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"There are only so many mistakes," Wulf says as they leave the tower. It's neither a threat nor a warning; Astrid doesn't know what it is, except that it's something she might have said herself if their places were reversed.
"I know," she says.
Trent had already given her a familiar look when she returned down the stairs shaking her head, a brief contemptuous glance that says punishment will come when he's ready and not a second before. It's a look that promises pain – and worse, the pain of anticipation, of trying to guess how he's going to hurt her so that she can brace herself for it.
Astrid hasn't quite trained herself out of that instinct to anticipate. It would be better if she could just take it as it comes, stop imagining. But she's spent the last three hours rifling through the artifacts in the tower (this Yussa person is not going to have an enjoyable awakening, when he gets around to it) with a small, persistent part of her mind listing what Trent may do to her. Things he's done that he knows hurt her the most (her hands, her face, the crystals in her veins) and things she can imagine may hurt more. There are lines he hasn't crossed yet – but they all know that it's a matter of yet.
She purses her lips and casts Wulf a sideways glance, then shrugs. What else was she going to do? They'd already taken the risk of warning Bren today. What was one more? Especially since this one was hers alone.
Wulf nods faintly. "Find me after, if you need to," he says.
Find me after, if you need me to hurt you, he means. They're long past the time when gentleness can comfort – the only thing that helps now is a kinder sort of pain. Wulf will cut and bite and bruise, and she'll welcome it desperately. Bren's friend, the tall pink one, had said once that pain doesn't make people, that it's love that makes people. She's glad for him that he hasn't learned they can be one and the same.
It's a sacrifice that Astrid has chosen to make: to let go of the kinds of love that don't come with pain. A sacrifice for the empire, a sacrifice for herself. She has knowledge and strength and the power to shape the world to her own ends.
Power exists to be exercised, and today she has chosen to exercise it. Trent will be angry, and she is afraid. He will hurt her, no doubt. He will shame her in front of the others. He has powers far greater than her own and his punishment will be harsh. But he cannot make her let go of what she feels for Wulf and for Bren. He can taint it and rip at it but he cannot take it from her if she is unwilling. The power to have that is her own.
Astrid wonders sometimes if he knows what she and Wulf do together, if he watches them hurt each other and sees it for the rebellion it is instead of the ambition they pretend.
"I'll find you," she tells Wulf. No qualifier – she's going to need him.
He nods, mouth twisted to one side. She knows he'll take care of her – because she pushed past him on the way up the stairs and took that last risk herself, because the Raven Queen's breath lies heavy upon him and so he's always been better at the after than the before. Because he hasn't let go of how they feel for each other any more than she has.
There are only so many mistakes, he'd said. Astrid knows he's right, but choosing the love that comes with pain isn't one of them.