Chapter 30
Chapter Thirty
Roremar
“Rore, sit down,” Lola said for the fifth time. Or the seventh. Or Fates knew how many times his sister had told him to take a seat in this windowless, white-tiled sequestering chamber in the basement of the barracks.
“Sit down?” he roared. “Lola, someone was murdered, and they threw me in another damn cage. How can I just sit down?”
“Because you’re driving yourself mad, and me, too, with your pacing,” Lola snapped. She kicked out the chair beside hers. “Sit.”
Sighing, Roremar collapsed into the seat, the back legs wobbling with his weight.
He leaned against the stiff wood, tilting his head toward the ceiling.
The mystlight orbs flickering in their rusted fixtures made his eyes water as he tried to pick through the entirely illogical fact that he was sitting here.
“Walk me through it again,” Lola said calmly, hands on the chipped porcelain teacup one of the guards had offered her. At least they allowed her to stay with him—though he wasn’t offered anything to drink.
Roremar dropped his gaze to the floral pattern on the cup as he recited the day’s events. Again.
“I was never alone. Not since I woke up this morning. We were broken into smaller groups and had meetings with Rocarri and the Governors about the commitments expected of us the next few days before the second trial. They said everyone will have a private meeting with Emmeline.” His jaw ticked over that, and he dragged his hands down his face, bracing his elbows on his knees.
“Around those, we’re expected to mingle with Starsearchers.
They’ve sold tickets to different opportunities to meet us so everyone can decide who they’d like to wager on. ”
The show of it all grated through him.
“What next?” Lola prompted when he paused.
“When the schedules were decided, I was in the group led to the training yard behind the barracks. There were soldiers there at all times, and we were partnered up.”
“Who were you paired with?” Lola asked, though he’d already told her. He knew what she was doing—asking him guiding questions, prompting his mind to put together the pieces in a different manner. It was the same way Desmond always tried to help him through puzzles.
“Rian. He’s a good fighter—he’s in my bunk, from a coastal city originally, I think.
” Roremar’s mind flicked through the profiles of every tournament contestant, laying out the details he’d gathered of each man, the ticks and habits.
“He keeps to himself—the others underestimate him, so they paired him to spar with me—but I think he stands a chance.”
His chest unknotted as he went through it all methodically.
“That’s important to note,” Lola commented. “I’ll be sure everyone knows to keep an eye on him.”
Emmeline. She would ensure Emmeline knew whom to look out for in her private meetings this week. The thought made him sick.
“There were soldiers with us all day, Lola.” He shook his head as he met his sister’s eye, stomach churning. “I wasn’t chained, but I wasn’t alone. Then, City Guard showed up and herded us inside.”
And he’d been thrown in here without an explanation other than there had been another death. It wasn’t until Lola showed up and told him what happened that the crushing defeat landed. That his mind blurred and the waves drowned him.
Roremar sighed, running a ringed hand through his hair and dropping his chin in his palm. He didn’t take his eyes off the white tile floor, staring at nothing until his vision blurred.
Barely audible, he whispered, “What if they’re right?”
Fates, he hadn’t wanted to voice it, but what if he had somehow killed that woman?
“No,” his sister demanded. “Don’t you dare start to think it. It’s not possible.”
He peeked at Lola from beneath his dark waves. His throat stung, hands shaking. “I didn’t think it was possible before either, but what if I did it again?”
“That was different, though, Rore. That was when you were sleeping or were intoxicated. You’ve done none of that today—you’ve been with people all day, for Fates’ sake!” She shook her head, blue eyes determined. The blue eyes Roremar had once shared—his more clouded—now faded to grey.
“What if there’s a way? What if it was me? Who else could it have been?”
Guilt choked his words as Nico’s dying breaths rattled through his ears. As their father’s last words echoed in his mind. As their blood warmed his skin.
His breaths turned short. Not enough air was getting to his lungs. Only that damn water. His hands trembled.
He had to move, had to get out of here—
Shoving upright, his chair clattered to the ground, and he raced to the side of the room, emptying the contents of his stomach in the bin. Roremar dropped to the floor, shuddering.
Lola crouched beside him, brushing his hair back from his clammy brow with a gentle touch and forcing his stare to hers.
Fates, she was becoming more like their mother every day.
She had their father’s adventurous heart, sure, but that nurturing instinct, that quiet understanding—that was all Chrysta Silventa.
And it had Roremar aching for home, for his family he tried not to think of because he was nothing but a threat to them.
“I can’t be responsible for it,” Roremar admitted. “I’ve already taken both our father and our brother from us as well as countless others from their families.”
Not countless.
Eight on Lyra. He could count every one. Saw their faces every night.
And now, a ninth.
Every word shook as he forced it out. He’d pushed the guilt from his mind as often as possible since arriving in Valyn.
Learning how they were using Emmeline had given him something else to focus on, but the truth of what he’d done—of the crimes his hands had committed—always lingered beneath the surface.
“You aren’t responsible for it, Rore.” Agony crumpled Lola’s expression. “I know you’re a stubborn ass, so no matter how often I say it you won’t listen, but none of this is your fault.”
His mind couldn’t reconcile those two things—how they could both be true.
He’d killed innocent people.
It wasn’t his fault.
“It should have been me,” he said in a hoarse whisper, falling back and scooting away from Lola.
She shook her head, lip jutting out like their brother, Leo’s, so often did when he was upset. “Nico wouldn’t have wanted—”
“Nico would have wanted to live!” Roremar interrupted, and finally, he let it all out.
“Nico deserved to live! I don’t—not after Father, and not after everything that’s happened since.
Nico…he had so much good. So much life to live.
He and Myrella were going to do good together, and instead, I’m this cursed vessel for a Fate to use.
” Roremar pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes until colors popped in the darkness, smearing away Nico’s death.
“I can’t do this. Fuck, I can’t handle this. ”
He couldn’t withstand the pain on his shoulders. How did Lola not get that? Ever since the Trade House, he felt like he was screaming for help, trying to make sense of everything that had happened, but no one was answering.
He couldn’t live while Nico died.
He couldn’t carry the weight of this grief anymore, this completely unending path.
No light—there was no light at the end of it—and he couldn’t do it.
Slim hands gripped his wrists, pulling his palms down.
He blinked to adjust to the light. “You don’t have a choice, Rore.
” His vision focused on his sister, her expression surprisingly hard.
“I know it sounds cruel, but what do you really think would change if you weren’t here? We’d forget about you?”
“I’m a threat to all of you.” Realization slammed into him, and he scurried away from her. “Especially you, Lola. Fates, you shouldn’t be here right now.” Panic gripped him, icy waves churning in his chest as he remembered what Fate she was tied to. “You need to go.”
“I don’t care about my fucking Fate tie!
” Lola sliced through his words. And that—that wasn’t his mother’s sternness or their father’s quiet discipline.
That was a fire that only belonged to Alana Silventa.
“We need you. We needed you when Father died, and we need you now. Spirits, Roremar, don’t you see you’re the only reason any of us are still alive?
Mother did all she could, but she couldn’t have taken care of all six of us on her own—let alone with Vivienne being a baby and Siena a newborn.
Nico, Leo, and I would have been so lost without you.
Nothing would be better if you weren’t here, it only would be a much worse hardship. ”
“Nico would be here, though.”
“We don’t know where any of us would be,” she said. “Please, Rore. Don’t make us mourn a second brother if we don’t have to.”
And those words—they did it. They cracked him open, reached through the surface of grief he’d been stuck beneath, and wrenched him up.
“I’m trying, Lola.” He shuddered as a huge gulp of air made it into his lungs. His rings cracked against the tile as he dropped his hands. “It’s really fucking hard when I don’t understand any of it.”
“I’m only asking you to try.” Tears welled in his sister’s eyes. “One day at a time, okay? That’s all any of us can do. Please, don’t leave us, though.”
Don’t leave us.
They needed him—Lola, the rest of their siblings, their mother. He’d taken enough from them already; did he have to be another thing they lost? Maybe there was a way he wouldn’t. With his mind as messed up as it currently was, he couldn’t be sure. But if there was, he’d find it.
“I have this sick feeling Dryvius isn’t done with me.”
“We’ll figure it out,” Lola whispered. “I promise.”
And Fates did it feel good to let himself believe that, to ease that burden slightly.
The door to the sequestering room swung open, mystlights from the hall flooding in and silhouetting the figure in the entrance.
“Glad to see you’re holding it together,” a dry voice said.
“Rian?” Roremar asked.
His fellow contestant held out a hand—a glass of water, Roremar realized as he shifted to block the light.
Roremar took it, rinsing his mouth out and chugging the rest as Lola asked, “What’s happening out there?”
“You’re cleared for now,” Rian said—always a man of many words.
“Oh, thank the Fates,” his sister breathed, throwing herself at Roremar and wrapping her arms around him. But over her shoulder, Rian shut the door. At the swift click, Lola turned around.
“What are you doing?” Roremar asked.
Rian righted the chairs at the table and said, “I need to speak with both of you.”