To Snap a Silver Stem (Crystal Bloom, #2)

by Sarah A. Parker

“I’ll protect her. Give her the tools to protect herself. I’ll be her fucking storm if I have to. She’ll want for nothing—always. I can do all that without being involved.” Mersi looks me right in the eye, fierce and brazen. “Everything is nothing if you’re in pieces, High Master. I think that’s something even you can understand.”

He’s gone. “Don’t leave m-me ...” I wish he could hear. That I wasn’t so alone. That I was bleeding out in his arms, and not the other way around. “Don’t leave me,” I repeat—louder this time. A curse to myself because they took him. Not me. They always do.

“Don’t leave me.” I didn’t get to say goodbye. Those vines writhe, whip, stab at the underside of my skin, digging for release. They want freedom. Revenge. I just want my brother back.

I bow forward and shield the limp body in my lap from the shattered assault, pulling him so close I can feel the lack of a beat in his chest. Everything stings, but it’s nothing compared to the grief gnawing on my heart.

The sound can’t break me if I’m already in pieces.

I look to the stars, doubting Rhordyn knows how ugly I am beneath the pretty skin he’s forced me to hide all these years. Layers upon layers of lies. Either way, the dull metal clasp at the back of my neck now feels too flimsy.

“I look in her fucking eyes and I don’t see a survivor. I see guilt and ghosts and my own death flying at me. I think she’s cursed. I think her family learned that the hard way and paid the ultimate price.” Guilt and ghosts …

Swallowing, I close my eyes and pretend I’m drenched in sunlight, folded on a windowsill in Stony Stem—not tucked in the crow’s nest halfway up the aftermast, shackled by a bold blue cupla and feasting on my pain. Molding it into a different sort of Safety Line. A numb shield for my bruised and battered heart.

His wide, unseeing eyes reflect the vast scope of my desolation. Reflect me—beautiful, dazzling death. I drop my face into bloodied hands and scream.

Heartbreak can cripple the body. The mind. It has no mercy.

“Broken things can’t always be fixed. Unfortunately.”

Knowing she was leaving. Knowing there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it for risk of boasting my ugly shame to the world. Always shield your weakness … I guffaw into my mug. I’m such a fucking fraud.

I should’ve been honest with her. Should’ve told her everything the moment she started to root around for answers. Fuck Rhordyn and his fucking secrets. He’s happy to absorb her hate, but there’s not one single part of me that’s ever wanted that for myself.

Huh. You dont say

Orlaith’s out there, vulnerable, underinformed, and brimming with justifiable rage. Blame is a hot coal in my hand ready to be tossed, because fuck me ... it burns.

“Should we talk about how this entire situation could have been avoided had you simply been honest with her?”

Yes lets discuss this in great detail

Orlaith has no idea what’s about to hit her—a man who knows the sour taste of loss hell bent on twisting fate to his own fucking will.

Perhaps not. But it’s not his body that’s being sold for a promise that keeps slipping further between his fingers.

Since I began seeing Rhordyn around the castle a few years back, he’s been a punishing presence trying to push me out the door. Telling me to get out and live, like he was furious with me for not spending my heartbeats the way he deemed appropriate.

Truth is, I fell in love with a ghost. Now I’m gone and still ... haunted.

Being this high up, looking down upon the world, used to make me feel untouchable. Safe. Now? All I can think about—obsess about—is the thrill of the fall.

I close my eyes, wanting nothing more than to blink out of existence. Disappear. To dash up Stony Stem and crawl beneath my bed.

This tool ... this beautiful, mighty, delicate tool ... it’s felt the wear of my sorrow. My shame. My anger and my heartache. It’s seen my greatest fears come to life.

I have to find a way to move forward, one fallen whisper at a time, until the wall is deconstructed in my mind. Until it’s no longer weighing me down like stones stacked in my belly.

They love their lanterns here. Think the bright can protect them from everything. Most of them are too young or uneducated to know that worse monsters used to thrive in the light. Some of them still do.

“Carved it into three small tools and gifted them to someone special.” Someone who needed to see that beautiful things don’t have to be breakable.

Omg my heart

Little does he know, I’m much worse than the monster he glorifies.

Can she feel it? Does it cut like a blade? Caress like the breeze? Does she feel haunted, like she’s haunting me? Another tear. Don’t cry.

She doesn’t think I care. It’s almost enough to bring me to my knees. I did that to her. I fucking did that to her.

Yes well, considering you were a massive fucking dickwad in book 1, we dont blame her for any of this. At least you are trying to be self aware. You helped create her fragility.

I can see the question in her eyes. What did you do? Little does she know, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for her. Except let her go.

I drag my finger along the blade’s smooth face, dangerously close to the sharp edge that slid through Rhordyn’s flesh … It brought me a twisted sense of satisfaction to watch him bleed for me. I wanted more. I wanted to rip into his throat with my teeth. Taste him as he dribbled from my lips. The thought shocked me. Frightened me.

Why is he looking now, when I’ve got everything to hide?

I’m certain he gave me the pickaxe, the bluebells, this. Perhaps he was even the one to paint the wisteria on my wooden sword. But it doesn’t change the fact that he hid me from myself. Lied to me for years. Doesn’t change the fact that he locked me in his fucking den after kissing me like there was no beginning, no middle, no end.

Oh, Gods. This is bad. Really bad. All I wanted was to stick it to Rhordyn a little. Now I’m contemplating abduction.

She’s sharing her special place with me. Perhaps she can see I’m hurting, too.

With that blade to his throat, I felt more alive than I have in weeks. I want him to hurt. To bleed. I want him to snap, just like he snapped me.

“There is nowhere you can hide. Nowhere you can go. Even if this were to stop beating,” he says, threading his hand over my rioting heart, “I’d follow.”

On an island of the most precious stone in all five seas, I’d leave with empty hands if I could have her.

“Don’t leave me,” I whisper. Please … I don’t like being by myself. I don’t want to die alone.

Cainon chuckles. “Looks like she doesn’t care what you think, Rhordyn. She’s too smart these days.” “She’s always been smart,” Rhordyn mutters, holding my stare, a spark in his darkening eyes like a single surviving star.

There’s a challenge in my voice because I want him to yield. I want him to bend so much he fucking snaps.

I’ve realized he likes gifting me precious, well-thought-out things. It’s his own illusive way of showing he cares. So does he see the symbolism I’m shoving in his face? This is a personalized attack meant to hurt us both. Meant to bleed this twisted thing that is us. I look at Cainon with love-glazed eyes and bare him a honeysuckle smile while I let the hurt douse me. Let my message blare loud and clear. I don’t need my crutch anymore.

I’m fine. If I repeat it enough, I’ll eventually believe it.

His scent hits. A blow to my brain, my heart. My fucking soul.

“You want me to hurt?” Yes. I want to lash myself against him until I’m bruised and bent and broken. Until I can no longer hear their burning screams. I want to hurt him so much I don’t even recognize myself.

Perhaps he’s my penance for the monster I am inside—a hollow love that churns and burns and destroys. Just like me.

“Then Rhordyn put a sword in my hand and told me to break something else so I’d stop breaking myself. So my insides could have a chance to heal.”

He was—in some fucked-up way—my family. But he was also a monster.

Ignoring the offer, I turn and stare out the mouth of the alley. In her direction. I have everything I ever wanted, and you’re ruining it.

I drop my gaze, heavy with the knowledge that I’m not on my feet at all—that I’m floating in an angry ocean, powerless to the push of the storm that won’t stop lashing at me. That I drowned that day in Puddles, and every breath I’ve pulled since has failed to drag me back to the world of the living. That every day I fail to pull myself out of The Bowl, my heart and soul decompose just a little bit more.

“You don’t trust me …” “I don’t trust many people,” I admit. “Certainly not people I just met.” She nods, glancing at my arm again. “I value the honesty. Especially in a world where lies are used as currency.”