Tempered by the Will

20 - Amends

 "So, are you hurt?"

"Why? What are you going to do about it if I am?"

Vica tamped down on the urge to toss back a blistering retort. This was supposed to be a tame conversation, after all, and she had to admit Constantine had done his part in keeping the peace between them the last couple of weeks. He had avoided her as much as she wanted him to, staying out of sight and keeping to his private corners whenever she wandered around the manor for whatever reason.

Things would never go back to the way they were though, and they never should. Learning that lesson had cost her, but at least now she was walking forward with her eyes wide open. Yes, she was still keeping the company of two men who had hurt her irreversibly in many ways, but Felix was a necessary ally and Constantine...Constantine wanted to help. She wasn't in a position to deny that help, either.

But it didn't change who he was and what he had done. She wouldn't pretend to know and understand exactly what kind of man he was, but she didn't owe it to him to try all that hard. At his hands, she had been kidnapped, degraded, humiliated, and after he'd seduced her, he had proceeded to humiliate her yet again. She owed him nothing. The games he played, the tricks, the manipulations - there was still a faint bitterness inside her that wished she could forget all of it and forgive him for everything he had done, but she owed it to herself to remember.

She was not interested in making up: being civil was enough for her.

"Felix says there's an elf healer coming by for you later," she said after untwisting her tongue. "You don't look like you're dying, so just wait it out until she gets here."

"I wasn't intending on going anywhere."

"Alright." She turned to back out of the doorway again and leave the small lounge, but Constantine's voice stopped her in her tracks:

"You shouldn't have shown yourself."

She nodded. No point in arguing even if she disagreed. She didn't want to draw this conversation out any longer than it already was -

"Why did you?"

- but it looked like that was exactly what he intended to do. She hovered in the doorway, wondering if she could just close the door and leave. But he was sitting back on a plush, cushioned sofa against the opposite wall, looking so out of place against the elegant furnishings of the room, and she almost felt sorry for him. He was still a son of a b***h, but he was also the son of a b***h who had tried to fight off chimeras and a small horde of mages not too long ago.

He was trying to help. It didn't erase anything he'd done before, but he was trying.

"Because I thought they were going to kill everyone," she replied. "We heard loud noises."

"Wasn't for me, then?" With a crooked smile, he brought his arms back and draped them along the back of the sofa on either side of himself. "I'm disappointed."

"...Alright."

"Still angry?"

"Still not sorry?"

His smile faded. "I'm not good at making amends and grand gestures, Vica. But when the opportunity comes -"

"I know you aren't," she interrupted. "But that's your problem, not mine. If you really were sorry, you wouldn't think for a second that I owe it to you to forgive you."

"I don't think that."

"Still angry?" she mimicked. "What am I, a child? Are you really going to patronize me like that?"

"Just testing the waters."

"And how are they?"

"Frosty." He settled back further into the sofa. "Come here and let me look at you."

"Excuse you?"

He beckoned her over with a twitch of his fingers against the sofa. "I just want to look at you. You're not doing too hot after pushing yourself like that, are you? You're getting stronger though. You wouldn't have been able to use any magic at all from that distance when we first met."

She narrowed her eyes and stayed where she was. Coming here to check on him was one thing - she owed him that after what he had done. But no more.

"Come on," he urged. "I'm not going to bite. It's not easy to patch things up when I'm being shut out."

"Are you blaming me?"

"No. I'm asking you to throw down a rope so I can climb it, well aware that you're not obligated to. But I'm gambling on the chance that you do actually want me to fix what I've f****d up."

She paused. That was too well spoken. He was a glib bastard, but that just sounded - practiced. While on one hand she wanted to rail at him for giving her a schemed line instead of speaking genuinely, she had to acknowledge that if he really had prepared for this conversation beforehand, that meant at least that he had given it some thought in the first place.

To bend, or not to bend? It infuriated her that he dared to guess that she wanted him to redeem himself after all, but - it wasn't untrue. That was what she hated most, her pathetic inability to hate him as much as she should. He was still Constantine, the man who had kidnapped her, threatened to kill everyone around her just to keep her in line. The man who had forced himself on her and toed the line of r****g her outright - these were all things that had happened, and they would never go away.

Thanks to him, she knew what it was like to be terrified and enraged and despairing all at once, what it felt like to be powerless, helpless, pathetic. He had done things to her that most would and should never forgive. If she overlooked it all, what next? Would they pick up where they left off, pretending to make love until she did something that made him angry again? Would he treat her tenderly until she disobeyed him, until she dared to make her own choices again instead of continuing to be his subservient little pocket w***e?

It was a slippery slope. He had already proven what kind of man he was; letting history repeat itself made her the i***t. Giving him this chance to try to worm back into her good graces meant she was giving him another chance to humiliate her once more.

No. Not now, if ever. She was still angry - and still hurt. He had tread on her twice now, and there wouldn't be a third.

"Vica -"

"If you're sincere," she cut in before he could launch into whatever else he had prepared to say. "Then you won't push me. That's all."

"But if I don't knock, you won't let me in."

"There's a difference between knocking on the door when you're welcome and banging away on it when you're not," she retorted. "You think I'm throwing a tantrum and that I'll just get over it, and I have no idea whether you're actually sorry or just trying to make this pass as quickly as you can. Should I stand here and make you list every single thing you've done to hurt me from the moment we met, every single thing that I overlooked until now? Should I do that? Maybe we'll be back to the way things were, after."

That shut him up. His jaw tightened, and he stared at her from the sofa, motionless.

"...I guess not. If you need anything from Felix, he's staying with us until the morning, but he thinks some Lady Murena is behind everything and will send more people tonight. The elf healer will be here before then for you." She turned away again. This was already too tiring. Hadn't she put up with enough?

"You need to be careful with Bren," he said suddenly, and her hand lingered on the doorknob. "You shouldn't trust him so easily."

She didn't bother looking back at him, but she did pause long enough to give him her response:

"Of course I don't. Not unconditionally. But between you and Bren, only one of you put his hands on me, and only one of you -" Should she say it? That Constantine had hurt her more humiliatingly, more deeply than she would ever let anyone hurt her again? But she didn't need to. He already understood what he'd done; his problem was that he didn't understand why it mattered so much.

Pointless. She didn't even finish what she was saying; there was no point. She stepped out of the room and closed the door behind her before turning down the hallway - only to find Bren standing a short distance away.

Her pulse quickened. "Oh. Uh...how long have you been there?"

"A little while."

"So - you heard...?"

"Yes," he answered. "But that was the point, I think. Constantine would have known I was nearby. His warning was just as much for me as it was for you; if I had not heard it, he would have thought it a waste."

Her cheeks colored. That damned -

"It's alright," Bren added, graceful as always even in the most awkward of predicaments. She envied it. "I was only here to consult with him about a few things."

"W - with Constantine? Consulting?"

"Duke Aventine is very busy. I'd rather wait to disturb him until later. In the meantime, Constantine is likely as familiar with the general political climate as he is, at least until fairly recently. It would be good to discuss some of these things with him."

That - was probably a terrible idea. Didn't he know Constantine hated him? That could easily end in a throttled half-elf lying dead on the ground.

"It'll be alright, Vica. You should go on; it'll be less burdensome for him to speak with me if you're not close by."

With a reluctant nod, she allowed Bren to pass her by.