I couldn’t do anything but run. My mind was somewhere a million miles away, and my body was just running—running through the halls of
Ela’Dar, down endless stairs to the ground floor. I stumbled through the city, my eyes burning and blurry, reducing the world to indistinct shapes of ruin.
Nobody so much as glanced my way. Just another broken soul, they would think, in a kingdom now full of ghosts.
I kept running until my legs burned too badly, and then I walked as far as they could carry me. I didn’t know where I was going. When the cool embrace of the Pales’ shadows enveloped me, I was dimly surprised.
I climbed through the ruined Pales, scaling stories upon stories of black stone while tears rolled down my cheeks. It was sunset, the searing light setting fire to black stone in jagged gashes. The lights that were built into the stone still burned, however softly, and when the sun disappeared beneath the horizon, they simmered to life like a sky full of stars. I climbed through the corpse of my home until I got to the throne room. I pressed my palm to the violet stain on the floor.
Orscheid had died here. Her life had spilled here. And I thought, perhaps, I might have been able to feel some part of her here.
I need you, my sister. I need you.
But there was nothing of my sweet, kind sister here. There was only the mark of a life ripped violently from this world, too soon, like so many were.
Like Caduan would be.
I wept there for a long, long time, curled up on the cold floor.
Eventually I rose. I had no more tears. Everything inside of me had gone numb. I walked a familiar path through the halls of the Pales, avoiding chasms in the floors and piles of shattered stone, until I reached a little door to a little room.
I opened it.
The familiarity was like a dagger wrenched through my chest. And yet, this room didn’t even feel like it was mine. It had belonged to some other girl named Aefe, centuries ago, before she knew exactly how much she would lose.
A crack ran across the center of the room, but otherwise, everything else was untouched—all the way down to the moth-eaten bedsheets piled, forever unmade, on the bed. Mechanically, I got into the bed and wrapped those rotting blankets around my shoulders. They did little against the chill.
In another life, a lost Fey princess felt safe here.
I pressed my palm to the wall, just as that girl did every night. She took such comfort in the Pales, in the knowledge that she was connected to a thousand others in a home carved from the same piece of rock. She would press her skin to this wall and feel all of their souls here with her.
But tonight the walls did not feel like a connection to a thousand other souls. They just felt like stone.
 |
I DID NOT KNOW how long I remained there. I watched the sunlight paint jagged streaks over the wall through the cracks in the Pale, moving across the rock in a rhythmic pattern day after day. There was water here—the systems built into the Pales to funnel rainwater into aqueducts and pipes were still intact, so the faucet in my room still worked. I had little food other than what was already stuffed in my pockets, but I didn’t mind. I was not hungry. When my abdomen ached, I ate a couple of nuts. When my tongue was so dry it hurt, I drank a sip of water.
Then I returned to the bed.
Eventually, I heard my name ringing out through the hallways. No—not my name, a name, just one that I was known by before. It was silly of me to think I could ever claim that name again.
The voice was so distant at first that I thought it might be Caduan, a thought that sent a shock of pain through me—pain, and then dread, because I could not bear to see him.
But no, it wasn’t Caduan. I listened to the shouts grow closer and did not answer, not even when they were in my room, and grew suddenly silent.
“Aefe?”
Fear in his voice when I did not move.
Get up, Aefe. This is your friend.
I managed only to roll over, slowly.
Meajqa looked like the light within him had gone out. Even the false smile that permanently graced his lips had disappeared. And yet, at the same time, something seemed sharper about him, like a haze had been stripped away.
“Aefe,” he breathed, and sank to his knees beside the bed. “Are you alright? Are you hurt?”
I shook my head, and Meajqa’s face changed slightly in confusion. “Why didn’t you answer me? I have been looking for you everywhere.
Caduan thought you might be here, and I thought that seemed farfetched, but…”
His voice trailed off as he noticed how I was staring at him. A stare that went straight through him.
I was looking at Meajqa and thinking of his father. “I killed him.”
It was barely a whisper, hoarse and graceless.
A cacophony of emotion twitched across Meajqa’s expression. “I know.” And then, a moment later, “Good.”
I do not believe you, I thought.
Meajqa had so wanted revenge—against his father, against Nura, against the humans. I considered telling him that it changes nothing, that everything hurts just the same even after you pull that knife from your enemy’s flesh. But I did not.
Perhaps he already knew.
“I could not kill her,” he said, quietly. “I tried. I was— I had been drinking. Too much. I went alone. I wanted to watch her die. I thought it would fix… me.” His throat bobbed. “But you know what her magic is. Manipulation of fear, of minds. Even here, I…”
I realized what had changed about him. I realized that perhaps for the first time, I was seeing Meajqa utterly sober. No alcohol dulled his shame or his sorrow.
“I made a foolish, stupid decision, and now Ela’Dar suffers.”
I placed my hand over his, and the corner of his mouth rose in a weak smile, even though his eyes were still so sad.
“Come back to Ela’Dar with me,” he said, gently. “Caduan is—”
It hurt just to hear his name. My compassion for Meajqa disappeared under my own grief. I pulled my hand away. “I do not care.”
“It is bad, Aefe. He would not like how I’m describing this, but— it’s— I’m questioning—” He let out a breath, like the words were damaged. “It is bad. Please, come back with me.”
“Why didn’t he come?”
“He doesn’t want you to feel forced. He wants you to return of your own choice. Or at least, that’s what he…” Meajqa shook his head. “He doesn’t know that I’m here.”
I wanted Caduan to be here. I wanted him to fight for me. And at the same time, I didn’t, because if he did, it would only make it harder to watch him die.
The heartache was suddenly so intense that it took my breath away. “No,” I said.
Frustration decimated Meajqa’s features. “He loves you. He is terrified for you. He will never say it that way, not in those words, because it’s him and he is so… because it’s him. But anyone who knows him can see it.”
No, he did not.
To love someone is to want to keep them forever. To love someone is to curl up with their bloodstain on the floor. But it is not love to leave someone voluntarily. It is not love to cradle someone’s heart and take it with you to the grave.
“You love him too,” Meajqa said, quietly. “And you can—” “I do not,” I snapped.
“Liar.”
I did love Caduan. This realization hit me only now. I knew I loved him because I would do anything to keep him with me.
“He is dying,” I ground out.
Meajqa’s mouth closed, eyes going serious. “Yes. He is.” “Did you know?”
Please say no.
“Only now. I suspected something was wrong before, but I wasn’t certain.”
Words tangled in my throat. They were such clumsy instruments for this. I began to roll back towards the wall, but Meajqa’s hand grabbed my shoulder, stopping me mid-movement.
“He is desperate, Aefe. He is ready to storm Ara no matter what it costs. He feels he doesn’t have time for a measured response, for anything less than everything. I cannot describe how— how— He is just so calm. But the calm is what terrifies me. He is breaking. Please come back with me. Help me fix this.”
My whole body hurt, deep within, somewhere deeper than my bones. I hurt when I thought of the prospect of seeing Caduan’s face again. I hurt when I saw Meajqa’s suffering, right before me.
No one had told me this. That caring for others hurt so much.
I cannot help you, Meajqa. I want to, but I can’t. I am not strong enough for this.
I wasn’t even strong enough to say the words aloud. So instead, I said nothing.
Meajqa stood abruptly, his sadness replaced with anger.
“Do you think I don’t want to do this, too?” he snapped. “Hide somewhere where no one will find me? Cut away everything that would bring me pain? I still dream of the humans’ laboratory every night. I even still grieve my father. I shed tears for that traitor. Even now, I feel it.” His lip curled into a sneer. “And I would give anything to carve all that away. But I can’t, Aefe. I know because I’ve tried. I have tried to drown it in wine and smother it beneath warm bodies and strangle it with vengeance. But it persists. Only now have I finally realized that it always will. And our king… for the first time… I am afraid of him. Afraid of what he will do to kill his own fear, and what will die alongside it.”
So much. I knew it, too. Still, I said nothing.
Meajqa’s voice was hard with anger and rough with desperation.
“If not for him, then for me. We are friends, aren’t we? The two most broken things in Ela’Dar’s palace? I’m asking you not as a noble, not as Caduan’s lover, but as my friend. Come back with me. Please.”
Go with him. He is your friend. You care for him, too. He needs you. Be what he needs you to be.
But I couldn’t make my voice work. Could not make my body move. The weight of hopelessness and grief smothered me like a pillow made of lead.
When Meajqa looked down at me with disgust, a part of me reveled in it. It was easier to be hated than loved.
“Fine,” he muttered.
I rolled back to the wall and listened to his footsteps fade.
