“We both know how to exploit the bond, find the loopholes. It was a terrible thing for him to do, sucker punching me that night, because he did so knowing the only intent I could have used to strike him would be an unworthy one: retaliation. I won’t defend what he did.” He inhales, drawing himself up. “But I also can’t defend that I was intentionally cruel. The morning after the first Oath, he came to me. Said he’d felt my desire to kill you and begged me to leave you alone, because of what it did to him”—he taps his chest—“here. He said it felt wrong, wanting to hurt you.

“So, I knew that what I sent through the bond would poison the part of him that was beginning to love you. Knew that if I failed, he’d have to live with the memory of wishing his girlfriend dead. Not just the memory, but the feeling of wanting to kill you himself, with his bare hands. Murderous intent like that is one of the worst feelings in the world. Haunting. Destructive. And for someone like Nick… it would tear him apart in a way he’d never forget and never heal from. And I did not care. I believed I was right, all in the name of duty.”

There are no words to assuage Sel’s guilt or accept his confession. I’m not the one to do either, even if there were. Cruelty and harm can be felt secondhand, but reconciliation cannot be offered by a third party. And I can tell by the desolate look on his face that he wouldn’t want to hear any words of acceptance anyway.

“That’s what you meant when you said that you could never make it up to Nick?”

“If I am honest with myself… I abused our Oath because it didn’t seem fair that he was happy when I wasn’t.” A pause. “And because I could.”

I remember thinking that night had changed the way Nick saw Sel; after we’d come back to the Lodge, the anger toward his Kingsmage had sharpened to an unforgiving point.

Now I realize that only Nick and Sel understood what truly happened between them. The abuse on both sides. Part of me wants to be upset with Nick for not sharing the full story with me… but how do you explain to someone else a cruelty specifically crafted to hurt you? There aren’t enough words to capture customized malice, and the ache of trying to find those words sometimes does just as much damage.

“Is that night why you think you’d already begun to succumb to your blood?” I ask.