The cottage was too small for a brawl between a Dragon Prince and his Parthan General.
But Rudra, as usual, cared about nothing except whatever he was focused on at the moment. This time, it was teaching Nayan Dev a lesson.
The two Kroskoslav women had taken shelter on the bed. Tish, for her part, had shrunk against the back wall beside the wardrobe.
"Stop it! Both of you!" she cried, trying to scold them both. "We have serious problems!"
Nayan made a choking sound, her throat pinned under Rudra's arm.
"You little bitch," Rudra grunted. He had one knee on Nayan's chest, his free hand under one of her legs, holding it up and effectively disabling her. "You thought I wouldn't hurt you because I want to keep you alive? I can break your bones and still carry you all the way to Amber Grove. On a stretcher!"
"Rudra, stop!" Tish shouted. "Just because you feel embarrassed or frustrated doesn't mean you can physically assault your General!"
Rudra didn't say anything. He just pressed down on Nayan further. Nayan started tapping on his shoulder in the universal gesture of surrender.
"I still hate you!" The words shot out of her mouth, and Rudra froze. "I still hate the fact that you made me jump from such a height, even if it meant you may only have been concerned!" Tish kept talking. "I still hate the fact that you forced me to eat every day, even though I can understand you were probably trying not to let me starve! I don't know why you even needed me as a poison taster when you don't get sick from poison!" She paused, remembering the incident at the low bank of Benevia. "Aside from one exception, maybe!"
Those words were less a confession to him than to herself.
"I wish that instead of forcing me and scaring me, you would have just been nice enough to explain to me what was happening with the shapeshifters... and Saya and... everything," her voice shook. She swallowed, but the pain stayed lodged in her throat like a stubborn thorn.
Nayan was watching. The two strangers were watching. Tish's ears burned.
"When I came to Partha, I just wished to be..." To be what? What had she expected? Perhaps something from the moment she had looked out of the window and seen him riding past on his horse, or found him sitting quietly in the garden where they were supposed to meet.
Tish didn't dare think what she had wished. It terrified her. It made her hate herself more than she hated Rudra.
"I wished we were on good terms, at least," she settled for something careful, something safer. "But you... you immediately marked me as an enemy just because I am a healer!"
Rudra didn't say anything. He just absorbed her words. Nayan, for her part, seemed to have forgotten that her windpipe was being blocked, as if that were possible. And it only made Tish want to say more, to hurt him more, now that there was an audience, no matter how small or strange.
But she also knew it would never be enough. Because the most painful thing Rudra had done to her wasn't imprisoning her in his quarters, forcing her to eat, stripping her very self away until she was nothing more than Rudra's pet. It wasn't even killing Saya in front of her.
It was the words he had spoken about her as she was leaving. Those were the ones that had hurt her most.
*"That dirty bitch won't even be a good fuck. Why the hell should I keep her around."*
Those words. Those damn words had killed something inside her she hadn't even known existed. It was as though he couldn't be kind even in parting, as though he'd had to be cruel to the very end, to make sure that Tish, who could heal anything, could never heal herself of the trauma he had inflicted upon her.
But that wasn't even the worst part.
The worst part was that she couldn't voice it. Even now, when he was just standing there, finally listening (and he had been listening to her an awful lot since he had come to Benevia), she...
She just couldn't.
He might have moved on. Become someone, if not decent, then perhaps slightly better. While she was stuck being scared and hating a version of him that seemed to fade away little by little every day.
And all of it felt unfair.
Tish was not looking at Rudra's face anymore. She was looking at her own boots. And she found drops of water on them.
No, no, no...
Tish turned around and made a desperate escape towards the door. She refused to cry in front of Rudra, of all people.
Behind her came a shuffling noise on the straw and wool, then Nayan taking a relieved gasp.
He followed her almost immediately.
"Tish..."
She could hear him calling after her. She didn't turn around. She shoved open the door and stepped out into the pale daylight. It was barely past noon, but the warmth of the day was already starting to vanish.
Why was he doing this? Why was he pretending he cared when Tish knew, she *knew*, he had never cared and never would?
What would happen to her grief and rage if Rudra suddenly decided to be nice? Where would she put them then?
"...Just turn around for once!"
There he was, closing in, invading her personal space, grabbing her as he pleased. Rudra's fingers closed around Tish's wrist and yanked her to a halt. It was the hand that had been bitten only a couple of hours ago. The wound had closed and the fingers had grown back, but Tish flinched violently. Of course he had grabbed the one hand that would affect her most.
"Stop manhandling me!" Tish snapped. She tried to be sharp, but it was hard to manage with a trembling voice and a nose full of water. "Why do you keep touching me without permission? Can't you see I'm disgusted by you!"
Those words might not have been true, but they were enough to make Rudra step back. He let go of her. "Fine, fine!" he conceded. "As long as you don't run from me, I won't chase you. I won't touch you."
Tish finally looked up. Rudra was bending, his shoulders slumped to lower his height so that he was at eye level with her. "Don't cry," he said, absolutely horrible at consoling. "Crying makes you look uglier."
The flame of rage returned, weak but welcome. Because it was familiar, and it didn't make Tish feel pathetic.
But she wasn't ready for apologies. She wasn't ready for him to make amends. So she steered the conversation away from the volatile subject of their relationship and toward something less personal but of far more importance.
"Your father," she said. "Did you know he wanted to marry Saintess Anastasia?" She pressed further. "Was that why I was brought to Partha? For some... stupid thing like the Sacred bloodline?"
"I don't—"
"Stop lying," Tish cut in promptly. "You heard everything, and you probably know more than I do, so stop hiding things. Stop lying." A beat. "Please."
Rudra straightened up. "I didn't know about Saintess Anastasia. But you were definitely not brought to Partha for my father. He is married... I mean, was married to my mother, but he is loyal to her."
"How are you so sure?" Tish countered.
"Because he loved my mother," Rudra said. "And that is why my mother is dead."
It didn't make any sense. "You're lying again!" Tish hissed.
"There is a saying about the Azhdar bloodline," Rudra said. "If a dragon finds love, then the dragon dies or dies the love. That is the fate of our bloodline. There is nothing sacred about it. There is only a curse."