44. Chapter 44
Chapter 44
Mace
I never considered, as the oldest sibling, that there would be a moment in my life when I would be alone in this world again.
I never considered it.
Which means I never saw this coming.
Grief is not linear. It is not a clear-cut movement from one position to another.
No, grief is a tangle of rotten roots as they grow deeper and wider.
It is a broken door, blown open by a storm and unable to be latched again.
Grief is neither loud nor aggressive.
It is not wild. It is not tame.
No, grief just is.
And today, I am grief.
It's been four hours since my brother died a second time.
Four hours since Viola Mistflow collapsed beside him, and she has not opened her eyes since.
Four hours.
I am as frozen as both of them, ignoring the residual ache in my side from the injury that was supposed to claim my life but took my brother's instead.
Viola is wrapped tightly in my arms. Her body is still, but her chest is still moving, and I can feel her magic writhing under her skin, working to knit her back together and restore all that she expended during this battle.
"Mace, please, let's move you both inside. You don't have to let her go," Tulip says quietly, hand between my shoulder blade.
But I don't move. I won't.
I will not disentangle Viola's hand from that of her high priest.
She will let him go when she is ready.
Neither of us are ready.
It's been eight hours since my brother died a second time.
Eight hours since Viola Mistflow collapsed beside him, and she has not opened her eyes since.
Eight hours.
My knees ache from where I kneel in the dirt that is now hard-packed and saturated with my blood. But I do not move. No, I will not and cannot move.
My companions bustle around me, taking shifts watching over me as if I were some feral animal that would quickly attack.
It's not far from the truth.
Plume, tears streaming down her face, tried to disentangle Viola and Zeph from one another and I lost control, my magic pulsing out of me and bringing Lightning down around us in a protective cage of electricity.
I don't have the mental capacity to deal with the new way my magic behaved.
"Mace," Morrow says, crouching in front of me. "Viola is going to be fine."
"I know that!" I snap at him, never once taking my eyes off of my partner. "I know she's going to be okay."
"So why don't you get up and let's bring Viola inside to lay comfortably on a bed, and you can get something to eat and clean up."
I ignore his suggestion. Of course, it's a good one. Of course, it makes sense.
But I will not.
I cannot.
Her hand still grips his tightly.
He gave his life for me.
He wanted me to live more than he wanted to live himself.
Why?
Why is my life worth more than his?
She needed him. She's soon to be the only God for the realm. A human from the Lowlands who never wanted anything more than to win the Race and live a quiet life and now she's a God.
She's the God.
She needed her high priest.
Talking about Zeph in the past tense feels inappropriate.
He's right here in front of me.
How can he be a part of my past?
It's been twelve hours since my brother died a second time.
Twelve hours since Viola Mistflow collapsed beside him, and she has not opened her eyes since.
Twelve hours.
If grief had a time limit, it would far exceed twelve hours, but I fear my countdown may be frozen in stasis, waiting to resume until my partner opens her eyes.
Despite the fact that she has yet to move, yet to wake up, I know she's alive. I can feel it in every particle of my body. I know that the surge of extra magic from the Gods and the energy expended have put her body in a holding pattern to recover.
I know all of this.
And yet, I cannot let her go.
"No, no, I'm done. We can't let him continue like this. It's been half a day. How is she ever going to recover out here in the elements?"
I think that's Tulip's voice. I don't care much to focus on it.
"What are we going to do with her? We have no Healer."
That one was Morrow. My eyes are unfocused but trained on Viola and the way her lips part slightly when she takes a breath.
What would she do?
Would she get up, carry me to our friends, and leave Zeph here?
No. If it were I who collapsed with my hand in his, she would stay here until I could make the decision for myself that I was okay and ready to drop his hand.
I am under no delusion that this is all for her.
If I leave, if I get up from this spot, he's really truly gone.
Zeph died here in this dirt twice, and when I move him from it, it is accepting that he will never wake again.
I am not ready to make him a part of my past.
I am not ready for every story about Zeph to be something that happened and not speculation on what will.
I am not ready.
I am not ready.
I am not ready.
How will I ever be ready to send my brother on his final journey?
My chest is tight, my face wet with the hot salt of my tears, and my body stiff and sticky from battle. The woman I love is stretched across my lap, her hand entwined with her high priests'.
I'll never be able to understand how that draw felt, how it tied them to one another, and I will not be the one to force her to sever her connection before she is ready.
"I can't let him waste away! She would kill me!" Tulip shouts.
"She will wake!" I hear Morrow's voice say firmly. "She will wake, Tulip."
A feminine sob echoes from the direction of the voices, and I realize this has not been about me at all.
No, Tulip needs me to let Viola go so she can confirm that Viola will be okay.
But my hands tighten around her body, my eyes drifting to her hand. Her tawny skin, marred by the rot she received with her Autumn magic, is dirtied and a stark contrast to the pinkish-pale flesh of Zeph that grows paler by the moment.
"Please, Mace!" Tulip shouts, her voice breaking on my name. "I need to hold her. I need to touch her. She's all I have left, don't you get it? I need to know she's okay!"
I get it. I do.
She's all I have left too.
But I won't.
I can't.
I cannot give her up. If I let her go, who is to say she won't die alongside Zeph? Maybe I am the only thing keeping her here.
No, I cannot let her go.
"Mace!" Morrow's voice is closer now, and his hand grips my chin. "Brother. Please." It is a painful effort to raise my eyes to his, but I see the path tears have made on his dark skin. They're not dry. They're fresh. "Viola would want Tulip to know she's going to be okay."
She would. I know that. I can't make the words come out of my mouth, though. I look down at the God, the woman, the only person who has ever made me feel like my heart was outside my body, in my arms. Blood cakes her white hair, and the tip of one of her pointed ears has been burned.
But her chest rises and falls softly as if she is in a deep and restful sleep.
"I…" my voice cracks from disuse, thick and sticky as it travels out of me. "If I let her go, I might lose her too."
Morrow drops to his knees, hand on the back of my neck as he presses his forehead to mine. "She's going to be okay. It'll take more than this to kill her. She's too fucking stubborn to die."
Tulip stands behind him, her nose red, her face and neck splotchy from crying, and a few blood vessels have burst in her eyes. "She's all I have," she says softly. "When I stumbled upon her in the forest I didn't know why I ended up there. It was clear she didn't want me. But I couldn't go. I couldn't leave her. I knew I had to be by her side. I knew she was important, even then." A sob chokes her words, and it takes her a moment to breathe through it. "You know I lost my brother too, Mace."
When I lock my eyes more firmly on her, giving her my full attention, she continues. "I watched him die in the Race. Twig was the other half of my soul. Those nightmares I always have are about his death, Mace. I think I hide it well, but fuck, it is hard sometimes. This is not something you or I will ever get over, don't you see?"
Her words are a punch in my chest. The reality that things will never be okay cracks the delusion I had built up within myself.
"Right now, you are a box that is full of grief. Every time you move, the grief hits the wall of your box, and it threatens to crumple you. That grief will never get smaller, but you will grow around it. It will hit your walls less and less the more you grow, but when it hits, it's the same fucking grief, and it will still feel this way."
Tulip kneels down in front of me, tentatively reaching a hand out to lay it on Viola's shoulder.
"But that's okay, Mace. That's how it's supposed to be. If you didn't feel this grief, if you didn't hurt so desperately, you wouldn't remember how deeply you loved him. Everyone grieves differently. Viola shuts down and buries it under layers and layers. I write about it. When a nightmare wakes me up, I write down what I'm feeling. There is no wrong way to grieve. But you cannot stop others from grieving, either. And right now, not only are you making it so our friends do not know if Viola is okay, but you are not allowing anyone else to grieve Zeph."
Her words are a slap to my face and my grip on Viola loosens. "I don't think you're doing it on purpose," Tulip hurries to say, noticing my reaction. "But Cirrha, Taegan, and Plume are distraught, and none of them have been able to pay their respects to Zeph."
"I want Viola to make the decision to let him go," I say quietly, looking at their clasped hands. "So much has been taken from her. I didn't want to be the one who took her high priest from her. He gave his life for me. The least I can do is let her hold onto him, if only for a moment longer."
"Dropping his hand now or later does not change the truth of what happened here today," Morrow says softly. "Today, Viola lost her high priest, but you lost your brother, Mace. This is not only about her."
"If I let it be about me, I may never recover."
"I know how that feels," Tulip tells me quietly. "Believe me, there have been times I didn't think I could go on without Twig. But do not waste the life Zeph granted you."
"It was supposed to be me," I whisper. "I was supposed to die here today."
"Who's to say? We do not know the inner workings of the realm. Maybe he was always supposed to give his life for yours. We cannot possibly know what was meant to happen, Mace. All we can do is live the lives we were given to the best of our abilities." Tulip reaches out, wrapping her arms under Viola, placing her hands next to mine under her knees and on her back. "Let me take her so you can say goodbye to your brother one last time."
"I can't do this," I cry out. "Don't you get it? I cannot say goodbye to him! We have been at odds for years, and I just got him back!"
"And you loved him throughout it! He loved you in spite of all of it. He loved you, Mace. And it fucking sucks that he is gone, but you cannot go with him. You cannot reject this gift he gave you." Tulip hoists Viola from my arms, and mine are too stiff and weak to keep her .
Tulip stands, and Zeph's arm raises as Viola does.
But Viola's grip doesn't tighten as she moves, and his fingers slip through.
His arm falls in slow motion, released from her grip, and lands on my legs.
I held hope in that hand that if I let her continue to hold it, maybe she could pull him back again.
But that hope crashes with it.
"How could you?" I whisper to the vessel that once contained my brother. "How could you do this? How could you give yourself up for me?" Tears of anger, fear, and despair leak down my face, and a keening wail leaves my throat as I lean forward and rest my forehead on his chest.
"How could you leave me? I wanted so much more time with you!"
As I cry, I feel the tension drift out of my body until all I am is a loose figure leaning on my brother's body, soaking it with my tears.
I don't know how long I stay like that. I don't move until a pair of hands land on my arms and heft me up.
"Come, my love," Viola says, her voice shredded and her hands shaking. I turn and see her pained expression, her face tired with grief and exertion, and notice Tulip directly behind her, holding her up by the hips.
"I couldn't convince her to stay and rest more," Tulip says with a chagrined expression. "She insisted on coming to get you, even though she can barely stand on her own."
"It's not going to be okay," I say to Viola. "It's never going to be okay."
"It will be," she assures me. "It will never be as it was before, but we will be okay."
"What did it feel like for you, him dying?" My question is quiet but it has been bothering me this whole time.
"Like a part of my chest was ripped out," she answers, her voice thick with sadness. "I thought it was despair since you were dying, but then you were breathing and okay, and it was still there. It's like he was weaved into my being and then forcibly removed."
"I feel like pieces of me are missing," I tell her honestly. "Like a part of me that was necessary for living has been lost." I stand fully, my legs aching and protesting the movement, and grab Viola's face. "I will push through this if you will, my numen."
"I will be here for you through all of this, Mace. Zeph told us he wanted us to let him go and live our lives. If you're willing to, I am too."
"What if I'm not willing to?"
"Then I will follow you into whatever abyss you want to journey to," she tells me earnestly. "It was so hard for me to say I love you because that word does not encompass what I feel for you. I couldn't put a name to it, but now I know. There is no me without you. I do not love you because that word is for anyone. Anyone can love." She leans forward and presses her forehead to mine, and I inhale her scent of battle of blood that seems wrong but so perfectly Viola Mistflow. "You are the blood that runs through my veins. You are the magic that keeps me safe. You are the breath in my lungs and the tears in my eyes. Every fucking piece of me belongs to you, Mace Nightroot. So, if you want to dive into the abyss and follow Zeph in his journey to the hereafter, I will be going with you. You cannot get rid of me that easily."
I press my lips to hers, tasting the sincerity of her words and the salt of her grief, letting her pour every feeling she cannot express into me. When I pull away, I nod, gripping the back of her neck.
"Okay."
"Okay?" she says with a chuckle. "Just okay?"
"Okay. Let's lay Zeph to rest."
Morrow startles me as he appears behind me and awkwardly scoops Zeph into his arms. "I will take him to the amphitheater. Get cleaned up and get some food, then we can have a ceremony."
I take Viola from Tulip, wrapping my arms around the other half of my soul. We lean on one another for support as we leave the courtyard, and the last place I saw my brother alive.
I'm not okay.
I don't know if I'll ever be okay.
I am not ready to make him a part of my past.
I am not ready for every story about Zeph to be something that happened and not speculation on what will.
I am not ready.
I am not ready.
But with Viola by my side, I will survive this.