Skylenna
Present Day
DaiSzek guards Niles’s body under the shade of a red oak tree while I walk with my family back to our house.
Moments after we arrive, so do Niklaus and my daughter.
Both shivering, covered in a dark blood and their skin a tint of blue.
Dessin ran to Sapphire first. My daughter appeared numb and in a dissociative daze until she saw him coming.
Her arms flung around his neck, and she bawled into his shoulder, sounding like a little girl again.
My husband rubbed her back rigorously, chasing the chill from her bones while he whispered many things that only seemed to make her cry harder.
I’ve dreamed of this very moment so many times.
Dreams that seemed to dwindle away in an effort to protect my sanity.
But as I watched them with tears running down my soot-covered face, I grabbed onto Nile’s boy.
He stared blankly as I rubbed his ice-cold back. I asked him if he wanted to be the one to tell his mother. He shook his head.
As we reach the lagoon, Dessin takes my hand in his and sets a firm kiss against my fingers. I grind my teeth to the point of searing pain blooming up the sides of my face. All to keep from breaking apart in front of my children.
But this is Niles.
My brother.
How am I supposed to hold it all together?
“You’re not leading the family alone anymore, baby,” Dessin whispers, stroking a thumb over my cheekbone. “I’m here now.”
I want nothing more than to fall into his arms and cry until my lungs go up in flames.
Every ounce of self-control I have is keeping me on a tight leash.
He’s my soulmate, and he’s back. There is no way to explain how I cannot settle on a feeling or thought when it comes to the sheer joy I feel about getting to climb into bed with my husband tonight and how I will ever mentally say goodbye to Niles.
Thinking about his name makes me want to watch his captor burn all over again.
Thinking about that last smile he gave me breaks a steel wall that’s keeping my meltdown held away from the public eye with a neat little bow.
Niles.
Niles.
Niles.
That’s my brother.
My brother.
I hear DaiSzek howl in the distance, and Dessin has to clutch my waist to keep my knees from buckling.
I hold on tighter, protecting my unpredictable emotions in a hidden cave of my mind.
Get through today.
Just make it until you’re all alone tonight.
Dessin inhales softly against my hair and kisses my temples.
Not alone.
Niles would be so happy for me.
I can do this. My children are behind me, sniffling and holding onto one another. My family is hanging on by a thread. I can do this.
A few steps away from the front porch, my front door swings open, and Chekiss quickly walks out, followed by Warrose and Ruth.
“You two made it home!” Chekiss cheers in a rusty voice. He jogs with wooden, short strides to Sapphire and Niklaus with open arms. They appear dazed and drowning as they accept his hug.
“Thank God!” Ruth sighs.
Warrose points at Krimson. “Never doubted you, buddy.”
Their smiles of relief pummel my chest. I feel stunned into place like a small animal being cornered by a lethal predator. I can only observe the short moments of them not knowing and live here a few seconds longer.
“How far did you go back in time?!” Ruth asks Sapphire.
Chekiss breaks their hug to rub their arms. “You two are making me cold. Are you hurt? Is that blood??”
“Is everyone okay?” Warrose asks.
Our family looks to my children for answers. But their eyes are magnetized to the ground. My family looks to Dessin and myself all at once.
Marilynn steps out of the house, staring firmly into my eyes. She has always had that all-knowing stare about her. Her eyes are archives—star-deep with unrecorded history lying dormant. But this gaze is much different.
She knows.
She knows what I haven’t said.
What I am about to say.
And grief needs no language as we share these last seconds. It sits between us, enormous, heavy, and breathing death into our souls.
“Wait…” Ruth says.
“Where is Niles?” Chekiss’s tone changes drastically.
There it is.
That three-worded question cleaves me in place. A question so razor-sharp, I am desecrated and pulled apart like an old doll.
Dessin’s hands steady me, acting as iron crutches. That support, that stability as I stare at Niles’s wife sends blood rushing to my face.
Chekiss is suddenly next to me. “Where is Niles?” he asks again.
I hear Ruth gasp.
Warrose looks to Dessin for confirmation.
“No…” Chekiss steps back as my eyes begin dripping.
“Niles?!” Ruth shrieks.
“Oh my god…” Warrose covers his mouth and turns away from us with his other hand on his head.
“No!” Chekiss’s scratchy voice rakes over us. “NO! Not my boy!”
Chekiss was the father neither of us had. Niles and I were the children Chekiss never got to raise.
I blink more tears in his direction but cannot bring myself to say anything. I hear my children sob behind us. But it’s Chekiss’s howl that makes me lose it. It’s raspy and dragged out to a long, raucous moan.
His sun-spotted hand spreads over his chest in shock, denial, then another collision of reality sinking in. He cries out as though a sword is lodging in his ribs.
“How did it happen?” Ruth cries.
“He was—executed,” I tell them in a faint whisper.
Ruth squeezes her eyes shut as Warrose drops to a knee and hugs her.
Krimson holds his grandpa up, murmuring reassuring words as Chekiss sobs.
I find Marilynn still standing, watching me with streams of tears drizzling over her freckled cheeks. “My son…” she gets out.
I turn my head to Niklaus. Sapphire lets him go as he bolts to his mother, back shaking against her arms as she whispers in his ear, nodding and crying along with him.
Dessin is behind me now, arms a protective wall around my upper body.
And my head falls back against his shoulder for just a minute.
I look up to the vast sky, at the shifting clouds, and rustling leaves.
Niles is here somewhere, watching his family fall to pieces over him.
And I know that must hurt far more than his death.
Marilynn finds my eyes again.
“Skylenna?”
“Yes, Marilynn?”
She wipes her face and reaches for my hand.
“Take me to my husband.”