Chapter 4 #2
A searing white-hot flame burned within me.
I dashed forward. Derrick raised his blade, but his expression never altered.
At the moment our blades would’ve clashed, I spun to the side.
Sliding one leg out, I dropped low to the ground, my blade catching the glint of the orange rays as it arced through the air at Derrick's lower half.
But he was too fast.
He flipped backwards effortlessly away from my blade.
I rose to my feet quickly, not wasting any time. I rushed him again, and this time, our blades met.
It’d been a long time since I moved like this. I’d dreamed about it for years, itching to return to the form I once loved.
Now, I’d get to see how rusty I was.
The rhythm of my breathing was paced and typical of combat, but Derrick stood still—as if he weren’t breathing at all. Didn’t he get tired?
Annoyed, I swung my blade horizontally through the air, but he dodged it effortlessly.
“You’re out of practice,” he said, his voice low and monotone.
I scowled, thrusting my blade against his hard enough that it sparked.
“Shocking, right?” I spat. “Maybe if you hadn’t vanished for two years, I wouldn’t be.”
“Three,” he said, thrusting my blade away and knocking me back several paces.
I paused to catch my breath, never taking my eyes off him.
He was right—my missing year.
I lunged, gripping the hilt with both hands, driving it forward from my hip. A loud cry escaped my lips. I put all my might into the thrust, aiming straight for his chest.
Everything stopped.
I didn’t move or breathe as I watched him. My blade pierced his sternum, only a fraction, but enough that the black material of his clothing soaked to a darker shade of black. His hands clapped over the blade, as if in prayer, holding it steady and firmly in place.
“Is a blood sacrifice enough to quell your fury for today?” he asked, his voice steady and unchanged.
I gasped as he shoved me, my grip on the blade slipping as I fell to the ground.
He dislodged the tip of the sword from his chest and returned it to the sheath at his hip.
I stared at the cut in his shirt. I knew it was deeper than a scratch, but he didn’t react to it at all. Seeing his blood, knowing it was my doing, broke something within me.
Thick, solid tears threatened to fall.
“Why?” I whispered. “Why did you have to leave?”
Derrick neared me, kneeling before me.
“I shouldn’t have. Please, Anna, forgive me.”
An endless warm wind blew my hair about my shoulders as I stood at the cliffside that overlooked the valley.
There was a storm on the horizon, dark clouds coming in with the night.
I was at the edge where the stone jutted out, providing the best view of the horizon.
The intense glow of the light’s rays being consumed by the storm forced my eyes open. Derrick watched next to me.
Deep shadows stretched behind us, the light casting an eerie glow that bathed the trees along the valley.
“Where’ve you been?” I asked.
Derrick’s silence wasn’t like other people’s. Other people had to find the right thing to say and still let it spill out of their mouths all wrong.
Not Derrick.
He already knew what he was going to say. He probably knew the question I was going to ask. And I already knew he wasn’t going to tell me.
Because that was how he was.
“I am sorry I could not be there for you, Anna,” he said.
I looked down into the ravine, at the river where the mountain lake’s overflow funneled and became cascading waterfalls as it flowed.
“It would’ve been nice to have you around,” I said. “But I’m glad that you weren’t. They would’ve arrested you.”
That would’ve been a valid reason for him to stay away. But that wasn’t it. Derrick was an enigma, not a liar.
“Do you remember the time we scaled this cliffside? Mom was pissed,” I said.
Derrick’s lips lifted at one side. “I do.”
The wind picked up, colder as the storm moved closer.
“You really don’t know where I was that year?” I asked.
Derrick's expression tightened briefly. “I looked for you everywhere.”
His words struck brutally, cracking my facade and ripping open scar tissue that I’d forgotten hadn’t always been there.
“You did?” I asked, my voice fragile.
“I did,” he said. “But I failed.”
I let out a shaky breath.
“I can no longer offer you the certainty that you will be safe, Anna,” he said.
“I don’t understand what changed,” I said. “Mom felt safe here. What happened that night?”
“I do not know,” he said. “And that is why I can no longer keep you safe.”
Cold drops of rain pelted my skin. Hearing Derrick talk like this, like he’d been rendered powerless, felt like a gaping hole had been torn into my body. He was the strongest and most confident person I knew, and for him to be scared, that terrified me to my core.
“Am I not safe here? Am I putting Susan and Katie in danger?” I asked, my voice only steady by fierce determination.
“You are vulnerable now, Anna. You are no longer hidden, and it is unclear why you were returned, but one thing is known—they expected me to reconnect with you,” he said.
My heart dropped into my stomach. “What does that mean?”
“It means my next move was anticipated, and for now, the goals of our adversary are aligned with our own,” he said, his voice distant and monotone.
“Who is ‘they’?” I asked. “And what do they want with me?”
Derrick narrowed his eyes. “If I knew, they wouldn’t have taken you.”
Rain was coming down harder now, numbing my skin.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do,” I said. “How can I move on? How can I stay here? I don’t know how to let go of this.”
“Staying here was never an option,” Derrick said. “It was a dream that your mother had.”
I thought of her porcelain face, still and quiet.
Pain ached at my core, deep inside my chest like a cancer slowly spreading. It wasn’t that she was gone. That hurt, but grief was natural. Grief faded over time. What I felt wasn’t grief, but regret. Regret for how she lived her life, or rather, how much she hadn’t lived. All for what?
For me to exist and feel guilty for the rest of my life? Her words haunted me, creeping into my mind at the most inconvenient times without warning, breaking down the walls that I’d constructed.
“It wasn’t until you were born that I truly understood unconditional love.”
“She was trying to protect me, wasn’t she?” I whispered.
Derrick shifted, and the warmth of his hand touched my skin like a summer breeze. Such an inconsequential thing to bring such joy. His voice broke through my thickest, innermost walls like twigs.
“Your mother loved you, Anna. But she kept you here long enough. It is time,” he said.
I glanced at him, squinting at the odd tone.
“Time for what?” I asked, curiosity taking root.
“For you to learn about Nightfall. It was perhaps the first real home that Adelyna ever knew and one that she forbade me from telling you about.”
Nightfall? My mom’s first real home?
“Why are you doing it now? I thought you were going to honor her secrets,” I asked.
“I intend to. But she was wrong about this—it is time for you to learn more about who you are,” he said. “But you will have to leave your life here behind. Forever.”