Chương 42: I Needed to be Honest

I stood facing Evelisse in the middle of the clearing. I glanced behind me; Nyx and Luke were already gone. Either they walked fast, or Nyx had taken flight with Luke tucked under one arm the second my back was turned. For a while neither of us said anything. We just looked at each other, both of us clearly wanting to speak and neither sure how to start. I opened my mouth—"Um—" we both said, at the same time. A beat.

"You first—" Again, together. Something about it dragged me back to that day at Lunessa's, the two of us tripping over the same words. It felt like quite some time ago, despite it having only been like two days. The silence stretched a few seconds more before I made myself break it.

"Evelisse, I need to tell you something. A lot of things, actually. Just now, Greg, the bald guy, he—""It's all right, Milo." She held up a hand.

"He told me not to question any of it, and considering he was the one who saved you, or rather, saved us, I won't question things." I had no idea what Greg or Nyx had said to her, but I was grateful she wasn't pushing. I wouldn't have known how to explain the Afterport without unraveling the whole thing anyway.

"Okay, sure. Then that just leaves my side of it." I swallowed.

"Um. I—""Milo." I looked at her. Her expression had gone still and serious, her jaw set, but there was something underneath it; behind her eyes, in the slight tension around her mouth, that felt like…something; something that wanted, and braced, and was afraid of, all at once.

"Please," she said.

"Be honest with me." The moment she said it, I knew there was no version of this where I held anything back. Everything she was allowed to know, she'd earned it. She'd put her life on the line for me. She had walked away from the Church, from everything she believed, to stand in the dirt beside me. Frankly, she reserved the right to beat me to a pulp, especially after I had razed her town. Not on purpose, technically, but that didn't matter.

"Okay," I said.

"I'll be honest." So I told her, in order, starting with the Eye of Love. That it was one of the artifacts I'd had when I arrived. That I had, in fact, meant to use it on her. The words landed. I watched something flicker across her face, her eyes widening a fraction, her brow drawing tight, her lips parting like she wanted to say something and thought better of it. It was a brief yet heartbreaking sight for me. But I made myself go on.

I told her the reason behind it; that I had wanted her not to kill me, that I had been scrambling for any way to talk things out, to find some arrangement, the whole Fear Consultant idea. A way to survive in this world without having to take a single life. She listened without interrupting, her attention fixed on me, and I was grateful for even that much.

"I know that's not a good enough reason," I said.

"There is no good enough reason to try to force a feeling on someone. Whatever I told myself at the time, it was selfish. It was a coward's move. I knew it was, and I tried it anyway. For that, I–I'm sorry." Evelisse was quiet. She didn't move toward me. Didn't soften the set of her shoulders, didn't reach out the way she might have on an easier night. Her arms stayed folded, her weight settled back on her heels, keeping the space between us exactly where it was.

But her eyes stayed on mine, and after a moment she let out a slow breath through her nose.

"I believe you," she said.

"That's the strange part. Standing here now, I believe that it didn't work, that you hate that you tried." Her gaze didn't waver.

"I also want to believe that these are truly my own feelings, and not a product of some love spell." Her jaw tightened again.

"But believing you isn't the same as forgiving you. I want to be clear about that, so you don't walk out of here thinking it's settled between us, because it isn't. You reached for something that was mine; my feelings, and decided you were entitled to it. That doesn't wash out because you feel bad now. It doesn't wash out because you saved me, or because I saved you." A muscle moved in her cheek.

"I'm not going to pretend everything is okay now. It isn't." I nodded. I didn't trust myself to say anything.

"And I'm not walking away from you either." The words came quieter.

"I made that choice back there, and I still stand by my words I told you back at Flola. I don't want you to die, Milo. So we're... somewhere in between. You don't get to be forgiven, and you don't get to be abandoned. You just have to sit in that with me for a while, and let it be uncomfortable, because that's where we are." She drew another breath, steadier this time.

"Is that everything?" she asked. I had so much more I wanted to say. About the idiotic ways I had gone about farming terror levels. About the guilt I still carried for Shauna, and for all the people who had died in Mistros, and my confusion over how any of it had happened. About the part of me that had wanted, stupidly, to be a Hero, to explore, to matter. About my old life, which had been nothing worth missing. And about what I actually wanted here, in this world.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road. Which, now that I thought about it, I realized I didn't have an answer to that. What did I want? Fame? Money? A girlfriend? And if it was those, didn't that make me exactly the same as that douche Ywain? I had been so busy chasing terror levels and fumbling my way through impressing girls that I had never once stopped to ask the question. I had talked big game about second chances, about not squandering a whole new world.

But what could I actually do with it? I was still the Dark Lord.

"Milo?" Evelisse's voice pulled me out of my own head.

"O-oh. Sorry. I was just... figuring out what to say next." She narrowed her eyes a little, studying me like she was trying to read what was going on behind my face. Did she think I was stalling? Curating it, picking out the version that made me look less awful, quietly filtering things out? Then she sighed. That wasn't good.

"Evelisse," I said quickly, before she could speak. I was suddenly afraid she'd decide she'd had enough and end this…whatever fragile, uncomfortable thing we were standing in. I didn't want it to end.

"There's a lot I want to tell you. But I don't think just saying it does much. They're only words."

"What are you getting at?"

"I mean, there's so much, and if I try to dump it all out now it's going to come out wrong. Messy. Like I'm making excuses."

"Milo." Her voice hardened.

"I asked you to be honest so I can figure out what I do next. If you're arranging your words to sound convincing, then what's the point of any of this?" Crap. That wasn't what I meant at all.

"No—that's not—what I'm trying to say is, I thought we could, you know, get to actually know each other. Over time. Tell each other things properly. And I was scared that if I blurt everything out right now it'll land wrong, and you'll just—you'll—" My mind went blank. What was I even trying to say? That I wanted to know her? That I didn't want her to go? Had I just—"I just... sorry. I'm bad at this." I found myself staring at a random rock by my foot.

There was a feeling spreading through my chest, sharp and cold and prickling, and my whole body had gone cold with it. It was night, or near dawn, I couldn't tell, but I was fairly sure it wasn't the wind. Then Evelisse stepped forward, closing the space between us, and took my hand, laid hers over the top of it. That was the last thing I had expected. I looked up at her on reflex. She was watching me steadily, no flinch in it, her eyes clear and certain in a way I hadn't seen from her before.

"Milo. You don't have to think so hard. I don't know what you're planning to say, and I don't know what you're not allowed to tell me, I could feel there were gaps, back there. It's fine. Tell me what you want to tell me, and I'll believe it. Just be honest with me." A small pressure of her hand.

"I won't leave." I didn't know what to do with that. I didn't know what had shifted in her, when or how, but the Evelisse in front of me wasn't the one who'd stood outside my hut a few days ago, flustered and unsure, unable to name what she wanted. This one had the look of someone who knew. Funny that I was the confused one now.

"Okay," I said.

"Do you want me to keep holding your hand?" Which was a strange thing to ask, though I'd been the one acting strange to begin with.

"Yes, I mean, no, no, it's fine, I've got it." I drew my hand back, slow. She let it go without a fuss, flexed her fingers once, and clasped both hands loosely behind her back. I took a breath. God, this felt like working up to a love confession, which it absolutely was not. Shauna came to mind first, so I started there. I told her, plainly, that I had not sent the Mantis Beast. That I had an idea who did, but I couldn't tell her yet, not until I'd checked a few things first.

"Give me some time," I said.

"And once it's clear, I'll tell you everything. I promise."

"Okay." She nodded. Then I apologized for Shauna. For Mistros. Because even if the beast hadn't been mine, I had taken Shauna in the first place. I had been the match that lit all of it. I told her I would carry that for the rest of my life, and that I accepted it. She nodded again, slower this time. And I thought, from the way her eyes dropped, that she carried some of the same weight for it. That maybe we'd both been blaming ourselves for the same thing. After that it all came out.

My confusion, that I didn't want to kill, but I still had to raise the terror level, though maybe with less pressure now, after whatever had happened with Greg. That I was terrified of screwing up again and still had no idea what I actually wanted out of any of this. I brought up Eremiah, and apologized until the words ran thin, and told her she could name whatever it took to make it right, I'd do it. I'd get on my knees in front of Lunessa if that's what she wanted.

At that, one corner of her mouth curled, just slightly. Through all of it, the whole messy flood of words, she just listened. Nodded. Took it in. And I realized I couldn't remember the last time anyone had done that for me; when someone really listened, no cutting in, no tearing me down, no rolling their eyes. It felt like it had been forever. Maybe it had never happened at all. I just... let the mess pour out, and she let me.

"And lastly," I said, "I think I—" I looked at her, and for half a second I thought about using the Affection Sight skill. Just a glance at it. Just to see how she felt about me, right now, after all of this. I didn't. Because after she'd stood here and listened and hadn't walked away, reaching into her feelings uninvited would have made me the most pathetic version of myself there was. It would have been the same violation as the charm. Her feelings were hers.

If I wanted to know them, I could earn them, out loud, like a person. So I should just say the thing I thought I wanted.

"I... um. Can we be friends?" She looked at me for a moment. Something in her face softened, the wariness easing out of it, replaced by something quieter and warmer that reached her eyes. A small smile.

"Sure," she said. I didn't have a girlfriend. Maybe I never would. But standing in a wrecked forest at the edge of dawn, having the first real friend I had ever made in either world say sure, that was already more than a guy like me had any right to ask for.