Chapter Fourteen
MERRICK - FIVE YEARS AGO
This evening went like every other evening, my daily routine unchanging.
How could it? There was no future for me, no hope for freedom.
Sure, I could glamour my ears, travel across Tovagoth.
Live a lie amongst the very kind that wished me dead.
Maybe the humans had better herbs. I’d heard that Daranois produced all sorts of mind-melting shit.
That could be a fun escape.
“What are you thinking about?” Viola asked as she took a hit off the rolled dagga I’d offered her—my only friend in this village.
“Being high,” I muttered, annoyed that my tolerance made it even more difficult to reach that state of faux bliss.
“Riveting,” she joked, handing me back the blunt.
I happily brought it to my lips, inhaling deeply, relief unfurling behind my ribs.
It wasn’t like the real feeling of contentment—not like the emotions that would soar into me when a couple’s lips locked or when a parent studied their child’s finger paintings.
Not like the feeling when my mother held me as a boy.
No, I didn’t experience those emotions anymore. Didn’t bother reading anyone much these days, if I was being honest. The emotions were too much to bear, not because they weren’t pleasant, but because the reminder that they weren’t mine made them unbearable.
But this was mine. This stupid fucking plant was mine.
Viola studied me with a frown as I turned to face her. “You’re in a mood,” she noted.
Another puff. “Aren’t I always?”
She chewed on her top lip, debating what to say. “Yes,” she finally said. “But not when you smoke. I usually get smiles and giggles at this point.”
I sighed, my eyes falling back to the burning ember.
I was shocked when Viola attempted to befriend me.
No one had ever bothered. My reputation as the angry, emotionally damaged boy was forever imprinted since the day my mother had hung herself, throwing me into such a rage that I broke every window of my father’s home.
But Viola didn’t let the judgments sway her.
Maybe that was because she, too, had no one.
She was only an eighteen-year-old girl when she’d arrived in Ames last year—her parents dead from a sickness that had taken the lives of several people in the village she had resided in, a territory of Daranois.
Her gift of shapeshifting kept her safe for the many months she was on her own, and upon her spying on our home, an unsuspecting bird in the trees, she sought refuge.
“Sorry…just taking more to get high today,” I lied.
No, I was certainly feeling fuzzy, my mind mellowing. But not enough to wash away the pain of today. November twenty-first.
No one ever remembered my birthday, save for Vicsin and Elowen. And I made sure to stay far away from my house each year, not wishing to rejoice on the day my father broke my mother’s heart.
There really wasn’t a point to my existence, anyway. What was there to celebrate?
Vi and I enjoyed our high together, but we didn’t remain outside long. The temperature had dipped low today, and with the setting sun, it was only going to get colder. We went our separate ways, and I apprehensively wandered back home. Or, rather, Vicsin’s home.
It had been more tolerable in that house when Torrin had moved in—even if he had only stayed with us for a short while after Uncle Toby and Aunt Josie went missing.
That was over seven years ago. Seven years without a single person who truly understood me. I was furious at Igon for the longest time, not understanding why my then sixteen-year-old cousin had to travel to Otacia by himself.
I still didn’t understand.
My jaw clenched the whole walk back. I was nineteen now. An adult, which was laughable. I didn’t have to stay in his house, in this village. But where, truly, would I go? What skills did I have to offer?
I was excellent at the bow, my only real skill. Like hell I’d make a living teaching humans how to wield arrows they’d happily place in my skull. Which Torrin apparently was doing in Otacia.
I avoided eye contact with everyone as I walked through the village, ignoring Heildee and my father as I entered the house. They were cooking dinner in the kitchen together, like they did most evenings. It made me sick.
Vicsin had caught on a few years ago that I hated my birthday being celebrated. Had stopped even saying the words. I could feel their eyes on me, but I didn’t spare them a passing glance.
I felt a weight lift off my chest the second I was in my bedroom, closing the door behind me. My head tilted back, resting against the wood.
I wanted to cry, but I hadn’t been able to since the day Mother died.
After several moments of staring at the ceiling, I threw off my coat and trudged to my bed, wanting to curl up in my sheets and get another miserable day over with. But a stone lay on my comforter.
Elowen.
I stared down at the little design, my chest aching in anger, in sadness. I snatched the stupid rock, lip curling at the magenta petals painted on it, and charged toward her room.
She had no idea why I picked those flowers every year, why I enjoyed having them in my room. And today, of all days, she’d gift me this?
I didn’t want her gifts, her pity, her presence. Not today.
When I whipped open the door to her room, I froze. My sister startled, her eyes wide and watery as they lifted to mine.
She was painting more rocks—dozens, some lying out to dry on her desk.
I read her on instinct, almost. Feelings of heartbreak, of hopelessness.
My brows pinched. “What’s wrong?” I asked, my feelings of anger shifting into her own unpleasant emotions. I much preferred anger over sadness.
All she offered was a soft shrug, her eyes lowering to the task before her.
That was very unlike Elowen. My jaw shifted, and I shut the door behind me. I clenched her gift in my palm, not sure what to do now.
“Did something happen?”
No response.
“Did…did a boy hurt you?”
Elowen snorted, but pain still reflected in her gaze. “I have no interest in boys,” she muttered as she eyed her design, dipping the dainty brush in more paint, before resuming.
My face heated. “Oh. I didn’t know.”
She rolled her sparkling eyes, then waved a hand in dismissal. “Not like that. I find them attractive. But I have more important things to focus on than getting a boyfriend.”
“Like…painting little rocks?”
She nodded. “Like painting little rocks.” She huffed, placing her finished design beside her. “I feel like boys my age don’t have a soul.” Her big, aqua eyes shifted to the side, gazing out the window. “I want someone to care about me. Not just what I have to offer them.”
Didn’t I know the feeling.
“I just…there are so few people here,” she continued, her shoulders dropping. “This is all I have to choose from?”
El had never confided in me before, not that I blamed her. In fact, I wasn’t sure why, as of late, I was spending more time with her. As I studied her defeated expression, I asked softly, “Is that really why you’re upset?”
She wouldn’t answer because she knew I would feel her lie.
“This is all I have to choose from?”
I wondered if her words were less about a partner and more about who she was stuck with as a brother.
I sighed, pretending to play along with the notion that her tears were from a lack of romance. “Trust me, I get it.”
Elowen watched as Viola walked with Osrel—a young man who spent most of his days in Igon’s tower—toward his library. Based on El’s pitiful stare and the sad smile she offered, she must’ve assumed I was pining after her.
Hardly. Viola was beautiful, but I knew I wasn’t her preference—I had felt her feelings toward one of the girls in our village.
“Must be an Astair curse,” El teased, and then her expression shifted as she watched my face fall. “I didn’t mean—that’s not what I—”
At the sound of raised voices outside, Elowen stood, rushing to the window to glance outside. “Who…”
Her eyes were blown wide, her hands pressing against the glass as she gasped.
“What?” I urged.
“I think…I think Torrin’s back.”
I immediately rushed over to the window. Tears filled my eyes instantly when I saw him.
My cousin. Who’d been gone since he was sixteen.
A hood covered most of his face, but I could still see his dark eyes, the reddened tip of his nose. In his arms was a girl, copper hair veiling the face pressed to his chest.
Elowen and I hurried down the steps, reaching the main floor just as my father tore open the door.
“Torrin?!” Vicsin breathed, his wide eyes dropping to the person in his grasp, then to the other copper-haired woman who stood beside him.
Gods, they were shivering.
“P-please, may we come in?” Torrin asked.
“By the Gods, of course.” Vicsin stepped to the side. “Come on in,” he insisted.
Torrin didn’t even notice El or me; his attention was solely on the girl, whom he brought over to the sofa immediately.
She was sleeping, or unconscious, I wasn’t sure.
Torrin quickly removed her boots, then her socks.
Her feet were red, her footwear not offering quality insulation for a frigid fall like this one.
Heildee tied up her curly maroon hair. “I’ll fetch some blankets!” she stated before rushing upstairs.
My cousin ran a hand over the pretty girl’s forehead. “Lena,” he murmured. “We made it.”
“Thank you for letting us in,” the brown-eyed woman said as she wiped her nose, tears of relief spilling down her cheeks. Vicsin placed a hand on her shoulder. “Torrin is family, which means you are too.”
I had to refrain from snarling.
Oh, yes, Vicsin is the family man of the year. Of the century.
At my darkening thoughts, my white-haired cousin turned, eyes bulging as he took me in, then my sister.
“Merrick,” Torrin breathed, and then rushed to me, pulling me into a hug. “My Gods…you look so different.”
I had to refrain from breaking into a sob as my arms wrapped around him.
I missed you.
“I missed you, too, buddy.”