Chapter 6 Silver
Silver
This isn’t the first time I’ve stood in the wreckage of my own home. The sinking feeling in my stomach, the sights of carnage and ruin, it’s all familiar to me.
“Kinda feels like we just rebuilt this, doesn’t it?” Rooftop asks, echoing my thoughts.
I look over at him.
He hasn’t lived in this house with me for months, and it’s jarring to realize that he looks out of place here now.
His clothes are clean and pressed, made of nice materials.
They match, like the outfit wasn’t cobbled together from multiple sources.
His boots shine. But more than that, his eyes aren’t hollow and he no longer looks like it’s been weeks since he got a proper meal.
He’s a regular townsperson now, working a regular job in the palace kitchens. Living a normal life.
I’m glad.
Glad that he got what he wanted, glad that it fits him so well, and also glad that he’s not too wrapped up in it to come back down here to be with me in my wreckage.
Again.
Because he’s right, we did only just rebuild this place, after a magical explosion from Mance’s cousin ripped it apart.
At least that time it was somewhat my fault. I was working for the guy, after all. He wouldn’t have been anywhere near my house if I weren’t helping him betray the girl I was falling for.
This time, though, I feel powerless. I don’t even know who to blame. Mance described a white-haired girl, but I’m acquainted with pretty much everyone in this neighborhood and she doesn’t sound familiar.
Mance also told me about the scroll, which she said was covered in names, but by the time we found it and dug it up, it was blank. More magic. More tragedy. More death.
It feels a little too familiar.
And just when this place was starting to take a breath of new life. To be more than it was.
Like me.
There’s a soft, misting rain on the wind, and it makes me nostalgic for the nights when Rooftop, Vie, and I huddled together through Outskirts storms, barely shielded by our rickety shelter, wondering if this was the time our home would be destroyed for good.
Through the downpour, we would share a blanket and the food we managed to steal or gather that day, and we’d light a candle. And somehow, as long as the candle kept burning, it felt like we would all make it through. Even in this broken place.
My friends didn’t stay after the explosion, and I can’t blame them. I know they both sleep better now that they don’t need to keep one eye open for threats.
Meanwhile, for the last few months I’ve still been here, not sure I could fit anywhere else.
Now, though . . .
Now I know there’s somewhere else I need to be.
Because yesterday when I held Mance in my arms and I couldn’t find a pulse, the sense of helplessness that gripped me was the deepest I’ve ever felt.
It dawned on me that she has become my anchor, my softly glowing flame in the middle of the storm.
Her midnight eyes my candlelight. And now, as I stand in the remains of my broken house, there’s a certainty that settles over me. There’s something that I need to do.
“I don’t like it when your face gets that way,” Rooftop says, studying me through springy locks of hair that are always falling in his eyes. “It usually leads to you doing something reckless.”
I cough out a wry laugh. “Yeah. Probably.”
“What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking that I’m going to tell Mance I love her,” I say.
The realization rocks through me even as I voice it, but it feels right.
I’ve known my feelings for a while. It’s just been hard to express them out loud.
I mean, she’s a Prime and I’m a nothing.
Unlike Rooftop, I belong here in the glass and the dirt.
But now I know that I also belong with her. By her side.
For the past few months, she’s been trying to juggle her many duties as Prime on her own, rather than leaning on me. I need to show her that she’s not alone, that we’re in this together. That I’ll always lift her up.
I don’t know if now is the right time to say the words. She was pretty broken when we said goodbye. But I can be with her, can show her that I love her, until the time is right to say it. And when it is . . . I’ll know.
Rooftop quirks a smile at me. “Now that’s the kind of recklessness I can actually support. What are you waiting for? Go be with her, then.”
And it really is that simple. I don’t have to have everything else figured out, don’t have to know what I want to do with my entire life right now. I know one place that I fit, and it’s by her side.
Because with everything Mance and I have been through already . . . what could possibly come between us now?