Fifty-Nine
F IFTY - N INE
ESTRELLA
The grove remained unchanged as I approached the natural pool at the center. My legs were wobbly beneath me, as if the loss I’d suffered here had stolen the energy from my body. I wondered if I’d get it back if I was successful in my task, or if I would need to continue on through the rest of my life feeling this weak. It was impossible to think of being victorious in any meaningful way with the loss of power, the way it seemed to linger just out of reach. I didn’t know if it would respond if I even tried to touch it, for it didn’t matter in this moment.
In this trial, my humanity was what was needed. My care for someone I had once known, who had mattered a great deal to me in his own way, would have to be what guided me through this. I didn’t know if I had it in me to lie and manipulate, to insinuate that I would offer something that wasn’t mine to give. My body belonged to my mate, just as his belonged to me. I would have gone to the ends of the earth to ruin any who dared to touch him, to demand such things of him.
The water bubbled as Loris moved toward the surface, his body emerging in a sudden burst. He dragged in a deep lungful of air, the sorrow in his eyes shining as soon as he met my stare. He opened his mouth to speak, but I didn’t wait to hear what he would say. I met him as he stepped out of the edge of the water, the grass of the grove bending beneath his feet. Wrapping my arms around him, I ignored the nudity that made me uncomfortable and squeezed him into a tight hug that I felt like I needed just as much as he did. He froze, going still in my embrace before he finally raised his arms and wrapped them around me. They were gentle as they encircled me, his cheek coming to rest on the top of my head.
“I’m so sorry,” I mumbled into his bare chest, pulling back so that I could stare up at him. My face was wet with tears as he studied me, raising his hand to capture the moisture for himself as he considered those words.
“You’re sorry?” he asked, a bit of his anger bleeding into his features. The words weren’t enough, and I dreaded the rage that would follow. “I’m dead thanks to you.”
“I know,” I said, admitting my guilt in the role I’d played. Whether or not I’d wanted it, it was my fault. He was dead because I lived, because my life had been deemed more important than his in the game of the Fates. “I never wanted this. I would give almost anything to change it.”
“Almost anything,” he scoffed, his brow twisting with indignation. “Anything but him, right?”
“Do you want me to lie to you? Is that what you’re looking for? Do you want me to lie and say that I would sacrifice my mate to bring you back? It wouldn’t matter. No matter what I say, you’ll still be dead, Loris,” I said, spinning on my heel. The flash of gold in the trees bolstered me, forcing me forward in this game of carefully crafted words. I didn’t want to lie, but I could be more vocal about the truth. I could offer comfort in the form of encouragement, bolster him in what he’d lost. “And I have to find a way to live with that.”
“I’m sure it pains you,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest.
“It does,” I said, admitting the truth that I didn’t want to speak out loud. “Everything that has happened is all because of me. All those people who died when the Veil fell, I carry the weight of their lives with me. They’re a reminder that the choices I make are never my own. They always have this greater purpose, influencing the things around me in ways I can’t predict. It’s a weight I wouldn’t wish on my greatest enemy, so yes, I carry that with me every day. Because forgetting that comes at too high a cost.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” he asked, but the way he fidgeted told me that he wasn’t unaffected by it. Not as much as he wanted me to believe.
“I don’t think there’s anything I can say that will make you feel better. There’s nothing I can do to make any of this okay. It’s the truth regardless.” We stood in a moment of silence, allowing the weight of the conversation to settle between us. Loris shuffled his feet as he thought over my words, measuring them carefully and judging each and every one. The scales were imbalanced, working against me from the very onset.
“I didn’t expect you to apologize,” he said, shrugging his shoulders as he held himself more tightly. All confidence was gone from him, as if the shock had brought him back to reality in some way.
“Then maybe you never knew me as well as you thought you did. We were so naive, Loris. I feel like a different person when I look back at that girl now. I didn’t understand what was coming,” I admitted.
“There’s no way you could have known,” he said, stepping alongside me. He looked up to the apples, pointing at them as I watched with a hollow in my heart. “The apples are what you need to continue on, but I have a price.”
My heart dropped into my throat, thinking that after all of this, the way I’d tried so hard, it would be for nothing. I swallowed. “What’s your price?”
He turned to me more fully, leveling me with the full weight of his stare. “Promise me you won’t forget. Promise me you’ll make our deaths matter,” he said, the words drawing a strangled sob from me.
That was a price I could pay. A cost I would have accepted even without his request. He may not have agreed with the way I would make them matter in the end, given his hatred for the Fae of Alfheimr, but ridding the world of Mab would save humans as well. “I promise,” I said, letting him hoist me into his arms.
“Then I forgive you,” he said, our faces too close as he murmured the words. The affection there felt genuine, and I wondered if I’d missed it in life. If I’d misinterpreted our agreement as being mutually beneficial or if he truly had been twisted in the river. I hoped that whatever the case may have been, this brought him peace. I hoped forgiveness was the path to moving on, to freedom from Tartarus. He didn’t deserve to suffer here for eternity.
He held me higher, letting me pluck the apples from the tree. The moment the final apple was freed from the branch, cradled in my hands, I felt like I was suspended in midair. Looking down to where Loris had held me, I watched him disappear. His arms no longer supported me, billowing away like a whisper on the wind.
“I promise,” I repeated, watching his face twist with fear. Whatever came next for him, he was going into the unknown just like I was. There was no certainty in life or in death, only the unexpected.
He faded away as if he’d never really been here at all, leaving me floating in darkness as the wails of mourning filled my ears once more. They stayed with me, even as I crawled my way onto the riverbank, a distant howling in my ears.
A voice that I would never forget.