Chapter 24 #2
He’d always been there, a best friend, more than a companion. He was mine. Had he forgiven me for breaking him? Really forgiven me?
“Tavi. Baby.” Mike was so gentle with me. He didn’t remind me they were gone. “Hurting yourself as punishment won’t bring them back.”
He said nothing more when he took me into his arms. I was a burden to him, too. I had been from the second we met when my car broke down on the side of a dark forest road and Mike, ever the prince, stopped to give me a ride.
He should have run far away from me and stayed gone after I murdered his best friend, Roman.
Eyes shut, I pressed my head to Mike’s chest as though the beat of his heart would somehow pull me free of the whirlwind in my mind.
“I’m not as skilled as Julie,” he said as he helped me inside our tent, “but I can heal a little. It will get you by. Then I’ll have her come in. Okay? Sound like a deal?”
My leg was the least of my issues.
I couldn’t force the words out to tell him that the magically poisoned sword had left me a husk. I felt nothing below the knee anymore.
He set me on the bed and held me through the tears, cradled me in his lap and let me sob out every ounce of pain.
I should stop this. I should go see the others and make sure the rest of the camp knew I cared for everyone we lost. But Livvy, Noren, Melia…their loss hit too hard.
They left too much empty space in my heart for me to pull it together with a few stubborn stitches and call it fine.
Mike rubbed soothing circles between my shoulder blades.
My face swelled. Ugly crying always did that to me, but he didn’t care.
He helped me into the bath, cleaning off the bloodstains and leaving the water crimson.
Miraculously, the sting didn’t bother any of the fraying muscles or skin of my wounded leg.
Had he done something?
I was half aware when he left to fetch Julie. Half aware when she hastily stifled a gasp at whatever she saw—was it worse than before?—and ran off for more supplies.
Between the two of them, my leg quickly healed. Mike took care of me. Brushed my hair and wrapped me in a blanket.
I should have been fine, right? For the majority of my life I’d thought my mother was dead. This was worse, to find her, to know her, to lose her.
Infinitely worse.
I only knew I was alone when the tent flap shook again and a low amber light had me shrinking into my blankets.
“Your boyfriend went off to get you liquor. Seems to think you might want some to sleep tonight,” Coral said. “I told him to go for the belladonna tincture, but I’m betting he doesn’t actually have the guts to drug you.”
Her tone scrubbed my skin like a cat’s tongue, hooks and barbs and superiority. My cousin had a way about her, from the moment we met.
I burrowed deeper into the nest of blankets. “I don’t want to sleep.”
“You will.” Coral made herself at home on the bed, her ass bumping my recently healed leg.
“I’m glad you’re okay.”
“Of all the things I never thought you’d say,” she griped.
“I’m serious.” I couldn’t handle another loss.
Coral cleared her throat. “Well, I wanted to let you know we got Livvy cleaned up and laid in wake. Mom is with her.”
Fuck.
I fumbled for Coral’s hand and found her skin colder than normal. “I’m sorry.”
She shrugged. “For what?”
“Your mom, her sister—”
“Stop.” She cut me off, the word a lash. “You seriously don’t have to do this. You don’t have to diminish your grief because someone else is dealing with the same loss. She was your mom. And that stinky wolf was your companion.”
Coral was serious. She’d always called Noren my pet.
“Now come on. I’ll help you up. You should see Livvy.”
Coral escorted me out of the tent to see Mom. It hit me like a sledgehammer when we approached the meadow and I saw the rows of pyres constructed in my absence. While Mike was coddling me, and I was crying like a baby, my people gathered the dead. All of them.
Disgust made a mess of my stomach. I needed to be out here doing this with them.
Coral jostled me, her arm looped through mine to make it look like it wasn’t her Fae magic keeping me upright. “Stop it.”
I shook my head.
“I see your face,” she continued. “You love swimming in guilt, like it’s your sole responsibility to keep everyone alive for the rest of eternity.”
Isn’t it? “I do have responsibilities,” I insisted.
“And we’re sharing them with you.” Bronwen marched toward us, her features set with resolve. “You’re here now. You’re allowed to take a fucking hour to grieve.”
I blinked at her, eyes swollen.
Bronwen took up her post on my other side and between the two of them, I made it to the center of the clearing.
As much as my friends tried to convince me it was okay, it wasn’t.
“If the realm is going to see me as some great leader,” I stumbled over the word, “meant to save them from Dorian Jade and King Tywin’s policies…”
Then I needed to step up and be that person.
There would be time to grieve and eat and sleep once we had the situation under control and not a minute sooner. I stared across the rows of dead, no longer covered but on display for their loved ones to grieve, and hardened myself.
Livvy looked beautiful.
Coral had arranged my mother’s hair to fan out beneath her. The conjured white dress spoke of springtime and youth and lightness. It hugged her curves and stopped at the knees.
Her lips were pursed in what might have been a smile, as though she were about to tell me a secret.
Fresh tears rose and I choked them down. First, I made my way through the lines to look at every honored dead, every person we’d lost. I knew almost every face, and those I didn’t, like the Dryads, I committed to memory.
A small group of Fae clustered at the edge of the meadow, marked only by their black tunics, separate and distinct. My heart gave a small thud.
Melia’s team, a voice whispered in my head. Her network of intelligence agents, she’d called them. Her little spies who’d gathered information for our rebellion.
I shrugged off Bronwen and Coral and forced my gait into some semblance of ease despite the fragile state of my leg.
They straightened at my approach.
The nearest agent ducked her head and long wheat-colored hair fell across her face. “The Warrior of EverRose,” she greeted. “It’s an honor.”
I forced myself to accept the label. “You’re aware of what happened to Melia and who has her?”
The woman nodded. “Yes.”
“Then I want you to put a call out.” I can do this. I can handle it. “To anyone who is ready. Tell them to find us if they’re able to help put a stop to Dorian Jade’s violence and King Tywin’s nonsense. Tell them they will be welcomed with open arms.”
I glanced back at the dead, the surprise attack a scar not only on our camp but in our minds and hearts.
All this fighting, all this death, and for what?
“Tell them the war has begun.”