Zhara by S. Jae-Jones

Author:S. Jae-Jones
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

23

AFTER SEVERAL MINUTES OF STUMBLING AROUND IN the pitch-black, Han sheepishly asked Zhara if she could try the flaming hands thing again.

“Not if it makes you uncomfortable,” he added quickly. “Or if it pains you in any way.”

They had been making their way down inch by agonizing inch, carefully feeling out the edge of each stair with their toes before advancing another step. Their progress was careful, slow, and Han wanted to punch the wall with frustration. If he could be sure just where the wall was.

“I’m afraid I can’t,” Zhara said softly.

“Why not?”

There was a long pause before she answered. “I—I don’t know how.”

Han recalled her terror on the stairwell, her unwavering belief that her magic somehow made her a monster, and thought of Anyang. His little brother also believed himself a monster, because he believed he had somehow driven his one friend away with his inexplicable powers. “Does your magic just … lash out like that?” he asked, treading carefully around her feelings.

“Sometimes.” He could hear her footfalls lightly scraping against the stone steps beneath them. “Jiyi talks about the void between matter all the time, but to be honest, magic has always felt like a force beyond my control.” She fell quiet. “Sometimes it lashes out and hurts others.”

“You can’t blame yourself for things beyond your control.” Han could feel her flinch beside him, even though he could not see her.

“Nevertheless,” she continued. “I’ve hurt people before.”

The rest of that story hung in the air between them, as suffocating as the unrelenting darkness. Han desperately wanted to ask her about it, but he didn’t want to press the matter and push her further away. “I’m sure it was an accident,” he said uncertainly.

“It wasn’t.” Her voice was flat.

He was taken aback. He couldn’t envision sweet little Mistress Brandy ever harming someone intentionally. “You mean you wanted to hurt someone?”

“No, of course not.” He imagined her closing her eyes, her brows furrowed in pain. He had seen that look of regret on her face before, so at odds with her bright and cheerful countenance. Han had often wondered at the circumstances of her life that caused her features to fall so easily into the lines of cowed submission and sorrow. “But it doesn’t matter what I intended. She got hurt, and it was my fault.”

He knew so little about her, he realized, and she him. They were both so guarded, so careful about their truths. Yet Han sensed Zhara’s guardedness had to do with a lifetime of expecting pain, while his came from the simple, selfish notion that he didn’t want to scare people—her—away. If he told her who he truly was, would she hate him for lying to her? The gulf between a prince and an apothecary’s assistant seemed so insurmountable. But when he was just Han, when he was just a boy, and she a girl, the distance wasn’t so frightening. Guilt trickled down the back of his neck, cold and damp.

Then he realized something was dripping from the ceiling.

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