Chapter 21 Hills to Die On #2
He stands there, understanding and holding my hand. Hands that—in a few moments from now—will feed him poison and be forced to heal him.
“You know it’s not your fault, right?”
I pull my hand away, and my fingers suddenly feel cold without his touch. “I don’t see the relevance.”
“You said you tried to save her but couldn’t.” Azaire’s voice drops even lower, as though he’s treading carefully through my pain. “I’m asking, do you think that it was your fault?”
I open my mouth, expecting words to come out. All that escapes me is a small gasp. I stare at him, confused, because he feels as if he is speaking of fact and not fiction. As if he knows.
But he wasn’t there when Ma died. He wasn’t a stubborn fourteen-year-old who thought he could fight. His mother didn’t take the blow that ended her life to save him.
Then, Azaire adds, “It’s normal to have survivor’s guilt—”
“I don’t have survivor’s guilt,” I spit, the words sharper than I mean them to be. “I just have guilt.”
Once the words have left my mouth, I catch my breath. The truth of it lingers, worse so the intention.
I didn’t mean for the words to come out so harshly.
I didn’t mean for them to come out at all.
But Azaire doesn’t back away from my sting. Instead, he whispers, “I know what it’s like—”
“How could you possibly know what it’s like for me?” I cut him off, the words burning more than just my tongue. They burn Azaire, too. Because I know what it’s like for him—I know what it’s like for everybody.
But nobody knows what it’s like for me.
Quickly, Azaire grabs my hand, pulling me aside from the group—some of whom are staring back at us. All of whom are judging.
From the back of the line, Ms. Ferner meets my gaze, a dangerous glint in hers.
“I don’t need a lesson in grief.” My free fingers absently twirl the stem of the violet as I stare at my retreating classmates.
Azaire’s voice is quiet, steady, wholly consoling. “I’m not giving you one.”
“Fair.” I don’t look at him. Unprepared to feel the fullness of him.
But I have no choice when his next words slip past his lips and into my ears.
“I killed my parents.”
At first, everything inside me stops. I want to step back, to put distance between us, to run from the weight of those words. My body tenses, every instinct screaming at me to retreat.
But there it is—the childhood home burning and the match in my hand. In his hand.
I don’t step back. I can’t. I know Azaire well enough to know there’s more. A reason he’s telling me this.
I ask the same question he asked me. “How?”
All Azaire does is point at his beanie.
I take a deep breath.
His snakes—that I can see—killed his parents.
“They grew fast,” he mutters. It takes me by surprise, how willing he is to share this story.
“Out of nowhere, really. Um… One day, during the Neptharian War, my mom, she came to check on me and turned to stone. I screamed.” He shrugs.
“I shouldn’t have. Dad came in.” He breathes. “Then he died, too.”
“Oh my gods.” A chill runs over my skin. “How did you—how old were you?”
“I barely survived.” He answers the question I was too scared to ask.
“I was six. I was alone an entire day before the soldiers—the Folk—came rushing in.
They looked at me, and they all died, too.
After that I wrote a note on the door. It said, ‘Hungry. I keep turning them to stone, but I need food.’ Those words never left my mind.
I think they were the first I ever wrote…
But the next group of soldiers thought it was a joke, and they came in with swords ready.
The next time… I left the note on the stone bodies.
“The soldiers threw me a rag to wrap around my head. I’d nearly starved to death by that point, I think my body started consuming itself to survive. I don’t even remember how I wrapped the rag.
“The soldiers carried me out, brought me to Ilyria first, I think. They decided that my power was too dangerous to be left in the wild. They brought me to Visnatus.”
I shake my head, but he continues.
“Everyone has their shit, Wendy. But things like this… they’re not our fault. I didn’t know my snakes would kill; you didn’t know a pernipe was coming.”
Saying anything in the wake of his tragedy feels wrong. Despite wanting to argue against him—that maybe I didn’t know the pernipe was coming, but I should have stopped it—I take his hand, and I put the violet inside of it.
Azaire shakes his head. “It’s for you.”
“I want you to have it.” I close his hand around the flower. “I want you to have a piece of the kindness you offer me.”
Azaire pauses, his eyes lingering on the flower, then meeting mine. “It isn’t kindness.” His eyes soften, his breath catching for a moment. “It’s love.”
“Wendy!” my classmate calls.
I clear my throat, trying to look into Azaire’s eyes for as long as I can before I glance up. The girl holds a white flower between her fingers. The hemlock I avoided earlier. One of the deadliest plants in the woods. “I have extra for you.”
The worst part is that she thinks she’s helping.
I try to speak, but all I do is stutter. “Um…” I clear my throat. “Can you hold it, for a moment? It’s hard to clean the hemlock residue from my gloves.” I hold up my hands with a shrug.
She nods, walking back toward the group of students.
Azaire and I follow, and the moment I step between the people sitting on the ground, their judgements fill me. They’ve already made assumptions about Azaire and me, and there’s more than a touch of contempt.
My classmate hands the hemlock to Azaire—hands the abuse to the victim—and thinks nothing of it. He smiles at her, as if she’s done him a favor.
She thinks she has.
I sit with Azaire, unbuttoning my gloves. My hands shake with fear. I didn’t want it to come to this. I don’t want to feed the boy I love poison.
As I peel the gloves from my hands, my breath shudders.
“Hey.” Azaire wraps both of his hands over mine. “Eyes on me, remember?”
I look away from our hands, at him.
“That’s good,” he says.
I take a deep breath, nodding, and he releases my hands. I’m still shaking as Azaire drops the hemlock in the mortar. I raise the pestle, crushing the plant and mixing it with water.
Gently, I hold my hand under Azaire’s chin and let the poison drip down his throat.
?
As we walk back to academy, Azaire healed—but perhaps not healthy—and next to me, Ms. Ferner steps beside me.
“We need to talk,” she says ominously.
I glance at her, slowing down my pace to meet hers, but she continues to look ahead. I glance at my feet, keeping my head down with every step.
She doesn’t leave my side.
There are many things Ms. Ferner might want to say to me. We used to see each other every day, but now there’s a distance between us. A gap where familiarity used to live.
Ms. Ferner has nearly slowed to a complete stop, and Azaire meets my gaze. I nod, gesturing toward the academy, and he walks with the rest of the class. They all quickly disappear between the walls.
Neither of us says a thing for a while. We walk at a snail’s pace to the building, until Ms. Ferner tries to fill the gap between us.
“You were quick today,” she says.
I was.
I healed Azaire before the poison even made him puke—far more than any of my classmates can say.
It’s hardly a compliment, but that’s how Ms. Ferner gives them.
“Thanks.”
Her tone turns sharp. “I saw him touch you.”
I take a breath, my torso stiffening. That’s what this is about, and she clearly doesn’t want to waste time.
“How?” Ms. Ferner asks.
I shake my head, the truth catching in my throat. There’s no point in lying. She’d recognize it immediately. “I don’t know.”
Ms. Ferner glances over her shoulder, her eyes narrowing with suspicion. “Did you do something to him?”
“Do something to him?” I repeat her question with incredulity. “Wh-what could I possibly do to be able to touch him?”
The question stirs through my mind. What did I do to him. Can I not have this one thing? This one relief from my life? Do I have to be controlling or manipulating because of my magic?
Can I not touch a person and be touched in return?
“I don’t know,” Ms. Ferner says sternly. “That’s why I’m asking you.”
My voice is more broken than I intend as I say, “I did nothing to him.”
Ms. Ferner stares at me, silent. My panic picks up, my breathing following closely behind. I’m staring at the academy, so close and somehow still too far, as she says, “I have to alert the academy.”
I stop in my tracks, turning in her direction.
Tell the academy? She must know what that will mean for Azaire—what they’ll do to him.
“Don’t,” I whisper. “Please, don’t.”
“Ms. Estridon—”
“He’s already one of their guineapigs. You know that. You’ll only make it worse.”
Ms. Ferner doesn’t answer me; she only stares. I take a step closer, not sure what I’m going to do but knowing I need to be prepared.
“We’ve spent a lot of time together,” I remind her. “On some level, you care for me. I feel it. And I care for him. You can’t—” My breath shakes. “Please don’t do this to him.”
For a moment, Ms. Ferner looks truly saddened, but I can feel, deep down, that my words haven’t changed her mind.
I take another step closer.
“You have unusual powers, Wendy,” she reprimands. “The best way to make strides forward is to study them.”
I meet her gaze, one final time, one last bout of begging. “Please.”
Her face remains stiff. Her mind unchanged.
My hands find her shoulders before I realize I’ve moved. It’s when my nails dig into her skin, pulling blood and keeping her in place, that I know my intentions.
“You want to stand still.”
Her eyes glaze over, as if for a moment, she’s gone entirely blind.
She freezes, still as a statue.
There’s only one thing I can think to command. One set of words that will keep Azaire safe—no matter how much they hurt, no matter the cost. She was my mentor, my only guide for so long. The one who showed me my magic, the one who truly cared enough to help.
I cared for her in the same way she cared for me. Stubborn and unwilling.
But I tear that all away.
“You don’t care about my powers.” I breathe deeply, trying to steady myself amidst the shift in her emotion.
Her interest in my magic drains away—her interest in me. It’s hard to stand, losing what has been a constant for so long.
She’s always cared—perhaps more than I once knew because the absence of it makes me hollow.
I’ve lost Ma, Pa, and now her.
It shatters me to pieces, watching as she lets me go against her will.
Ms. Ferner’s eyes stay open wide as I let go of her shoulders. For a moment, I wonder if I’ve killed her—overrode her mind the way she feared I someday would. Then, I slip away, moving quickly back toward the academy.