N
ura was waiting for me when I returned to my own room, her hand on the doorknob.
“You’re up. I was just on my way to see you.” Her eyes ran from my toes to my face, cold and analytical, as if inspecting me for damage. “Recovered?”
I shrugged. “Enough.”
“Good. Because we can’t afford to stay here any longer.” She looked down, and I noticed that she was holding a crinkled envelope at her side. Her fingers tapped the edge of the parchment.
“Has there been news from Ara?” I asked.
“It’s war,” she snapped. “There will always be news.”
Well, that answered my question. She was in a worse mood than normal. Which meant yes, there had been news, and it was bad.
“We leave first thing in the morning. We can’t afford to waste time, and at this rate, we’ll surpass the time you were promised. So, get your bearings together.”
Her abruptness was jarring, especially considering that I hadn’t even seen or spoken to her since before we entered the Mikov estate. But I just nodded, even though the thought of returning to war made my palms sweat. “Fine. I will be ready.”
She began to walk away, but I called out, “Nura.” She stopped. Looked over her shoulder.
“I have been thinking,” I said. “About the party.” “What about it?”
“Ahzeen and Zeryth had met before. And I think it is obvious now that they did not part on good terms.”
Not a very nice person, it turns out, Zeryth had said of Ahzeen, once. What felt like a lifetime ago. And something more than a desire to prove his power had prompted Ahzeen to attack us the way he had. He was brash and arrogant, yes, but not mindlessly stupid.
Nura let out a small scoff. “Obvious indeed.”
“Zeryth sent us there knowing that Ahzeen was hostile towards the Orders. Towards him. I think that he knew there was a high chance things would be… violent.” I leveled a steady, piercing gaze towards Nura. “Did you?”
She didn’t shy away from my stare. Didn’t look away. And didn’t answer — but the sneer that barely twitched at the corner of her lip told me everything I needed to know.
No. She was just as blind as we were. He had set her up too, just like the rest of us.
“Then why?” I asked. “Why would he do that?” “I warned you about how he is.”
Possess or destroy. You’re either a tool or a threat — and in this case, we were all both. He knew that I — that Reshaye — would make it out alive, but he didn’t want or need to care whether any of the others did.
But…
“There must be more than that,” I said.
“He has his goals, and that’s all that matters to him.” “And what goals are those?”
Nura’s mouth tightened, and I did not miss the way her fingers clenched around the letter in her hands. She turned to face me fully.
“When we get back there,” she said, quietly, “I hope you’re ready to fight like hell.”
I almost laughed.
I thought of Max, of Serel, of the Threllian refugees who would be traveling back to Ara with us. I thought of all those precious souls that I had to protect. I’d been fighting like hell since I was shackled to that cart all those years ago, utterly alone. And since long before that, when I fled a crumbling homeland that no longer exists. I was born fighting.
Of course I wasn’t going to stop now. Not when I had so much to lose.
I didn’t so much as blink as I gave Nura a small, serene smile. “Oh yes,” I said. “I know there are still many battles to win.”
Maybe I imagined the faintest echo of a smirk that brushed her eyes. But she turned away too quickly for me to tell.
 |
THAT NIGHT, Serel and I spent the night lying on the floor of my bedroom, just as we had hundreds of times over the years. We laughed and cried together, then laughed again, and cried again. I felt his pain with him when he told me of the wars that he had been sent to fight, how the estate had crumbled into chaos and paranoia after I had left. He held my hand as I told him of my training, of the battles, of the pact I’d made. His face lit up with shock and confusion as I told him about Reshaye — in the loosest possible terms — asking questions that even I didn’t totally know how to answer.
I told him about Max, though I left out some details about the nature of our relationship. For some reason, I still wanted to pull those moments close to my chest, only for me.
But our conversations always wandered beyond the weight of our sad stories, which was what I had always cherished about Serel. He could find joy and beauty in everything. He’d recount the heavy toll of a bloody battle, and then, in the next breath, light up as he described the joy of returning to his friends. Once, many years ago, he told me that his grandfather used to say every moment in life was like a coin with one dark side and one light. The coin might land with one side facing up, but the other was always there, just beneath, hidden but present. Serel always saw both sides, even when fate seemed to hand him nothing but darkness.
As the night stretched into the early hours of morning, I finally asked, “Will you be returning to Ara with us, or staying here?”
He didn’t miss a beat. “Ara. Definitely. I need a change of scenery.”
I exhaled a sigh of relief, then immediately felt selfish. Ara was at war. At least this city was now under the Orders’ jurisdiction. As absurd as it sounded, perhaps here was the safer place for him.
When I voiced this thought, he scoffed.
“Please. You won’t get rid of me again so easily, Tisaanah.” He gave me a smile and a wink that was so unmistakably *him* that it knocked the breath out of me.
For a moment, words escaped me.
How many times had I dreamed of seeing him again?
How many times had I been so certain I never would? “You have no idea how much I’ve missed you,” I murmured, fighting back a lump in my throat.
He smiled softly, “I do, actually.”
|
…SAW…
It was late, when I heard it. A voice. The voice. I opened my eyes into darkness, into the old, familiar image of the white expanse of Threllian ceilings.
Beside me, I heard Serel’s low, slow breaths. My own pounding heartbeat.
For a moment, it was all silent — I wondered if I had imagined it.
And then, there it was. A voice, different than it had been before in ways I couldn’t quite describe, closer and farther away all at once.
{You saw me.}
I felt it more than I heard it. It matched my own breath, my own heartbeat.
Yes, I whispered.
I felt it roil within me, a shudder that lay between a sigh or a laugh or a moan. It all felt so much closer than it once did, a power that moved in my blood.
{Our story is not complete, Daughter of All Worlds.}
A caress writhed against my mind. And my lips twisted into a smile. Not long ago, I would have been afraid.
Not anymore.
Good, I whispered. I haven’t decided how I want it to end.
And I could have sworn it chuckled, as it slithered off into darkness.
