Chapter 54
SEAGULLS. SALT. SUN.
Along with the sea breeze, they blast me. Things I’ve only dreamed of for weeks.
Ahead, yellow gorse flowers mark the path to…
“Home,” the word comes out on a wavering breath, not quite as warm as I expected.
“Annon.” It’s Drystan, behind me. He sounds broken.
His presence tugs on me, and I have to press my palm to my aching chest like that might help.
“It’s over. I won.” I can’t bring myself to look back at him. The sight might be enough to make me doubt myself. “You can come and see me to my house, see that I’m safe… and we can say goodbye, but… this is it. I’m staying here.”
I don’t wait for an answer before I cross the stone bridge.
It feels like a dream, my fingertips skimming the gorse’s prickles. But, no, I never feel the golden sun quite like this in my dreams.
Ahead, there’s apple blossom and a familiar roof. Sunlight flashing off my brother’s bedroom window.
Despite my tired legs, I break into a run. It’s more of a fast stagger, but…
There’s a shout from inside the house, then the front door flies open.
“Annon?” Lowen spills out, eyes wide like he’s seen the dead rise for the second time in as many months.
“It’s me.” I choke on the words and the tears tangling together in my throat. “I’m home.”
He hurtles through the gate and hugs me. Crushes me. He stinks, unwashed. But he stinks of him.
And he’s alive. He’s safe. Here on the surface where he belongs.
I peel back, grab his hands. “You have to live. Even if I don’t. You don’t owe it to me to wait here.”
He stares at me, open mouthed.
“Lowen, you don’t owe me your life.”
There. It’s out. I can breathe now. I can sob into his shoulder, let him hold me without guilt, because I’ve been brave enough to speak the truth that I hope will set him free.
“You are a fool, sometimes,” he whispers, voice cracking. His sigh ruffles my hair before he pulls back and cups my cheeks. “You never held me back, Annon.”
I blink at him.
“I was just afraid to live because I didn’t know how to do it without you.”
“I don’t—”
Annem and Pa rush from the house, slack-jawed.
Arm around my shoulder, Lowen walks me through the gate. We’ll have time to talk. Maybe while I help him pack.
There are more tears as I reach them. During this time apart, I find the anger in me has burned low. They’re my parents. Misguided, fallible. Human.
Pa throws his arms wide, eyes brimming. “My girl. My little girl is home.”
Annem gasps and points at my feet. “Her gift.”
Or, rather, she points at what’s growing around my feet. Seedlings and saplings sprout where I step, trailing behind me in a green wake.
Pa’s smile dims. “You stopped taking your medicine.”
I laugh, shaking my head as I cross the final feet to him, ready to run into his arms like I’ve done all my life. “My medicine? I almost ran out, but I didn’t—”
Darkness looms over us. “NO.” Drystan’s voice shakes the ground. He grabs Pa’s throat and shoves him against the wall.
For a second I stare at my father’s face going red against the pale skin of Drystan’s hand, at the dark scores in the cottage’s stone walls, left there by the dead.
Then my mother’s shrieks bring me back to myself. My heart surges.
“Drystan, stop!” As I reach for him, Lowen grabs his arm—or tries to. He’s thrown to one side like he’s nothing more than a pesky gnat.
“You don’t get to hug her and pretend.” Drystan shakes my father until his teeth rattle.
Pa’s toes scrabble for purchase, but he’s a good few inches off the floor. He grabs at Drystan’s wrist, hitting ineffectually. His face goes purple.
“Drystan, please.” My eyes burn. “Put him down.”
But he doesn’t so much as blink. His eyes are fixed on my father, the cold light of fury in them. His whole face creases into a snarl as his knuckles whiten.
I add my weight to Pa’s grip, but I don’t make the king’s arm so much as wobble. “You’re going to kill him.”
He can’t be this angry that I’m leaving. And even if he is, it’s my choice, not my father’s.
Does he think if my family is dead, I’ll go back with him?
“Please.” My voice cracks as I drag on his arm, as effective as a teapot made of ice.
“Are you going to tell her the truth?” Somehow he gets the question out between gritted teeth. “What you’ve been doing to her all these years. Why she’s so exhausted she can barely walk from one end of my fortress to the other?”
I blink from him to my father, grip falling slack as his words hit me. “What truth? What’s he talking about? Pa?”
I glance at Annem, but she’s on her knees sobbing the words “Tell her” over and over. Lowen sits a short distance behind her, cradling his arm, his face a mirror to my own confusion.
Chest heaving, Drystan drops my father, who stumbles against the cottage, clutching his throat. “Tell her the truth.”