conclusion at some point. Probably a hell of a lot sooner than I did by being with Devin.”
She chuckled ruefully and took another drink. I didn’t remember my reasoning as being anything like that clear-cut, but I wasn’t going to argue with her, I’d done that more than enough when we were together.
“Once I understood why you left me when you did, I fell out of hate with you. Devin noticed and it didn’t sit at all well. We started to fight, a lot. More than you and I did even. And whenever we fought, there you were being sympathetic and trying to help out your friends. It reminded me of why I’d loved you in the first place. Though I was smart enough not to fall
in love
with you a second time, I ended up loving you all over again. That was absolute death to my relationship with Devin.”
Devin had the chance to kill me when I’d encountered him last, more than once. He hadn’t done it. Part of that was clearly self-interest—I was potentially valuable to him in his new enterprise. But there was more to it than that. Even if Jax was right and Devin
had
hated me for years, I think he still loved me, too. We’d been best friends for almost fifteen years before I killed Ashvik and I never had reason for a moment’s doubt of our friendship in all that time. It wasn’t until I became the Kingslayer that I first started to notice a distance growing between us.
No. It wasn’t as simple as Devin hating me for what I had become. But again, I didn’t want to argue with Jax. Hell, that was the main reason I’d left Jax a month before we were to be married—I didn’t want to argue with Jax ever again. Nine years on, and the whole not-arguing-with-Jax thing
still
felt good.
“Damn.” Jax sloshed the whiskey in her bottle. “This stuff is brutal. Here, it’s all yours.” I felt the bottle pressed against my thigh. “I need to take a little nap.”
Jax let go and the bottle tipped, but if anything spilled out I couldn’t tell in the dark and the damp of the smuggler’s compartment—even with the tight seals around the hatch and between the planks there was no avoiding the wet salt air. By the time I’d picked Jax’s whiskey up and wedged it upright between a couple of bolts of cloth, she was snoring. Sleep sounded like a good idea, so I closed my eyes and was gone.
The next time I opened them my head felt like someone had bent a hot iron poker around my skull at eyeball height. I started groping toward the bottle.
“There’s a good idea,” said Triss in his normal sharp, morning-after voice.
Apparently, I’d used up all of my drinking grace with Triss—not that I blamed him. Mostly, these days, I managed to keep the whiskey from dominating my life the way it had a few years ago, but I was a drunk. The murder of my goddess had broken something in me, something that nothing and no one would ever be able to fix. I had a hole in my soul where my faith had once lived.
Sometimes, on a good night, if I poured enough whiskey into that hole, it felt liked I’d filled it up. Like maybe I’d finally stopped losing bits of me down that hole. But it never lasted. I’d go to sleep and the booze would drain away, leaving things exactly the way they were before I started drinking. That’s because there was no bottom to the hole, and all the whiskey ever did was hide that fact for a while. The next morning always came along and shoved the truth in my face so hard it hurt.
Even knowing that, I found myself grabbing Jax’s bottle and drinking off a good solid inch of the whiskey before setting it aside. It didn’t do a damn thing for my hangover.
“It’s a terrible idea, Triss. Nine kinds of stupid and more, but today I needed it, and that’s all I’m having.” That’s when I realized we weren’t moving. Not at all, and we were sitting at a funny angle. “What happened to the boat?”
“We’re aground somewhere east and north of Tien.”
“What! When did that happen?”
“A couple of hours
She chuckled ruefully and took another drink. I didn’t remember my reasoning as being anything like that clear-cut, but I wasn’t going to argue with her, I’d done that more than enough when we were together.
“Once I understood why you left me when you did, I fell out of hate with you. Devin noticed and it didn’t sit at all well. We started to fight, a lot. More than you and I did even. And whenever we fought, there you were being sympathetic and trying to help out your friends. It reminded me of why I’d loved you in the first place. Though I was smart enough not to fall
in love
with you a second time, I ended up loving you all over again. That was absolute death to my relationship with Devin.”
Devin had the chance to kill me when I’d encountered him last, more than once. He hadn’t done it. Part of that was clearly self-interest—I was potentially valuable to him in his new enterprise. But there was more to it than that. Even if Jax was right and Devin
had
hated me for years, I think he still loved me, too. We’d been best friends for almost fifteen years before I killed Ashvik and I never had reason for a moment’s doubt of our friendship in all that time. It wasn’t until I became the Kingslayer that I first started to notice a distance growing between us.
No. It wasn’t as simple as Devin hating me for what I had become. But again, I didn’t want to argue with Jax. Hell, that was the main reason I’d left Jax a month before we were to be married—I didn’t want to argue with Jax ever again. Nine years on, and the whole not-arguing-with-Jax thing
still
felt good.
“Damn.” Jax sloshed the whiskey in her bottle. “This stuff is brutal. Here, it’s all yours.” I felt the bottle pressed against my thigh. “I need to take a little nap.”
Jax let go and the bottle tipped, but if anything spilled out I couldn’t tell in the dark and the damp of the smuggler’s compartment—even with the tight seals around the hatch and between the planks there was no avoiding the wet salt air. By the time I’d picked Jax’s whiskey up and wedged it upright between a couple of bolts of cloth, she was snoring. Sleep sounded like a good idea, so I closed my eyes and was gone.
The next time I opened them my head felt like someone had bent a hot iron poker around my skull at eyeball height. I started groping toward the bottle.
“There’s a good idea,” said Triss in his normal sharp, morning-after voice.
Apparently, I’d used up all of my drinking grace with Triss—not that I blamed him. Mostly, these days, I managed to keep the whiskey from dominating my life the way it had a few years ago, but I was a drunk. The murder of my goddess had broken something in me, something that nothing and no one would ever be able to fix. I had a hole in my soul where my faith had once lived.
Sometimes, on a good night, if I poured enough whiskey into that hole, it felt liked I’d filled it up. Like maybe I’d finally stopped losing bits of me down that hole. But it never lasted. I’d go to sleep and the booze would drain away, leaving things exactly the way they were before I started drinking. That’s because there was no bottom to the hole, and all the whiskey ever did was hide that fact for a while. The next morning always came along and shoved the truth in my face so hard it hurt.
Even knowing that, I found myself grabbing Jax’s bottle and drinking off a good solid inch of the whiskey before setting it aside. It didn’t do a damn thing for my hangover.
“It’s a terrible idea, Triss. Nine kinds of stupid and more, but today I needed it, and that’s all I’m having.” That’s when I realized we weren’t moving. Not at all, and we were sitting at a funny angle. “What happened to the boat?”
“We’re aground somewhere east and north of Tien.”
“What! When did that happen?”
“A couple of hours
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