8. Chapter 8 #2
Somehow, knowing he had been so close made the wound his absence left slice even deeper. Uscal was only a couple of weeks away by ship, not nearly as far as the mainland, where I had assumed he was all these years.
"Uscal is different from Wellea in just about every way, I've heard," I said, moving my eyes back to Rida, too afraid to see the truths I knew his expression couldn't hide.
I'd heard little of what the island to the south was like, only that it was sunshine and sand, where Wellea was nimid trees and cold, whipping winds.
Maybe Uscal was where he really wanted to be, and he only dragged himself back here because he felt sorry for me and the other Mother Blessed who lived here.
"It is," Malik agreed. "But nothing could ever compare to home."
I was silent for a moment, a sudden wave of insecurity washing over me despite his words. What did he think of me, having never left our home, when he had gone so easily, seeing parts of the world I could only imagine? "Was home everything you expected it would be when you came back?"
"It's hard to say," he responded, clearing his throat. "I expected to spend more time in Sorrel."
I was hesitant to blame what happened in Sorrel on Malik, yet I could not deny that their arrival had disrupted what little routine and precious peace our village had been able to find.
I hummed in response, not trusting myself to answer, too many emotions swirling through me to make sense of them.
"I know I—" Malik started.
"Don't," I said, my voice firm but soft.
I wasn't ready to talk about it, what he had done, what he had asked of me, and how, following his return, my world turned on its head in a matter of moments.
The loss of it all still stung, the unanswered questions of what would happen to my brother, my mother, and all the other Mother Blessed now making a home in my mind.
Malik and I had left so quickly, without a second thought, and now I couldn't help but wonder what would become of them, if maybe I should have stayed behind after all.
"Lyra," Malik sighed out, indignation clear in his voice, the sound of my nickname comforting in a way I wish it was not.
I didn't want his familiarity. I didn't want to feel so vulnerable in front of him. At least, not yet. He had caused so much strife in the course of an evening, and it was all just now catching up to me, the pain of it all like a phantom knife slicing deep into my heart.
"You realize what this means, don't you?" I asked, turning around to face him, my voice shaking. "What you've done, what you and your family have set off by coming in and asking me to marry you like that?"
He looked me in the eye as he said, "You have every right to be angry with me, Allyra."
I looked at him then, not sure what to say.
Because he was right, I was angry, and that recognition sliced me deep, deeper than anything I had felt in a long time.
I had felt such anger only once—just after Malik left, when the reality that he was never coming back finally sank in.
I had to learn how to make a life around that anger, how to let it exist beside me, never allowing it to become who I was, even when it threatened to consume me, when I felt adrift without him.
And over time, through much effort and strife, that anger had faded into a deep hum that only grew louder when I thought of the past and everything our life could have been, which I avoided when I could.
But now, with Malik's return, that anger had taken on a new life, one that wished to lash out, to scream and cry and point and blame.
It was strange, looking at the man who was once my place of safety, the only thing to ever calm me down.
Now I felt lost, that anger coursing within me, Malik naming it so easily with just one glance.
No one knew me as well as he did, as I hadn't let anyone else in like I had him, for fear that they would leave me too.
I had put on a show all these years, and now, standing before Malik, I realized it did not matter how much I performed, because he would always be able to see right through me.
"If things were different, what would your answer have been?" he asked, breaking the silence between us.
I studied him, taking in the way his hair fell over his eye to the scar from the Shroud that ran over his lip, looking at the face I had once known so well and how much it had transformed from the boy who left to the man who stood in front of me.
There were so many things I wanted to say, yet I was unable to make sense of them.
"I can't answer that, Malik, because things aren't different," I said finally.
"When will we talk about it?" he asked.
"I don't know," I said. "I need time, and answers, Malik, before I can—" Before I can answer you, before I can lay my heart out to you again. I closed my eyes, sighing. "I just need time."
"I understand. I will wait for as long as you need," he said. "In the meantime," he continued, "you need to get some rest."
I shook my head. "No, I'm fine. We need to keep going. We aren't far enough from the village yet." I turned on my heel and continued walking, determined to at least turn the corner of the river before we settled in for the night.
"You are not fine," Malik said, reaching for me initially before hesitating. He looked into my eyes then, stripping me down to my very core, as if it was as easy as breathing. "You look exhausted, Lyra."
My breath caught in my throat at his words and the soft way he spoke them—the exact opposite to Therian—because he was right, even if I didn't want to admit it to myself.
Ever since the Shroud, I had pushed myself past my limits, working day and night to ensure Sorrel's survival.
It gave me purpose, and it gave me a distraction.
But I had ignored the signs my body gave me, working harder every day until the exhaustion sank into my bones and I knew nothing else.
That exhaustion became who I was and not once had anyone noticed just how hard I pushed myself, how much I gave everything I had to Sorrel.
Yet Malik noticed in just the few hours he had been back.
I felt the fatigue of the last ten years weigh down on me at his words, at finally being seen by someone other than myself.
My hands shook violently, and I shoved them into the folds of my cloak to steady them, the threat of everything I had been holding in threatening to crack at the first sign of tenderness.
"Please," Malik asked. "We can wake early tomorrow and keep going. But you need to sleep."
I sighed, my shoulders slumping with the exhalation of my breath.
I felt my body release just a fraction of the stress I knew it was holding, almost as if it knew I was finally safe to rest, just a little.
I turned around, hiding the swell of emotions that rose up within me, ones I wasn’t ready for Malik to see.
“Okay,” I answered. “We can stop here.”
I found a spot near a grouping of nimids that would keep us relatively covered as we slept. And as I lay there, I tried with all my might to ignore everything that raged within me, trying my best not to think about Malik lying beside me, his breaths and the quiet of the forest the only sound.
Sleep did not come easily that night. Rida pulled at me, as if she had strings tied around my every limb, drawing me towards her with every breath I took.
I had never felt Rida so intensely before then, and I wondered if that slow, itching hum I felt crawling beneath the surface all these years was finally coming to its pinnacle or if it meant something else.
It ignited a curiosity I had not felt in some time, some slumbering part of me that I had buried deep all those years ago awaking at the feeling, the same one I had been all those years ago before Malik left.
Deep within myself did I bury that girl who watched the mountains with a glint in her eye, who ran through fields barefoot and dove into cold mountain streams naked.
She was blurry in my mind now, just out of grasp, but she was there.
I wondered if that was who Malik was expecting when he returned, only to be disappointed with what he found.
Still, I could feel that girl within me, fighting for a way out, reaching for the Malik she knew was deep inside of him as he slept next to me. Maybe together they could face all of this. Maybe together we would find those versions of one another again.
Lying there, I wondered: How had the last ten years changed Malik? Did he still lead with his left hand when he sparred? Did he still prefer tart wines to sweet ones? Did he still pretend to not be nervous when all eyes were on him?
I watched the eir for a long time as I willed my mind to slow, their migration to Rida now mirroring my own.
I had always been a little jealous of the celestial creatures that freely traveled between the Caelium and Yllsora and wondered what it was like for them, seeing both the home of the Divine and the worlds they created, how similar and different they might be.
Minutes or maybe hours passed as I watched them, until finally, I drifted off, the caress of the winter wind across my skin lulling me to sleep.