I
barely even tried to sleep that night. The echoes of what I had seen in Nura’s shadows were burned into me, so
visceral that remnants of that panic sat beneath every breath. But even worse were the images that I saw when I closed my eyes, bloody scars from the battle and the aftermath.
I was so exhausted that my mind and body hurt. But I couldn’t just lie there any longer. Eventually, I slipped from my bed and retreated outside into the garden, the cool dampness of the bare earth beneath my feet a relief. The flowers had exploded since the spring, thriving in the moist heat that had descended upon us in these last weeks. Vines and leaves tickled my ankles as I traced my steps through the paths.
Clip.
Clip.
Clip.
I turned my head and saw a figure crouched in the garden. A soft orange glow lit up Max’s face as he focused intently on the rose bush he was tending.
I walked over and settled beside him. Every movement made my limbs ache, and I knew Max was still feeling the effects too. I glanced at his shoulder, where in the moonlight, I could see the dark stain of old blood still soaking through his shirt. He’d refused Sammerin’s offer to heal it, insisting that his energy was better spent on those in greater need.
Clip.
“You too, huh?” he asked as he plucked another wilted blossom, collecting the dying petals in his hand before incinerating them with a gentle burst of fire, letting the ashes fall into the soil.
“Yes.”
I watched Max’s profile, his straight nose and serious mouth illuminated by moonlight and the flicker of his fire. Max’s mouth, I had noticed, was rarely still—usually set in concentration, twisted in a sneer, or curled in a sarcastic smirk. But not now. Now, he just looked tired, drained, as if the events of the past few days had stripped away the muscles beneath his skin.
And he went out there for me.
I drew my knees up to my chest, rested my cheek on my kneecaps.
“I know it was difficult for you,” I whispered. I didn’t need to say what I was referring to.
“It’s difficult for everyone. That’s just how it is.” His eyes flicked to me, eerily bright even in the darkness. “And how are you?”
“Fine,” I lied.
He looked as if he didn’t believe me for a second. “Nura really hit you.”
At the mention of her name, I could feel that razor blade terror shoot through my veins — see Esmaris, Serel, Vos. Despite myself, I shuddered.
“And that was just overflow, what you and I got. That wasn’t even close to full force.” Max shook his head, letting out a breath of a humorless laugh. “Pathyr Savoi is lucky that they killed him. I’ve seen her lock people up like that indefinitely.”
The thought made the hairs on my arms stand upright. “What was that?”
“She drowns people in the worst of their fears. Or usually, worse — the worst of their memories. Like a living nightmare, but more real. It’s… bad.”
Clip.
I thought of what I had seen when Max touched my hand
— the snake, the girl with the long black hair. And the sheer, crippling force of his terror.
As if he knew what I was thinking, he said, “It was a two-way passage, you know.” He paused. “I saw your master. With the whip.”
Crack.
Twenty seven.
I flinched, just as a wrinkle of a sneer sliced over the bridge of Max’s nose. “Please tell me that man is dead.”
Clip.
His fingers curled around the dead petals, and the ensuing flames felt slightly brighter, slightly more vicious, this time.
“He is,” I said, hoarsely.
“I hope you did it, and I hope it hurt.”
My stomach somersaulted. And Max’s eyes flicked to me again, bearing a particular kind of knowing look that made me wonder what else he saw — whether he knew what I had done. “And I hope,” he added, quietly, “that you don’t regret it for a second.”
He knew. He had to.
“He would have killed me,” I whispered.
“He would have.” Clip. Fire. “Fucking monster.”
“Not always. He was…” My voice trailed off. How could I even describe what Esmaris was to me? All of the twisted, uncomfortable shades of our relationship? “He was kind, sometimes. I thought he cared for me, in his way.”
And yet, that man who looked at me with such sparkling affection was the same one who stripped the skin from my
back, lash by lash, with every intention of continuing until I was nothing but a lifeless sack of flesh. “But it was only at the end that I realized,” I said. “He loved me as a thing belonging of him. Not as a person.”
It hurt more to say it aloud than I thought it would.
Max’s jaw was so tight that I could see the muscles flexing even in the moonlight. “He deserved it.” He cast me another sidelong glance. “And what about the blond man?”
Gods, how much did he see? My surprise must have shown on my face, because he gave me a tiny smile. “You weren’t exactly mentally prepared, and you were still in my head. I had a front-row seat.”
“My question now,” I said, instead of answering. “The girl with black hair. Who was that?”
Max’s expression hardened. He was silent for a long moment.
“That was my sister.” Clip. He looked away as he spoke again, in blunt, removed sentences. “To answer your next question, yes, she died with the rest of them.”
War casualties, he had said, with that same choppy finality. “You had more?”
“Siblings? Yes. There were seven of us. And my parents.” Clip — faster and sharper. “It was a loud house.”
Seven. How horrible and eerie it must have been, to go from a family of that size to… nothing. “Tell me of them,” I said, quietly.
“About my family?”
“Yes. What were they like?”
I watched Max’s hands pause, the corners of his mouth tightening ever so slightly. And I watched his eyes go far away, as if dipping his toes into memory. “Too much to say. My father was loud and friendly. My mother shy and reserved.”
Cli-ip. More slowly.
“I had three brothers and three sisters. Brayan, Variaslus and Atraclius. And then the twins, Shailia and
Marisca. And then Kira.”
Six siblings. I imagined a young Max tucking himself into corners to get away from the ruckus or squabbling with siblings over everyday mundanities. No wonder he was so particular about his things. He probably grew up having to defend them constantly from a house full of people.
“You were probably…second most old,” I guessed.
Old enough to hone the sense of protective vigilance that I caught hints of here and there. Young enough to have to prove that vigilance by joining the military.
He glanced at me, revealing a faint glimpse of surprise. “Good guess.”
I pressed my finger beneath one eye, pleased with myself. “I see you, Max. You are no great question.”
Only partially true. It was a nice sentiment, but there were definitely still many questions.
He gave me a smirk that said he knew this, too. “In that case, all-knowing one, I can stop answering yours.”
“Tell me about the sister I saw.” The smile disappeared.
“Not in death,” I added, quickly. “Tell me of her in life.”
“That was Kira, the youngest.” Clip. Instead of burning the dead blossom, he held it loosely in his hands as he folded them in his lap. “She was the strangest person. She liked — how else do I say this — gross things. Like spiders and things. Smart as sin. And she was just getting started. She was twelve when she died. No one got the chance to see what she’d become, or what she’d…”
He groped for words, then gave up and lapsed into silence.
As always, Max’s thoughts were closed behind a curtain I couldn’t part. But I could still feel his grief tainting the air between us, echoes of what I had felt when I was inside of his mind — echoes of what I felt in my own heart. I knew that loss.
“When the slavers came to my village,” I said, “I left behind everyone I knew. My friends, my family. My mother. They were sent to mines. Only I was sold to the lords.”
I could still remember the way they looked, their backs rod straight as they were led off into the night, dignified in those silver-dipped straight lines. And I watched them from that rickety cart, steeling myself in preparation for a new life.
“I’m sorry,” Max murmured, and he sounded like he really meant it — like he felt it with me.
“I’m certain they must be all dead now. The mines kill quickly. Or perhaps they all killed themselves first.” There was always talk of it among the adults, what they would do if they found themselves standing at the entrance of those tunneling coffins. It was not unheard of for entire villages to swallow poison hidden beneath their tongues rather than face a demeaning and inevitable death. I imagined those silhouetted lines collapsing, row after row. Blinked back the thought. Swallowed.
“The worst thing, though,” I continued, slowly, “is to think that they are all buried somewhere in a hole, with so many other slaves. And I hate their deaths. But what I hate more is that there is no one left who remembers their lives.”
No one but me.
My mother was powerful and wise. She was the center of the world to me and to the people of our community. And she had faded away to nothing but a clutched handful of my memories.
A warm breeze rustled my hair, sending a shudder through the leaves. I could feel the heat of Max’s shoulder next to mine, even as we were both completely still.
“And who the hell are we,” he finally said, voice low and thick, “to carry something so precious?”
One of the many uncertainties I did not dignify aloud, but that plagued my thoughts every day. I had no answer.
I heard the dull sound of the clippers dropping to the damp earth, Max’s hands still. We sat there for a long time in silence, grief and memories twining into ghosts around us.
I wasn’t sure how long it was before he spoke again. “How did you make it to Ara?”
“I do not remember most of it. I was very injured.”
“You dragged yourself across the ocean with those wounds?”
“Yes.” I let myself fall backwards into the grass. “My friend helped me go.”
“The blond.”
Shame ripped through my chest. The remnants of Serel’s goodbye burned my cheek. “I left him,” I whispered. “He helped me and I left him.”
“You’re going to get him back,” Max murmured. “I will. I must.”
“He’s fortunate to have you fighting this fight.”
Maybe. Maybe not. There was only one me. And there were so many Serels.
The stars blurred. Gods, I was tired. “Thank you for coming with me to Tairn,” I murmured. “And thank you for trusting me.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Max slump backwards too, lying beside me. The warmth of him was oddly comforting, radiating even though we didn’t touch at all.
That same warmth infused his words as he said, “We made an alright team.”
And we did not speak again as we lay there, grounded by the grass and earth and whispering night air, eyelids finally fluttering into a tentative sleep as the sun crept toward the horizon.
