Chapter 7
The stairs felt twice as high as they normally did as I took them two at a time on my rush upstairs. I couldn’t outrun the images of something so horrifying. I’d told him to take the rice. I should’ve taken it myself and given it to him—why did I tell him to do it? Why?
“Landry,” I called up the stairwell, grunting as I tripped over a step. “Landry!”
I was crawling out of my skin with nowhere to go.
He was dead. Dead for trying to feed himself. A part of me was angry for him, and another part was angry at myself for thinking this world could show even the slightest bit of mercy. Of course, it couldn’t.
They were monsters. Every last one of them was a vile, fucking monster.
I finally reached the landing. The dim orange of the hearth glowed from my ajar door, like Landry was waiting on me. I didn’t know what I needed from him. Maybe just to hold him in my arms where nothing would touch him. Where he would be safe from the cruelty of this place.
“Landry,” I said, charging up the last four stairs, pushing the door open. “I know you’re mad but—”
I stopped cold.
My eyes scanned the room as an uneasy feeling clenched my chest. The bed was made, the rainwater bucket had been emptied, and the whole space looked like it’d been tidied.
He didn’t own a lot of clothes, but the heavy trousers he wore outside and the only hat in his wardrobe were missing from the hook. His shoes were nowhere to be found.
I twisted around the empty room, my voice vacant as I called his name aloud like it’d make him appear. Something was wrong. It was like a rope was being severed inside my chest. A cord from him to me.
He couldn’t be…gone.
Then I saw it.
A note lay folded on the pillow of our bed. My chest was a hollow cavity, and my blood was running cold as I reached for it.
I read every word. And every word again.
I couldn’t tell if I was standing or sitting. I couldn’t tell if I was breathing as the room tilted on its axis. I pressed my hand over my chest where a new pain was gasping as it grew and grew.
He was gone. This boy I’d attached myself to since he was a starving child, had left me.
“Feloré,” a voice said.
The door. I didn’t even hear it open. Or maybe I’d never closed it because there stood Jaxlyn.
“Feloré,” he repeated. He was so pale. Pale as I’d ever seen him. “You have to come downstairs.”
I tried to speak, but my voice was a hoarse wreck. I wiped my eyes on my sleeve and finally said, “Go away. I need a minute.”
“I can’t.” Jaxlyn’s face was white as sand and his eyes enormous. He seemed almost in a trance. “You don’t understand. You have to come now.”
I blinked for a long several seconds. “Wait, why? What’s going on?”
“Downstairs,” he said, the word nearly swallowed by his erratic breath, “is the king of Novithia.”
The air got sucked from the room in an instant.
“The king is here,” Jaxlyn whispered. “And he’s asking for you.”
Dear Feloré,
Please don’t try to find me. It will only make this harder. I can never repay you for all you’ve sacrificed. Something tells me you wouldn’t accept it anyway.
I can only hope that my leaving will create room in your heart for something greater. You are destined for great things, Feloré. I’ve always known that, which is why I am not afraid of what the future holds.
Until our paths cross again, may we both carry fondness in our hearts for when they were one and the same.
Love deeply,
Landry