made me doubt you, doubt myself, doubt everything! And I was too blind to see it! Too stupid to—"
"Go away, Lhoralaine." His voice was flat. Dead. The voice of something that had given up on caring.
"No! I won't! Not until you hear me! Not until you understand—"
"There's nothing to understand. You made your choice. You chose him. Multiple times. Over years. That's not manipulation—that's decision-making."
"But I didn't know! He lied! He twisted everything! He made it seem like—"
Hexia pulled away from Sirenia, walked to the door. Didn't open it. Just stood there, speaking through the wood.
"Let me ask you something, Lhoralaine. When did you realize you made a mistake? When did you suddenly decide I was worth coming back to?"
Silence on the other side. Then—
"When I saw you again. When I remembered what we had—"
"No." The word cut like a blade. "Not when you saw me. When did you realize Fred was wrong for you? Be honest."
A longer pause. Then, so quiet it was almost inaudible: "Six months ago. Maybe longer. When the relationship started falling apart."
"Exactly." Hexia's laugh was hollow. "You didn't realize I was worth fighting for. You realized your current situation was unbearable. And then—only then—did you remember the backup plan. The childhood friend who loved you. The safe option."
"That's not—"
"Yes it is. And you know what? I get it. I understand the logic. Fred was exciting. Dangerous. Everything I wasn't. And when that excitement turned toxic, when the danger became real harm instead of thrilling risk—you wanted safety again. You wanted the boy who'd never hurt you."
His hand pressed flat against the door. "But I'm not that boy anymore. That boy died years ago. You killed him when you chose Fred. What's left? Just the weapon. Just the empty thing. And you don't want this. Trust me. You want the memory. The idea. Not the reality."
"Hexia, please—"
"Go back to your party, Lhoralaine. Find someone who deserves your attention. Someone who isn't fundamentally broken. Someone who can give you what you need. Because I can't. I have nothing left to give you. Not friendship. Not forgiveness. Not even hate. Just emptiness."
"I'll change! I'll prove—"
"You can't prove anything to me because I don't care enough to watch you try." Each word was surgical. Precise. Designed to cut deep and leave nothing bleeding—just absence. "You were my first love. My biggest heartbreak. The reason I built walls so high nothing could reach me. And now? Now you're just someone I used to know. That's all. That's it. There's nothing else."
Sobbing on the other side of the door. Desperate. Broken.
"But I love you! I've always loved you! I was just confused and stupid and—"
"Past tense. You loved me. Past tense. You threw that away. You don't get to pick it back up now that your other option imploded."
"Hexia—"
"I'm in love with someone else." The words rang clear. Final. "Someone who saw me at my worst and stayed anyway. Someone who spent six months teaching me how to be human again. Someone who matters more than any memory of what we used to have."
The sobbing intensified. Lhoralaine slid down the door—they could hear her sink to the floor outside.
"Is it Sirenia? That silver-haired bitch who—"
"Careful." Hexia's voice dropped to something dangerous. "You're talking about the woman I'd kill for. The woman I just proved I'd kill for. Choose your next words very carefully."
Silence. Then—quieter, more broken:
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry I called her that. I'm just—I'm desperate and I don't know what to do and I thought—I thought if I could just explain—"
"There's nothing to explain. You made your choices. I've made mine. And they don't intersect anymore. That's just reality. Accept it and move on."
"How?" The word was a wail. "How do I move on when I know I destroyed the best thing in my life? When I know I threw away someone who would have loved me forever? When I know I'm the reason you're like this—empty and broken and—"
"You're not the reason." Hexia's voice softened slightly—not with warmth, but with exhaustion. "You were part of it. But I made myself this way. I chose emptiness over pain. I chose isolation over risk. I chose to become a weapon instead of staying human. Those were my decisions. My responsibility."
"Then let me help fix it! Let me—"
"You can't fix what you broke, Lhoralaine. Some things stay broken. And even if they could be fixed—you're not the one who gets to do it. That right belongs to someone who didn't cause the damage in the first place."
He stepped back from the door. Turned to Sirenia. "Let's go. Out the window. I can't—I can't do this anymore."
Sirenia nodded. Gathered their few belongings. Hexia opened the window, looked down—two stories, but that was nothing for him.
"I'll catch you," he said to Sirenia.
"I know." She climbed onto the sill. "Ready?"
"Always."
She jumped. He was already moving—leaping from the window, catching her mid-air, landing in the alley below with barely a sound. They were gone before Lhoralaine realized the room had gone silent.
When she finally broke through the door—bribed the innkeeper, actually broke through—the room was empty. Window open. Curtains fluttering. Gone.
She collapsed on the bed that still held Hexia's scent, buried her face in the pillow, and screamed.
To be continued…