81. Sie
EIGHTY-ONE
SIE
I couldn’t believe I was still alive. I expected this outcome, that we’d win, I just didn’t think I’d be breathing long enough to be a part of it. I never imagined returning to Allium with everyone.
I only had snippets of memories from the mountain. I remember seeing Scotlind pass out. I remember Tezya screaming. I knew I teleported them, but only the Goddess fucking knows how I managed to pull that off. I was told I was out for two days. Scottie had been out for five.
A bandage was wrapped over my wrist and around my hand. The healers tried to save it. When I threw myself in front of Tezya, my arm was stretched and the dagger sliced through my wrist, hitting an artery. It left me with severe nerve damage, and I lost almost all feeling below my elbow.
I wiggled my fingers through the bandage, wondering if I would ever be as good of a fighter again. I didn’t even know if I would be able to properly hold a utensil, nonetheless a blade. I would have to retrain myself on everything I knew with my left.
I had no idea why I did it. I hadn’t expected or meant to. I didn’t even realize I liked or cared for the guy. But once I saw the King use electricity on Tezya, I knew he wouldn’t be able to function long enough to burn the dagger before it reached him. I felt enough of Rainer’s power to know the ability was debilitating. It was going to kill him. I reacted without thinking and teleported in front of him in the split second it took the dagger to fly through the air.
I thought of Scotlind. After everything she’d been through, I didn’t want to see her hurting anymore. There was a part of me that would always care for her.
But then there was another part of me, a much deeper part, that was starting to accept that he was family. He was my half brother, which made him Greyland’s half brother, and even though Grey didn’t know it yet, I hated the idea of him losing another family member. Our parents’ deaths were already too much for him.
But here I was, alive, just not whole. Fighting had become my identity over the past couple of weeks at the camp, and now I couldn’t even properly do that. Not that anyone was up for sparring or training anymore. Everyone was exhausted and beyond wounded. There weren’t enough healers to go around.
I pushed down the heaviness I felt about losing Moli. I hated that I always thought of her. Anytime I was with the healers, I knew she would have been helping day in and out, healing anyone and everyone she could.
I couldn’t grasp how I made it out alive when the entire world hated me, but Moli and my mother didn’t. Moli was so pure and innocent. She wouldn’t hurt a fly. And my mother’s only fault was marrying my father. But now they were both gone, and I was here.
I knew my chances of survival were limited to begin with, especially with how I was painted during the broadcasts, and although they tried to set the record straight during our own broadcasts after the battles, there were many Advenians who didn’t believe it. They needed someone to blame for the loss of their loved ones, and I was the easiest target. It was hard to forget the image of the fucking ‘ S ’s carved into all the dead bodies.
I still had to watch my back. I wasn’t liked or welcomed. I was more feared than anything, but I didn’t mind. The only people I needed in my life were still alive—Peter and Grey—so that was good enough for me. Everyone else could go to hell for all I cared.
“Hey,” a soft voice called out. Everyone was now in Tennebris. It was larger than Lux and housed the spacecraft. It took about three weeks to convince the Luxians of our plans and another two to prepare for the journey.
I turned around toward the sound of the voice. I was outside of Palm, sitting by the edge of the woods. Savannah was dressed for the cold. Tennebris was still in their dark season, but I could make out her features from a mile away. Her lavender hair was tucked into a black hat and a matching scarf was so tightly wound around her neck that it covered the tip of her chin.
Her boots crunched in the frost-filled grass before she sat down next to me. I kept staring at her as I noticed the tip of her nose turning bright red. I knew the cold bothered her just as much as it did all humans. But it was easy to forget. Mainly because she was crazy enough to travel to the dead river in the human territory for fun, but it was weird seeing how fast the weather affected her now.
“Hi,” I finally said, turning my gaze from her to stare back out at the woods. We were leaving for Allium tonight, and as much as I knew it was the right thing to do, I felt uneasy about leaving my home. “How are you doing?”
She shrugged, but I knew her real answer. She wasn’t good and it was probably stupid of me to even ask. I definitely didn’t want to talk after my father was killed, so why I expected her to do the same was beyond me. And she actually liked her father .
“I’m sorry,” I managed to get out. “I know you probably don’t want to talk about it, but I wanted you to know.”
I kept replaying what happened during the battle. I kept hearing her scream as I teleported her away from Dravenburg. They were bickering and yelling at each other while they were fighting Luxian soldiers. Dravenburg was scolding her for coming, and Savannah kept saying it was all she’s ever known and that she wanted to help her friends. I was fighting next to her, something I kept subconsciously doing without knowing why, so I overheard everything. Their last moment together was a fucking fight.
Savannah was distracted by something he said and was about to get sliced in half with a sword before her father stepped in front of the blade to save her. She stood frozen for a moment with his blood splashed over her nose, painting red freckles across her face. She didn’t move, wouldn’t move. She was in shock, and I knew she couldn’t fight. So I teleported her away… away from her father. It wasn’t until I brought her into the safe room that she flipped out and started screaming and hitting and yelling at me to take her back to Dravenburg.
“He’s gone, Savannah. He’s gone. You have to let him go.”
“No,” she sobbed as tears ran down her face. “No, he’s not! Take me back to him.” She kept hitting me over and over again until I finally grabbed her wrists and pulled her into me.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. I kept repeating the same phrase into her ear, not letting go of her arms, until she finally collapsed and started crying into my shoulder.
I wasn’t sure how long we stayed like that before Tezya and the others found us. She took a step back from me once they did. Her glossy eyes and watery face met mine, before she walked toward the corner of the room and sat down.
But looking at her now, if I hadn’t seen her grief from losing her father, I never would have known. She had her emotions in check. I wasn’t sure if she was just strong-willed, hated breaking down in front of people, or if she pushed it so far out of her mind that she refused to think about it, and I found myself curious which one it was.
I knew her brother probably had something to do with it. She was the older of the two, and I kept watching her the past couple of weeks. The mortal boy broke down all the time, and Savannah was there for each one, comforting him in ways I knew were probably destroying her on the inside. Because unlike her brother, she had the added guilt of his death. Same as I did for my father. They both died because of us.
“I didn’t come find you to talk about him,” she said after several moments, and I couldn’t hold back my shock at her admitting she sought me out.
I turned to face her and was mesmerized by her hazel, gray eyes and how her lavender hair seemed to reflect in them. She was sitting closer to me than I thought, and it was only now hitting me that this was the last time I was ever going to see her.
“I know what I want from my bargain with you,” Savannah said, pulling me from my thoughts.
“Bargain?” I nearly forgot I made one with her. That I would have to say yes to one thing she demanded in exchange for her training Vallie and Lilia.
Of course she hadn’t forgotten it. If this was my last time seeing her, she was going to use it. I was stupid for thinking she came for anything else. “What do you want?”
“I want to go with you. I want you to take me to Allium.”