Chapter 48 #2
Grandfather? He looked ancient, like the Maker. My eyes narrow at her as my mind slots the piece of information together. “Why do you insist on doing nothing, of being idle while they fight between themselves over what She gifts? Change something!”
“It is not my place!” She raises her voice to me, and I jolt back in my seat at the ferocity in it.
“Would you? If it were your place and you had a choice?” I don’t stop.
“It would need more than just your voice, Child, to see that change.”
We drift into silence, each weighing the conversation with sips of tea.
I didn’t side with Fenix—with my parents—because it wasn’t right. I still believe that. Kamari thought differently.
“Is there anything else you’d ask of me?”
I flick my eyes up to her empty ones. She knows what else is on my mind.
I just have to pull the courage to ask it.
“I would like to bury them. Kalan and Fenix. At the same place where my parents were buried.” She nods at me, understanding my unvoiced question.
That place is still a mystery to me—an unknown location near the lake.
Perhaps if I know, I’ll be able to find a sense of closure around my family and lay it to rest.
Maybe.
Ten helps me to dig the graves, as marked by the Maker. Despite the chill, my back burns, and my hands scream as I dig the shovel into the soil.
It’s a sombre place. The ground is still cold and saturated with slush from the melted ice after the storm. There’s no sign of the other bodies, nor of the Jarkoreth or Sur’gos. Part of me wants to ask why. But after everything, my thirst for answers seems to have quietened. For now, at least.
It isn’t the same for the rest of The Court. Ten says there will be many burials and pyres, yet the unrest at the heart of the battle remains.
We place their bodies into the ground, and my heart aches for the tragedy of it all.
Ten doesn’t speak. Doesn’t ask me if I’m alright, and I am relieved. How am I meant to tell him that a sense of sorrow has seeped inside of me and taken hold as I bury the brother who killed me? The brother who sought to drive so much pain into our lives.
Even now, even from death, he’s driving me to that familiar point, pulling at the stitches of my heart that are now frayed and tatty and unable to keep it whole.
As the sun begins to lower, I stand at the edge of the lake.
“Don’t do it again, Aslendrix. Don’t grant someone with magic like mine.
People have feared power, hidden truths, and killed, all in their own cause to keep Kirrasia safe.
Don’t gamble with that again.” I toss a pebble into the lake and watch the ripples span out as far as I can see, hoping that she will hear me.
The lake shines with all the colours I’d first imagined it might, the shades muted by the occasion perhaps, the lingering hue of snow casting over the water.
It’s tranquil. Lonely. I can almost feel a part of myself take root here. Like a piece of me—a piece that died—has left to be with my family—the graveyard of the Harts.
I turn and look over the dug earth.
I don’t leave a gravestone. However, I do place the brooch, Kalan’s brooch, into the bark of the nearest tree. A mark for him.
“Let’s go.” I grab Ten’s hand and start walking.
On the return, I detour to the training residence. There’s one thing there that I need. I take the opportunity to change out of the clothes Ten lent me this morning.
The room is still as it was. Books—stolen books—from the library on the desk.
I took them with only the slightest encouragement from Micah. He might have been shown the way, but I jumped in with both feet. Just like the Usher had done, stripping all the history of the Fifths for his benefit.
A cold chill drapes my shoulders, and I push it away. It’s the quartz stone I came for, not a reminder of where this started.
My mother’s ring is still on my finger. I thought about taking my father’s necklace from Fenix—reuniting the pair—but it wasn’t mine to take.
Not really. The only thing that has ever been mine is this pink pebble.
I stare at the dead flowers in the cup that the Maker apparently gifted me, but all I want to do is pick that up and throw it across the room.
“Ever?” Ten checks from the doorway.
“It’s nothing. I’ll change, and we can head back.” I pull some of the training clothes from the wardrobe along with a thick woollen jumper, and change.
Ten’s keeping his distance. He has all morning. We should be happy. We should be relieved, but as soon as I stepped out of the bath and saw everyone in his sitting room, it was like the ease and comfort we first felt had slipped away, draining through my fingers the harder I fought to hold on.
Walking back from the training residence, the scars of the fighting are all too clear to see.
The splendour hasn’t returned to the land. It’s dull and grey, the sunlight timid, as if not wanting to shine a light on the evidence before us. Scorch marks and chasms run through the ground, tearing up the land between here and the furthest line of Warrior tents.
Smoke clings in the air, and copper stings my tongue.
“That’s her.”
“The Fifth.”
Whispers gather strength, blowing towards me on an unkind breeze.
Ten’s body stiffens as he hears them too, looking around and trying to find the individuals who’ve spoken, but there’s nobody looking at us.
The trail of words doesn’t stop.
It’s what I knew would happen, the same as when I returned from my Transference, the joy and majesty of The Court has shifted to suspicion and doubt—fear. And it’s happening again.
Now, I must face it again. The scrutiny billows to life in front of me, bringing with it a new kind of fear, one I’m not ready to wrestle with. So, I keep marching and ignore everything I see, everything I hear, even if it threatens to unravel the avalanche of pain I’ve kept inside.
Tomorrow will be easier, and I squeeze Ten’s hand.
My emotions are raw. I’m grieving. That’s all.
I tell myself all these lies, but I know it won’t be easier.