He opened his mouth to snap back at her, to tell her why he didn't come in person: because he was afraid, because he wasn't ready, because he didn't know how to apologize, but instead it was she who apologized, and it stole the air from his lungs as effectively as a punch to his gut. He seemed to deflate, losing inches as his shoulders curved forward and he was forced to swallow past the lump in his throat. Shame and anger twisted there, black and pulsing in time with his heartbeat, a pounding wardrum in his ears that hissed and coaxed and lashed him to snarl and flash his fangs back at her, apology be damned.
He tried to ignore it. He tried to speak past it, to hold it down and find the words that he had come to say in the first place, before they'd scattered like grain in the wind. Part of his heart ached for the pain he'd caused her, longed to reach out and beg for her forgiveness, but he was held rooted to the spot by the tar that dripped through his veins and tinged even his most heartfelt words with an edge of wounded rage.
He heard the naked pain in her voice and it broke something in him, defenses crumbling against her cry, her desperate desire to fix what he had broken. But the defenses that held his pride in check also held back the black tide, and he rose to his feet between one moment and the next, striking out with his shaking arm to knock the kettle away from between them, heedless of the burning metal against his too-cold skin or the near-boiling water that sprayed across the floor. "Because I failed you!" The words were half-wail, half-roar, fangs elongating and claws sprouting black and sharp upon his fingers "I did what I promised you I wouldn't do. I quit that thrice-damned kingship! I stopped trying. How could I face you after that?" He stood there, wild-eyed and trembling, clawed fingers shaking as he flexed them into fists, pricking eight needle points through the skin of his palms and relishing the pain as he was forced to confront the truth.
Amalia had only ever been a scapegoat for his anger, a convenient excuse. It had been himself that he'd been most afraid and resentful at all along.
It always was.
He tried to ignore it. He tried to speak past it, to hold it down and find the words that he had come to say in the first place, before they'd scattered like grain in the wind. Part of his heart ached for the pain he'd caused her, longed to reach out and beg for her forgiveness, but he was held rooted to the spot by the tar that dripped through his veins and tinged even his most heartfelt words with an edge of wounded rage.
He heard the naked pain in her voice and it broke something in him, defenses crumbling against her cry, her desperate desire to fix what he had broken. But the defenses that held his pride in check also held back the black tide, and he rose to his feet between one moment and the next, striking out with his shaking arm to knock the kettle away from between them, heedless of the burning metal against his too-cold skin or the near-boiling water that sprayed across the floor. "Because I failed you!" The words were half-wail, half-roar, fangs elongating and claws sprouting black and sharp upon his fingers "I did what I promised you I wouldn't do. I quit that thrice-damned kingship! I stopped trying. How could I face you after that?" He stood there, wild-eyed and trembling, clawed fingers shaking as he flexed them into fists, pricking eight needle points through the skin of his palms and relishing the pain as he was forced to confront the truth.
Amalia had only ever been a scapegoat for his anger, a convenient excuse. It had been himself that he'd been most afraid and resentful at all along.
It always was.
