His words sent a chill down her back. She fought the grip on her fingers and tried to pull her hand free of his. Heat shot down her palm in a familiar wash and the mark was stolen. The action made her chest constrict. Where she would have been angry at his recklessness, she felt only empty sadness. He would still risk everything for her and still she only caused him pain. Once he had told her that the truth was a weapon, that she shouldn’t try and injure the messenger. She’d always considered the truth to be a poisoned blade, deadly in the wrong hands or dealt in the wrong way. Malcolm had heard the truth. It had spilled unprotected from her lips and it had wounded him.
He sank down, nose bleeding in a cascade of crimson. She stood and corrected her breaches, fingers sliding over the now smooth skin. Instead of obeying his order she opened the drawers and pulled out a linen wrap. With the cool fabric balled tight in her fingers she knelt beside the man and pressed it into his hands, something to help with the bleeding.
“Even before your Father intervened, I do not know that I would have jumped,” she admitted. Uncertain if could hear her through the pounding of his heart or the burn of the nosebleed. He looked awful, exhausted and with eyes she worried could cry tears of blood. She did not want Malcolm to die. A world without him remained unliveable. Yet he was dismissing her once more. Banishing her from their home. “He said that he laid a curse on me, that I would neither love nor find sorrow until I chose to accept both…it does not feel like a curse, but a blessing. I can think clearly now, without fear or pain and my thoughts are free.” The young woman reached out, touching her cool fingers against the warmer palm of his hand, “I will go because you bid me to leave, but still I know, above anything else, that I am yours and this is the truth.”
He sank down, nose bleeding in a cascade of crimson. She stood and corrected her breaches, fingers sliding over the now smooth skin. Instead of obeying his order she opened the drawers and pulled out a linen wrap. With the cool fabric balled tight in her fingers she knelt beside the man and pressed it into his hands, something to help with the bleeding.
“Even before your Father intervened, I do not know that I would have jumped,” she admitted. Uncertain if could hear her through the pounding of his heart or the burn of the nosebleed. He looked awful, exhausted and with eyes she worried could cry tears of blood. She did not want Malcolm to die. A world without him remained unliveable. Yet he was dismissing her once more. Banishing her from their home. “He said that he laid a curse on me, that I would neither love nor find sorrow until I chose to accept both…it does not feel like a curse, but a blessing. I can think clearly now, without fear or pain and my thoughts are free.” The young woman reached out, touching her cool fingers against the warmer palm of his hand, “I will go because you bid me to leave, but still I know, above anything else, that I am yours and this is the truth.”
