I
had made it approximately thirty-seven minutes before I realized that I was lying to myself.
A week ago, I had stormed out of the Towers convinced that I had no choice but to sever myself from all of this. I refused to become a part of the Orders’ scheming, and I refused to help them take advantage of Tisaanah more than I already, unwittingly, had.
I returned home. And I stood there at the edge of my property, staggering from my anger and despair and the addled disorientation of Stratagram travel, just looking at it. My little stone cabin, and that wild, overgrown expanse of flowers. It had been a beautiful day — sunshine, a gentle breeze, flitting butterflies and all.
Idyllic. A bastion of peace and tranquility. And in that moment, I hated it.
After the deaths of my family, I lost years to drugs, wine, and aimless wandering. A slower kind of suicide, perhaps. And when I finally clawed my way out of that self-destruction, I built a cottage too far away from the world to be bothered. I planted hundreds upon hundreds of flowers and told myself they were all the company I needed. Better than people anyway, I’d mutter to myself. Simpler to care for. More predictable. And much prettier.
And, to be fair, the flowers hadn’t done what Tisaanah had. They just sat there, swaying in the wind, with no intention of up and selling themselves to the organization that ruined my life. I didn’t have to run around begging them not to make blood pacts with Zeryth Aldris.
But they were also static and silent. They were simpler, yes, but they wouldn’t whisper stories of lost lands at night, wouldn’t joke or laugh. They were more predictable, but they had no dreams for a better future, no ambitions, no hope. And they were pretty, but they had nothing on Tisaanah’s lively beauty, the kind that changed a little each time I looked at her, as if I were discovering a new breathtaking facet with each of her expressions.
I just stood there, and all at once, I was struck by my own self-absorbed cowardice.
I’d spent years so smugly certain that I was somehow morally superior for opting out of a world that was cruel and imperfect and complicated.
Morally fucking superior. Me, sitting here alone with the flowers, while Tisaanah suffered. Me, living in this cottage that had become her home just as much as it was mine, going back to a meaningless life and telling myself, “Well, it’s the only thing I can do.”
I sank to my knees. And for thirty minutes, I sat there, coming to terms with what I was about to do.
When I stood up again, my decision had been made. Now, Tisaanah lay heavy against my chest, sleeping.
Though, I remembered enough about my time with Reshaye to know that it was really more like losing consciousness than “falling asleep.” Every so often my fingers would drift down to the inside of her wrist, relief in the warm beat of blood beneath fragile skin.
It had taken me a week to put my affairs in order, gather the supplies I needed, tie up loose ends. In some ways, I had been dreading coming here. But there was another part of me that felt an odd, primal sense of relief in the
weight of her against me. Like some missing puzzle piece had been restored.
I’d been surprised at how much I missed her. And here, in this moment, in the blur of my exhaustion and the pre-dawn silence, it was so unnervingly easy to forget why we were here.
So easy to forget that hours ago, I had listened to her live my most terrible memory.
To call it strange would be an understatement. To hear fragments of the worst day of my life whispered back to me from the lips of someone who had become so precious to me. To be reminded of everything I had already lost with while looking into the eyes of everything I had left to lose.
I dreaded morning.
How would she look at me, I wondered? Now that she knew about what I had done, and about the monster that now lived inside her? That thought scared me.
But not as much as my next one: The creature that had ruined my life now lurked behind those captivating mismatched eyes. I was scared of how she would look at me, yes. But I was terrified of how I would look at her, and the things I would feel when I did.
And so, for now, I was alright with this — the silence.
I wasn’t sure how many hours had passed when I felt her shift against me. I prepared to slide myself out from under her. I could only assume that the minute she was awake, this was about to get incredibly awkward. And we had damn more than enough to worry about already without addressing… whatever this was.
Tisaanah lifted her head and looked at me, and I froze. I knew right away that it wasn’t her.
The eyes moved too much. Tisaanah had a steady, piercing gaze, but this was all over the place, jumping from the ceiling to the floor to the blankets to me.
The corners of her mouth twisted into something only vaguely resembling a smile.
“Hello, Maxantarius.” Her voice was devoid of any accent, and hearing it that way sent a fiery jolt up my spine.
“Reshaye.” The word escaped as a low, choked snarl.
That unsettling gaze locked onto me, and the sudden steadiness in her eyes was somehow even more unnerving. “I have missed you,” she whispered, rough and gasping. “I always knew our story was not… complete…”
She—it—had to force out the last word, as if already losing its grip on control. Before I could react, the expression vanished, her eyes rolling back and fluttering closed. She went so still that I questioned whether she had even moved at all.
I brushed strands of black-and-silver hair from her face. Out. Totally out. Somehow, she looked more peaceful than before.
I let out a sharp breath, slumping back against the headboard, my heart pounding. My arms tightened around Tisaanah’s shoulders of their own accord.
Perhaps this could have been the part where I realized I’d made a terrible mistake.
Instead, I felt a different kind of fury scorch my veins, setting me alight.
Maybe Reshaye was right. Our story, apparently, was not complete. And I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t afraid. But I was also angry.
My fingers wrapped around Tisaanah’s. Squeezed.
If this wasn’t the end, then I was ready to write a better fucking conclusion this time.
Whatever it took.
