Chapter 29 #2
And I knew she would clear me of my sins, because she was good, and warm, and loving, and the sunshine in my hour of darkness that drove back the night and lit the path to redemption for me.
But I had never told anyone this.
It had been my secret—my burden—since that dreadful night.
Breaking centuries of silence was far harder than I had imagined, as if every year that had passed had added another layer to the dam, shoring it up and making it harder to tear it down.
I kept my eyes on our hands, unable to look her in the eye as I fought to form the first word—that spear that would punch through the dam, forming the break in it that would allow others to follow.
Drew down a deep breath.
And pushed it from my lips.
“The…” My fingers tightened against hers, holding them in a bruising grip, and rather than snapping at me for hurting her or pulling away, she held mine just as fiercely, silently telling me that she was there.
My absolution was there, waiting for me.
I only needed to confess my sins. “The night my parents were killed and my brother abducted… I was there.”
My breath left me on a shaky exhale.
My shoulders sagging as the weight on them disappeared in a handful of words that punched through that dam in my heart. Pain and dreadful things flowed out of it, swirling in my mind, but I pushed them aside, refusing to drown in them, needing to finish what I had started.
“My mother… she made me hide. When the attack started and she knew what might happen… when the seelie were closing in on us… she made me hide in a secret compartment in the wall and she signalled for me to remain hidden.” My throat tightened, my voice hoarse as I pushed words that shredded my soul out of my lips.
“Even as the seelie—” I cleared my throat.
“Even as the seelie had her… even as he beat her… she kept looking at me. She kept… she kept telling me to remain hidden. I wanted to go to her. I wanted to go to her… but…” I shook my head and toyed with Saphira’s fingers, fighting to keep myself grounded as shadows pooled around me, as they wanted to tear at that ghost of a male who haunted me, killing him as he had killed my mother.
“He slit her throat right in front of me.”
“Oh, Kael.” Her face crumpled as she pulled me into her arms, holding me tightly. “I’m so sorry.”
My head sank back onto her shoulder as I wrapped my arms around her, reassuring myself that she was whole. Safe. Nothing so terrible would ever happen to her. I would never allow it.
“He killed her and I stood there, hidden… Watching through the faint crack around the door. Not strong enough to save her and too afraid to try… and I have lived with that shame for centuries.”
Her fingers caressed a line down my spine, her voice a tender and concerned whisper as she said, “Does Vyr know?”
I did not answer that question.
But I sensed her mood shift.
She knew without me confirming it.
“Why have you never told her?” she whispered, no accusation or reproach in her soft voice, none of what I knew I deserved for never telling my dearest sister what I had done.
I sighed and sat up again, relinquishing her because I needed her to see the depths of my shame as I told her. “How could I tell my sister I had been there when our parents were murdered and I had done nothing? How could I tell her I had failed to save them?”
“You were a child, Kael.” She seized my hands again, something like anger flashing in her eyes as she held them tightly, squeezing them hard, and her brows furrowed. “You were just a boy, and your mother wanted to protect you. You did what was right in order to survive as she wished.”
I snarled at her. “I was weak. Pathetic. I failed them!”
Her tone softened as her grip loosened, her eyes darting between mine. “What do you feel you could have done?”
I twisted my hand free of hers and shoved it through my hair, tightly gripping the black strands and pulling them back as frustration coiled tight inside me. The answer to that question echoed in my mind, the same one that had tortured me then tormenting me even now, centuries later.
“I do not know.” My shoulders sagged, all the fight draining from me as I stared at her, as I hurtled back in time to that fateful night and my limbs shook with the weakness that had infested them and my mind in that terrible moment.
I scrubbed my hands over my hair again, clawing it back, gritting my teeth against the frustration that mounted inside me as I thought about what I could have done, as I ran through those frantic moments over and over again, trying to find the answer.
“Something. I could have done something. I could have gone for help. I could have gone for the guards. I could have done something! But instead of helping her, I stood there, too damned scared to move, wrapping myself in shadows and hiding… watching as they… as they—”
I choked.
Unable to say it.
Saphira moved to kneel between my legs, framed my face with her palms and forced me to look at her, into soft and understanding eyes that seemed to reflect some of the pain ripping me apart.
“It wasn’t your fault, Kael,” she whispered, her brow furrowing as she held my gaze. “What happened… it wasn’t your fault.”
“It was,” I snapped and tried to wrench free of her, but she growled and held me firm, and I felt the command in that snarl, an order to listen to her.
She did not understand. She did not understand how useless I had felt in that moment, how afraid I had been, or how weak.
I growled right back at her, snarling in her face as anger and frustration overwhelmed me.
“I could have saved them if I had been stronger.”
She flinched.
Pain welled in her eyes, and I knew. She did understand. She understood how useless I had felt in that moment, how afraid I had been, and how weak I had felt, because she had lived it.
Stronger.
We both felt that word in our hearts. A broken and desperate word that tormented us.
How different our lives might have been if we had been stronger.
We might never have met.
She eased back to sit on her heels, her hands falling to her thighs.
“You need to forgive yourself. Your mother wanted you to live. It was her dying wish that you live.” She sighed, exhaling softly as she looked at me, her blue eyes warming and softening.
“I understand. Everything you’ve done… it’s because you need to feel worthy of her sacrifice.
You needed to make something of yourself, to be someone deserving of such an act, so you could shed the guilt you feel.
So you could forgive yourself. But there’s nothing to forgive, Kael. ”
She leaned forwards, gently taking hold of my hands, as if she had seen my need for contact, for her to hold me together as her words tore my soul apart, cleaving that dam open layer by layer in a way I had not been able to myself.
I wanted to believe her words, but my heart and soul roared a denial.
I was to blame for this.
I should have been stronger.
I would be stronger.
“Your mother gave you a gift, Kael.” Her words silenced that roar, stilling the tempest within me.
“She gave you a beautiful gift born of her love, and one I know feels like a burden to you, but that wasn’t what she wanted.
She wanted you to live… to continue to smile—to laugh—not feel guilty and let what she gave you eat at you and destroy you.
She never would have wanted you to feel guilty about it or pained by her decision.
She gave you this gift of life because she loved you, and you need to accept it rather than constantly try to be worthy of her sacrifice. She thought you were worthy of it.”
She lifted her right hand and smoothed the braid on that side of my head behind my ear, then gently stroked her fingers down my neck, her look soft as she smiled at me.
“I know it’s hard. It’s hard not to feel guilty.
To feel angry. To feel weak. Don’t hold it all inside and let it fester.
You weren’t to blame for their deaths, and trying to save her would have resulted in your death too, and she would have sacrificed herself for nothing.
She wanted you to live, and that’s what you did.
You granted her last wish and I’m sure she went to your ancestors with an unburdened heart, at peace and ready for her next life. ”
My throat closed, chest constricting painfully as I let those words wash over me, as I thought about all I had done and felt in the years that had followed that night, squandering the precious gift my mother had given me, tearing apart the boy I had been and moulding myself into a weapon, a blade sharp enough to carve out the vengeance I craved and believed would make me worthy of her sacrifice.
Saphira leaned in and brushed her lips across mine, each sweep of them stealing away a fragment of the tension I felt, slowly lifting it from my shoulders.
And then she did the most delicious thing.
She sat back, her gaze fierce and unyielding, bright with her wolf side.
“I’ll do whatever I can to help you with your vengeance, Kael. I will do whatever it takes to deliver it to you and help you find out what happened to your brother.”
Gods, if I had not already been in love with her, I might have fallen for her as she swore that oath to me.
“I may hold you to that, Saphira.” I drew her into my arms, holding her against my bare chest, and eased back onto the mattress, bringing her down with me.
When her head settled against my shoulder, her breath skating across my chest and her scent swirling around me, I felt more at peace than I had ever felt, as if all was right with the world now, and I was not sure it was because I had unburdened my heart and she had offered me absolution, a path to walk to be free of my guilt—live, laugh, smile again.
Be the male my mother had fought to protect and had given her life for, one I was already becoming thanks to the little wolf who curled into my side as if it was the most natural thing in the world, as if this was normal for us.
I gently lifted her with my shadows, gaining a grumble of displeasure that turned to a sigh as I slipped the covers out from beneath her and settled her onto the mattress beside me, and covered her.
She draped herself over me, one arm falling across my chest and her hand gripping my shoulder as her inner thigh came to rest on the front of my legs.
I wrapped my arms around her, holding her close and listening to her breathing as it began to calm and grow deeper, and the weight of her against me increased as she drifted off to sleep.
My fingers played in her hair as I thought about all she had said to me, as I saw that night through new eyes and the guilt I felt was tempered for the first time by the overwhelming love in the final look my mother had given me, in her words when she had begged me to hide and survive, to conceal myself no matter what happened and live.
I would live.
Fate had given me a reason to, and it rested in my arms, safe in the shelter of my embrace.
I brushed my lips across Saphira’s forehead.
And whispered.
“Sleep well, nyr ill’aeth ky’aethena.”