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07: Tyrian
Eira was freaking out.
To be fair, Tyrian was also freaking out. But anything he felt seemed trivial compared to Eira’s world falling apart around her. She’d been closed off and quiet ever since she came to him, but once they’d retreated into this tiny cabin on this boat full of monsters, she’d shut down completely. Tyrian wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but it felt like an eternity with nothing to do but stare at Eira sitting opposite him. The foot of space between their knees felt like a thousand miles. She didn’t look at him. She didn’t speak. He wanted to say something, but everything he could think of was horribly inadequate.
“What are we going to do?” Eira asked, startling him. "What are we going to do?"
She held both hands out in front of her, staring at them as if they were deadly weapons dripping in blood. They watched her fingers tremble until she wrapped her arms around herself.
“We can’t go back,” she whispered. “We can’t. Not after what I did. I don’t think this is something that just goes away, Tyr.”
Tyrian stood up and reached for her but stopped at the last second. His arm dropped, a useless weight at his side. “Tell me what happened,” he said finally.
“Tyr,” Eira said very softly. “I’m a monster.”
“You’re not a monster,” Tyrian said instantly. “You’re not magic. I would know if you were. That’s just…just a lie you made up so we could get here.”
“My father died,” Eira whispered, “and it just...came out of me. This...this huge light, brighter than anything. And I killed them.”
“No. You wouldn’t kill someone, Eira, don’t be ridiculous. I’ve known you since we were kids. You couldn’t hurt a fly. You’re just confused. It was…shock, or something, people think all sorts of things.” Blinding light wasn’t something Tyrian had heard of before, but he was hardly an expert in these things—it made more sense than Eira being magic did.
She shook her head, rocking forward and back as if to comfort herself. “I know what I felt. I know what I saw. What they... It was me, Tyr. I didn’t mean it, I swear, but I killed them. Exactly like everyone always said people...people like me would.”
Tyrian took a deep breath. He couldn’t make himself believe it, not really, but arguing the point with Eira wasn’t going to get him anywhere. They both had to pretend to be magic for the next few weeks anyway. So, fine. Eira had magic. Eira might have had a hand in causing death.
But she wasn’t a monster. She wasn’t like them yet. There was still time to fix this, to go back to the way things used to be.
The boat lurched. Tyrian stumbled forwards into the realization that nothing would ever be like it was again.
As if Eira had the same thought, her body shuddered in a sob, and Tyrian reminded himself that this was not about him. It was about her, for better or for worse.
“Eira,” he said, this time with a firm resolve he didn’t feel. “Eira, you are not a monster.”
“What do you know about it?” she demanded. She turned away from him, drawing her knees up onto the bed and fisting her hands in her lap. For a moment, there was only the heaving of the sea and the heaving of her chest. “I know what you think of me because I’m thinking it, too. We grew up knowing exactly who the monsters are, Tyrian. So did everyone else. If they find me, they’ll kill me.”
“Eira—”
“I’d deserve it, too,” she said, her voice flat and distant. “I’m magic. I killed those people. A life for a life, right?”
Wasn’t it right?
But wasn’t it Eira?
“Eira, no. You’re not... They wouldn’t do that to you. They have to realize it was an accident; they have to understand that you didn’t mean it. You aren’t like the others.”
“What's that supposed to mean?” Eira asked, her voice growing louder. She took a breath, clamping down on it. “You can’t pick and choose what’s bad because you like someone. That’s not how it works. You can’t just make exceptions for me.”
“The hell I can’t!” Tyrian snapped. “I care about you a whole lot more than any of those people. I’m allowed to think that makes you a better person than them.”
“So I’m salvageable, then? I’m worthy of fixing and no one else is?”
“Yes,” Tyrian said, exasperated. “You know what these people do. And you’re not like them. You—you might have magic, but there’s still time, you don’t have to be magic.”
“I can’t turn it off, Tyr! I can’t undo what’s already happened, I can’t stop them coming after me. Why can’t you give up and leave me and go home to someone who isn’t going to get you killed?”
“I couldn’t just leave you here alone with these people-”
“These people are more like me than you are now. Or did you forget that when you lied to them even though they'll kill you the second they find out?”
“They won’t if you quit talking about it,” he hissed. It felt strange to be fighting without yelling, but it would be worse to shout at Eira while she kept herself composed. She was so much of her father; even in his worst moments, Valens never raised his voice.
“Yeah, because you know how to keep a secret so well.”
“I do, actually,” Tyrian said. He remembered years of empty beds and open windows and stolen picnics under moonlight.
Eira huffed a small, bitter laugh. “Yeah, you keep secrets so well. That’s why we got caught and my life ended, right?”
Tyrian stepped forward, into her space. In his mind’s eye, he could still see their last night together in perfect clarity. A stone-faced Valens dragging Eira away, tearing off the jacket Tyrian had lent her because she was cold. (He still had it in the back of his closet, hidden so the maids wouldn’t try to get the grass stains out.)
"It was your father who found us out. Don’t you dare pin that on me when I had nothing to do with it," he said coldly. "If you want someone to blame for that night, you can blame that selfish, uptight bastard.”
The second the words were out of his mouth, he knew they were the wrong ones. Even if he’d been thinking them for six months. Eira stared at him, hurt and shocked, tears welling in her eyes.
“How dare you? He’s dead. H-he’s my father and he’s dead, I don’t understand why you have to hate him—”
“You hate him too!” Tyrian snapped. It was true, wasn’t it? Hadn’t they laid under the stars even that night and whispered about running away, leaving it all behind?
“I never hated him!” Eira retorted in a fierce whisper. She wiped at her eyes, and the fight went out of her. “He’s...he was my father. He loved me. I never hated him. I couldn’t.”
“Do you love him, though?” Tyrian asked.
“Don’t ask me that."
“Because you don’t, do you? You never did. You didn’t hate him, but you couldn’t love him, either.”
“I don’t want to talk about it. It’s more complicated than that.”
“It’s not,” Tyrian insisted. “He made you miserable, E! All you ever wanted to talk about was running away from him.”
Eira glared at him. “We were children. I had stupid ideas. My father built a life for me, and no, it wasn’t what I wanted, but at least it was safe. At least I knew what my future would be. I was learning to love it.”
The words rang in Tyrian's ears. I was learning to love him. Learning to love her father, learning to forget the boy down the street.
“Do you love me?” He didn’t know the words would be there until they were, but he didn’t want to take them back.
Eira shook her head. “You did that before, too. You always pitted him against you, like it was one or the other.”
“I didn’t say tha—”
“You didn’t have to.”
But she didn’t answer the question. Tyrian waited. Then, like a moth drawing to a flame, he asked, “Do you hate me, then?”
“It’s not all love and hate, Tyrian,” Eira said. She sounded tired. “I told you it’s complicated.”
“But do you?”
“Do you? You’re the one looking at a witch. Don’t lie to me again—I know you’re afraid of me because we’re the same, and I’m afraid of me.” She looked down at her knees. “Though I guess we aren’t the same anymore, are we?”
“I don’t think I could hate you if I wanted to,” Tyrian said, and that, at least, was the truth. “I don’t think it’s possible."
“Anything’s possible in the right conditions. If you find the right breaking points," Eira murmured. "There’s always a line where someone says no more.”
“There isn't one. Not for me. Not about you.”
“Then you’re a fool who trusts too much,” Eira spat, “or you haven’t found the line yet.”
“I suppose you have one for me, then, don't you?” Tyrian demanded.
Her eyes were cold. “Yeah. I do. And I think you’re getting close to it.”
“Eira—"
“No, Tyrian! You can’t just decide that you love me and try to make me pick you over my father and jump through hoops to make me redeemable and pretend I’m something I’m not anymore because reality is too disgusting for you to comprehend,” she hissed.
“I do love you,” Tyrian said.
Eira stood up and marched toward the door. He grabbed her wrist, and she spun. He swore he heard thunder in her voice. “Don’t say that. You don’t know who you are, and you don’t know who I am. You can't make promises you don't know if you can keep.”
“When I saw you on the street, I swear I thought my heart was going to explode. And then you were scared and in trouble and..." He reached out and touched her shoulder. She jerked away. “And I was so scared. I was terrified for you. Isn’t that proof?”
She had to see. She had to know that he loved her. If she saw that, she could listen to him, and he could fix everything that was wrong with her. They could go home and pretend this never happened.
“No, Tyrian,” Eira said. “I don’t want to talk to you about this anymore. I’m done.”
“But—”
“Don’t. This is the line. Do you want to cross it?”
He didn’t.
“Sit down.”
He sat. She refused to look at him. Fear thrummed in his veins. Where had he gone so wrong?
“Don’t talk to me.”
They sat in silence, drifting in their own thoughts, drifting on a cold ocean. Drifting apart.