Chapter 40 Divided We Fall
Divided We Fall
The air was thick with the heavy scent of damp canvas. My mouth was dry, body leaden, and head pounding.
Gods, what in the seven hells happened?
Throwing the back of my forearm over my eyes to block out the light filtering in through my eyelids, I tried to recall what happened, but the last thing I remembered was watching the rabbits roast over the fire.
Groaning, I slid my arms under the covers and pulled them up to my chin.
Slowly blinking my eyes open, I wasn’t surprised to find the thick, light-green canvas ceiling that confirmed I was in a tent.
I laid there for long moments, my normally spry fae body begging me to fall back asleep, and I almost obliged until I heard movement.
I wanted to sit up straight and spring into action. What happened was more of a chin tilt before I realized it was just Artton.
“What happened?” I groaned.
“You don’t remember?” He asked, genuinely surprised—or was he relieved?
Blindly, I felt around and was rewarded with what I thought was a rucksack. Pulling it toward me with more effort than I cared to expend at the moment, I slid it under my head to prop myself up. With blurred vision, I found him crouching at the foot of my bedroll.
“Of all the time you’ve spent with me, do I strike you as the kind of person that would ask you what happened if I knew?” I said.
He huffed. “No. But you also didn’t strike me as murderous either, but here we are.”
“What?!” I said, throwing my covers to the side and sitting up. “Ow!” I whimpered, pressing the heels of my palms against my eye sockets to stop the pounding headache.
“Here,” Artton said shifting his weight, “drink this.”
Reluctantly, I reached for the cup and instantly regretted it. Clenching my jaw, I leaned forward, grasped the warm mug and lifted it up, only for my stomach to roil when the scent hit me. “Oh my Gods, Artton. It smells like feet.”
“Doesn’t taste much better either,” he said.
Not for the first time in the last few minutes, I groaned, then sucked it up, held my breath, and chugged it in one go. Even with my breath held, the liquid threatened to come back up, forcing me to put a hand over my mouth and swallow hard.
“Augh, that was disgusting,” I said, half gagging.
“Here.” Artton replaced the mug with a skin, and I drank deeply from it, the cool water washing down the taste.
“Thanks,” I said, handing it back to him.
Warmth radiated from my stomach outward like a lifeline.
I flopped backward and allowed whatever he’d just given me time to work its glorious way through me.
It took a few minutes before permeating every cell, and although it didn’t take my headache away, it helped enough that it no longer hurt to blink.
That’s when I remembered what Artton had just said to me.
“Were you joking just now when you called me murderous?” I asked.
His silence what answer enough.
“Fuck.” I sighed. “I’m not going to like what happened, am I?”
“None of us liked what happened, Spark.”
Knowing I’d have to face this sooner than later, I sat up in earnest and wished I didn’t as my vision cleared.
“Oh, Artton,” I breathed, shifting forward I focused on the seared handprints marring his perfect golden-tanned skin.
They were small handprints, with long, delicate fingers—my fingers.
Hand hovering above the bare skin, I looked into his deep sapphire eyes. “May I?” I whispered, and he nodded.
I traced the line around the wound, which was shiny with some sort of salve, and as I did, flashes of what happened bombarded me.
I couldn’t remember exactly how I’d gotten here, but I did remember everything before Artton grabbed me.
Anything after that was still lost on me.
Swallowing hard, I said, “Will they heal?”
He nodded. “Once we’re out of the human realm, yes, within a few hours.”
“Good,” I breathed, sitting back on my heels, hands on my lap. “Is everyone else okay? Physically, I mean?” I clarified, knowing there was no salve, or fae healing, for emotional wounds.
“Kaelun and Tarrin are fine. Sidrick will be too, but it took a lot out of him to use his unara in that way. He headed back to the Summer Court to heal and report back to Caius. He’ll ride to catch up to us, which should be by dusk at the latest.”
“Wait, what happened to Sidrick?”
“Nothing of consequence, Spark. What’s important is that everyone is okay.”
I sat there, reconciling everything with a calmer head before I spoke again.
“I know I hurt you, Artton, and we can discuss how I lost control later. But I’m so angry at you for what you did—for how you went about it.
I know you despise Tarrin, and I get it, but it wasn’t him who took the brunt of your confrontation—it was me. ”
His shoulders drooped, but he had the decency to hold my gaze as he said, “I like it better when you try to slice me, Spark. I know how to handle your anger, not your sadness or disappointment…” He shook his head.
“It guts me. And just like these burns, I deserve it. More importantly, I am sorry for what I did, and ever sorrier for how it hurt you.”
“Did you get it out of your system?” I asked, not ready to let him off the hook just yet.
“I mean, it’s not like I’m going to be best friends with the guy, but yeah, I’ve said my piece.
If I have an issue eating me up inside, I’ll bring it up with him when we’re alone and with a level head.
What I’m saying is that I can’t promise I won’t make jokes at his expense, but I won’t ever do that again. ”
“Okay, then,” I breathed. “I forgive you.”
“Just like that?” he asked, and I sensed he’d wished I wouldn’t, as if believing he deserved more.
“Look,” I started, “while I don’t condone how you went about it, your point was valid. You we just a fucken ass about. And I get it. I do. But it wasn’t your bone to pick in the first place, it was between Tarrin and me.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry.”
“I know you are.”
“Do you think you’ll forgive him?” Artton asked.
“Didn’t I just say it’s between him and me?”
“You did. And it is. I just want to understand where you’re coming from in all of this.”
I breathed in deep and let it out in a slow, long sigh before answering him.
“There’s a human fable about an intelligent four-legged animal that weighs as much as thirty horses and is taller than a home.
The story goes on to explain that the wild beast could not be tamed by man; no matter how many ropes they tried to capture it with or how many spears they tried to fell it with.
So instead, they stole a baby that had wandered too far from its mother and tied it to a post. The baby tugged day in and day out until finally, it realized it would never be free, and it stopped tugging.
From that day forward, he no longer tried to free himself, and even as he grew to his full, mighty height and strength, all it took was for the noose around his thick neck to be bound to a stick no larger than you or I could hold in one hand.
“Tarrin pulled at that rope for over fifty years, Artton. Can I really fault him for not trying to pull after that, until he did—to save me? I’m a prisoner in my own life, he was a prisoner in his own body.
So, while it hurts like hell that a man who’d become a friend and confidant might have been able to save me from the lies sooner, deep down I know I can’t condemn him for that.
It’s what he does moving forward that’s important. ”
“I’ve never met someone with so much empathy,” Artton said in a quiet voice. “I’m afraid it’s going to get you hurt—like really hurt.”
“Maybe it will,” I shrugged, “but I choose to believe that it’s one of the reasons the fates picked me to be the spark. It’s a part of myself I’ve accepted. I know it’s hard—and that you don’t understand it—but I need you on my side for this, Artton.”
Holding my gaze with a pained expression I didn’t fully understand, he swallowed audibly before saying, “I’ll always be on your side, Spark. I promise.”
“Thank you,” I whispered.
“Well,” he said as he stood up grabbing a shirt from the hard ground and throwing it on over the burn marks, “we’re almost at the entry point and there’s enough sunlight left for us to make it there. Let’s break camp and head north.”
“We’re that close?” I asked, surprised.
He nodded as I stood. “We couldn’t afford being on human lands longer than planned, so we took turns carrying you yesterday.” He flung a flap of the tent to the side and exited.
Although shocked they’d still traveled while I was down, I couldn’t help but chuckle at the image of them trudging through the snow, my small frame over their shoulders, cursing their own stupidity—though I did feel bad for Kaelun, who got caught in our friendly fire.
“Is that why my head hurt so bad, because your sorry ass dropped me?” I said as I followed him out.
A chuckle was his only response.
The moment I cleared the tent I found Tarrin and Kaelun standing guard, which meant they’d heard our entire conversation. “A little warning would’ve been nice,” I grumbled.
“You should be thanking me,” Artton called from the other side of the camp, collecting our supplies. “Now you don’t have to have the same conversation again.”
“How magnanimous of you,” I drawled.
All humor left as I faced my two sentries. “I’ll leave you two,” Kaelun said, then went to move.
“No. Stay,” I said. “This involves all of us. Besides, if I can be cruel to someone in front of others, I should take responsibility in front of them too.”
Kaelun looked like he’d rather be anywhere else but stayed.
Tarrin’s teak eyes held so much regret and sorrow that my heart hurt for both of us. “Did you know that I laid on top of you to protect you as we straddled the Autumn and Summer borders?” I said.
He shook his head slowly, brows pulling together.
“It was the only option. You were freezing from blood loss and shock, but you were also severely dehydrated. I couldn’t risk keeping you in the Summer Court at high noon, and any shade was too far away.
So, I forced the borders open, and pulled your upper body through to where it was raining in Autumn.
I laid on top of you to shield you from the elements, put pressure on your wounds, and kept the borders from crushing us.
Then, when help finally came, I begged them to save you.
It was your brother, actually”—I shifted my focus to Kaelun—"who told Caius that I needed Tarrin to live. That I couldn’t survive another loss.
" The summer fae nodded as if he’d heard this story already.
“I say this, Tarrin,” I said, returning my focus to him, “because those are not the actions of someone who would ever regret saving you.”
Tarrin looked into the depth of my soul for long seconds before he broke the mounting silence. “I don’t deserve you in my life. You know that, right?”
I raised my palms to the sky and let them drop.
“And I’m not worthy of the spark, but here we are.
It doesn’t matter what we think we’re worth or deserve—we lost the right to those thoughts the moment the fates tied us to this mess.
There are enough forces against us as it is.
All that matters now is that we move forward, together.
And that means having each other’s backs; regardless of histories. ”
“I understand,” Tarrin said. “And thank you, Ny.”
I nodded, then threw a pointed look over my shoulder at Artton, who threw a thumb up as he was leaning down repacking our bags, indicating he was onboard as well.
“Does that mean we’re all good?” Kaelun asked.
I chuckled. “Yes, we’re all good.”
“Thank the gods, because honestly, I can’t handle all of this brooding. And drama,” he added.
We all laughed, then turned to take down the tent before setting off.