95. Chapter 95
CHAPTER 95
Zev
T hat evening, Rawn held a feast for all of them as his thanks and to celebrate a second chance at life with his family. By some miracle of the Gods, Lucenna was in a pleasant mood for once, though it may have had something to do with Klyde’s hand in hers. Von and Tavin laughed as Keena’s threw grapes at them for teasing her. Then everyone cheered when Cassiel and Dyna arrived.
It warmed Zev to see his friends were happy.
He soaked in their smiling faces glowing in the candlelight and the sound of their laughter.
Aerina gave them colorful pieces of paper and ink to hold their own Hail of Embers. But burning away the past had dimmed the little merriment Cassiel could manage. He slipped away into the garden when he thought no one was watching. Zev could tell Dyna wanted to follow but she looked at him pleadingly instead.
The scent of moss and rain greeted Zev as he followed Cassiel’s trail to the far reaches of the estate. He found him sitting by the edge of a pond, staring down at the crumbled green paper in his hand.
“Working up the courage to fill it?”
Cassiel glanced up at him. “More so wondering if I have the strength to do it.”
Zev sat down beside him with his own paper, his was blue. He hadn’t been able to write down what ill memories and past hardships he wished to burn away either. Because they would all be about losing his father.
Both quietly watched the silhouette of their friends on the roof of the estate. Flickers of fire flashes then a shower of colorful embers fill the sky.
“There is no strength for loss. We’re never prepared when it comes.” Zev’s chest tightened with that familiar ache like an old friend. “Our lives are constructed of moments with them, that we couldn’t ever image there would be moments without them. Then you’re living in those moments, and dawns on you that a part of you died with them.”
“Does that feeling ever go away?
“I am the wrong person to ask,” Zev said wryly. His madness may be gone now, but he still grieved. Perhaps he always would.
“I think I will carry the weight of my guilt with me everywhere,” Cassiel said. “That death was mine. I should have died that day, not him. I will never be able to forgive myself.” The paged crinkled in his fist. “What am I to do with that? Where do we do with our regrets? They are not small enough to fit on this paper.”
“We don’t put them anywhere,” Zev said as the embers rose up and faded into the clouds. “We carry them with us until we learn how to let them go. There will be days you will doubt you can do it. The journey is exhausting. You will pretend to be all right while the rest of the world moves on and leaves you behind to sit in the hole you fell in. But I climbed out of it, and I believe you will, too.”
Cassiel’s throat bobbed, working to swallow back the emotion that was trapped there. “It’s agony to remember.”
A burning rushed up the back of Zev’s eyes. It certainly was.
Twilight arrived with the breeze, casting soft ripples across the pond. The last of the sun’s light gleam turned the surface gold.
“I’m scarred, Zev. I don’t mean the mark on my back. I mean those other scars you can’t see but you feel them there. Parts were cut out me that day, and other parts I cut out myself. Those scars run so deep there’s no riding me of them. I wish I can take it back. I would give anything to go back to who we were. To the morning before I ruined everything.”
It was difficult to hear that from Cassiel, to see the evidence of that familiar pain on the outside. Because it had plagued him for so long.
Zev looked down at the scars on his arms, marked by his own grief. “We can look at scars as evidence of our pain or we can look at them and see healing. I think we all wish to go back and change the past at some point. But there is no going back and the fear of moving forward will plant you into the ground.” A gentle breeze passed over them and he breathed in the scent of spring that always came after a harsh winter. “You can’t hide from life. Eventually you must live it.”
Cassiel shut his tired eyes and simply breathed. Sadness hovered over him like storm clouds, but Zev hoped he understood they would part one day.
When he looked at him again, his gray eyes looked lighter. “I’m sorry I left.
There was a time Zev wouldn’t have been able to hear that, but he wasn’t angry anymore.
“We all make mistakes, Cassiel. Sometimes they are done out of fear or ignorance. Sometimes out of anger and resentment. We can’t take those things back, but we can learn from them.” Zev leaned forward on his folded knees as he gazed at the knolls of Sellav. “So don’t hurt her anymore, not even with lies. Because those wounds hurt the most.”
Cassiel looked back at the estate where the other half of him waited. And Zev could see no matter how much it hurt, he wouldn’t let himself stay stuck anymore.
Zev was ready for that, too.
So he decided to let go of his fear of the Other and to forgive himself for the past. They would walk through the journey of living with scars together.
Taking a breath, Cassiel lifted his page into his palm. Small petals of Seraph fire unfurled. Zev added his page on top of his and they watched them blacken and burn away. The embers left behind were carried off into the wind. Rising into the sky like wishes in the clouds.
“If I made you feel as though our friendship didn’t hold any value, I’m sorry,” Cassiel murmured. “It means a lot to me and so do you.”
Grinning, Zev laid his head on Cassiel’s shoulder. “I know. I’ve always sensed you were in love with me.”
Cassiel groaned and shoved him off. “I take it back.”
“No, I consider that a confession. Don’t worry though. I won’t tell Dyna.”
“Oh, sod off!”
He laughed, then they said nothing else. Nothing needed to be said. Being here was enough. Because when Zev was broken, all he had wanted was for someone to sit with him. To understand his pain and tell him it wouldn’t hurt this much forever.
What better place to be than with his brother?