He does not notice that something is off about her; he is in no place to notice anything deranged about anyone when he was so clearly falling down the proverbial rabbit hole. Mania races through his veins, and it controls his thoughts, and he does not notice anything except the fact that she smells like metal and she does not push him away when he leans into her. In fact, she pushes back. For a second, just a single one, he remembers how he had collided with Oksana in much the same way. He remembers how he had devoured her because of how she had smelled like the Chamber—like the father that he had thought dead. He had been wrong, of course. His father was living again.
One of the many wasted hours of anguish in his life.
His mind snaps back to Shaytan from the memory, just in time for her to tell him of the tree, and that is when it clicks—that is when he smells the Chamber on her coat. His eyes narrow, his mouth pulling tight, and he leans back from her. “You are from the Chamber,” his voice is flat now, the emotion bleeding from it, and it is not a question. He would recognize that scent of pine on anyone. He curses at himself for not recognizing it from the first second he had crashed into her. He curses himself for being drawn to it.
“I will never go back there,” he growls, but of course, he knows that is a lie. Eventually, he would have to return to it if he wanted to live. Otherwise, the kingdom would bleed his life from him. She controlled the strings to his life and the second that he assumed he was safe, was the second she’d snip them completely. He may want death, but he was not ready for it again—not yet. He was not ready to concede to her.
MAKAI
I'm a dead man walking here
but that's the least of all my fears