Chapter 27 Quil #3
“Of course,” Quil said, reaching out with his magic for the memory, which waited at the forefront of Suf’s mind.
In the memory, Sufiyan stumbled through the desert after his father and sister Karinna, his expression panicked.
Dust swirled through the air, and ahead of him, Karinna cursed as she tripped over something in the dark.
They moved swiftly toward a high, chimneylike rock formation. Quil recognized it immediately.
They were in the badlands north of Nur, where Ruh died.
Quil saw himself in the memory, lurching through a gateway glowing an eerie blue, pale and sweating as if in battle shock. “E-Elias,” he said when the big man reached him. “Ruh—he’s—and Ilar—they’re both—they—”
“Where is he?” Elias growled, but his voice shook. “Where’s Ruh?”
“He—Elias. He—”
“Show me,” Elias said.
Dread bloomed in Quil’s stomach as he watched himself go back through the gate.
Down the long trail and into a cave with glowing blue walls.
They passed another gate, this one carved with terrible, twisting figures.
Sufiyan slowed, eyes wide in terror as he watched Quil and his father enter a chamber ahead of them.
Even from here, the stench of blood filled the air.
“Sufiyan,” Karinna said as her father entered the chamber. “Come on.”
But Sufiyan remained rooted to the spot. All was silent. Then he heard the worst sound he had and would ever hear. His father, sobbing.
“Damn you, Sufiyan,” Karinna cried, her eyes red and streaming, teeth bared in a snarl as if the very idea of tears enraged her. “We are going in there. We need to see. We need it seared in our minds so we can kill the monster that did it.”
But Sufiyan remained frozen. For a moment, Karinna waited, clearly expecting Sufiyan to join her.
He did not.
Quil blinked and was back on watch with Sufiyan, who stared out into the dark, jaw clenched.
“She waited there, Quil,” he whispered. “Expecting me to walk in, but I couldn’t.
I was afraid. I’m so ashamed.” His voice broke then.
“He was my little brother and I didn’t have the courage to look at what happened to him.
I’ve—stabbed people. Broken bones. Broken hearts.
Killed people, even. But not walking into that cave—that’s still the worst thing I’ve ever done. I think about it every day.”
Sufiyan’s head was in his hands. Quil did not know what to say. But he knew this feeling. This self-loathing. He experienced it when he ran from Navium. When he watched the bombs destroy the Ikfa. When he realized Spiro Teluman was dead.
Sufiyan’s memory wasn’t simply the experience of refusing to walk into a cave. It was the guilt that had festered because of it, forever linked to that single recollection.
“I can’t take the memory away, Suf,” Quil said. “I fear I might take more than I mean to, and I don’t want to do that.”
Sufiyan wiped his eyes and shrugged. “Doesn’t matter, I suppose. I can’t remember his face, you know. I mean—I remember, but I can’t see it perfectly. The way I wish to.”
“Maybe I can help with that,” Quil said gently. “It might not be an entire memory, but—”
“You would give me a memory?” Sufiyan said. “Of yours?”
“I’ll try.” Quil hoped to the skies he knew what he was doing. “I just…don’t want to accidentally harm you.”
“Ha. As if your utter unwillingness to do the dishes isn’t harmful enough.”
Quil snorted before forcing himself to be serious and trying to settle on a memory of Ruh.
“Do I need to do anything?” Sufiyan said. “Face you, or jump three times—”
“Just sit there looking moody like usual,” Quil said.
“I don’t look moody—”
“You can’t help it; it’s just your face. Shush.”
As Sufiyan grumbled, Quil closed his eyes and searched his own mind for a memory. He chose a simple one: sitting beside Ruh while fishing near Navium, listening to him tell the story of an ornery owl. He thought of Diriya’s words. Memory lives in the body, in the blood, in the bones.
He did not think of the image of Ruh, or fishing. Instead, he thought of how he’d felt—that sense of marvel at the images Ruh wove. The peacefulness that suffused him on the quiet river with a child who was like his little brother.
The memory seemed to bloom in Quil’s mind. To glow. Before, he’d tried pushing the images he saw into his companions—but it never worked. Now he offered Sufiyan the feeling of that memory first. When he released his magic, he opened his eyes to find that Sufiyan was shaking.
At first, Quil thought he was laughing. Another failed attempt. But then he saw Sufiyan’s face.
“Oh hells,” Quil said. “I’m sorry—” But he didn’t know what he was sorry for. After a long moment, Sufiyan brushed his hands across his eyes, almost angry.
“You saw him so clearly, Quil,” he said. “You appreciated him. Took—took him fishing and listened to his stories. Why didn’t I? He was my little brother. The only one I had. Why didn’t I see him the way you did?”
But Quil had no answer for that. Sufiyan stood abruptly.
“I’ll check the perimeter,” he said, leaving Quil to wonder if his magic was good for anything but dredging up pain.