“I ’m not going to Besrith.”
The split in the road wasn’t far ahead. As we continued the last leg
of our journey, Brayan and I intentionally lagged behind.
Brayan shook his head. “Don’t do that to me. It was always our plan.” “It was our plan a lifetime ago.”
“And what changed? If anything, it’s a better idea than ever. Besides, was I the only one listening to that conversation? They want you to go. Let them deal with their war.”
“Their war?” I spat, disgusted.
“If you allow it to become our war, it will never let you go. I know that much. And right now, it isn’t our war. Not yet.”
“Why? Because they’re not paying you?”
I actually thought that Brayan would strike me. He pushed closer, face hard. “Do you want to end up right back in Ilyzath? Staying here—with them—is how you are going to end up back in Ilyzath. And you’re going to get her locked up there, too. You would make them more of a target than they already are. Bring them more trouble than they already have coming. If that’s what you want to do, little brother, I won’t stop you. But I want you to recognize that you’d be thinking with your dick, not your head, and you won’t be doing it for them.”
“Meaningful words on loyalty from the man who won’t even acknowledge his own daughter.”
Brayan was an excellent fighter. The blow came so fast that I barely had time to react before it sent me to the ground. I spat a mouthful of blood onto the dirt.
“Everything alright?” Sammerin’s voice called from ahead. “Peachy,” I replied, wiping the wound on my lip.
Brayan sighed, then offered me his hand. That was the closest I would get to an apology. Just the same as when he used to beat the shit out of me every day in the name of training when I was thirteen years old.
I pushed myself to my feet without taking it, and he rolled his eyes. “You’re the same as you were as a child,” he muttered.
“Right, you too.”
“I’ve never understood what you were so angry at me for. Whatever I did, you’re in your right to feel it, I suppose.” We tramped through the underbrush. I shoved my hands into my pockets. He pushed ahead of me, not looking back. “I won’t stop you if you want to stay with them. But I’m going to Besrith. You can be emotional and short-sighted and remain here. Or you can think about it, recognize that I’m right, and come with me. Your choice.”
 |
THIS DIDN’T FEEL RIGHT. None of this felt right, no matter how many times Brayan or Ishqa or Tisaanah—especially Tisaanah—insisted upon it.
You don’t even know who I am.
She was wrong. I was missing something—some critical piece of my past that was preventing me from understanding this. It was like a splinter under my nail, nagging but inaccessible. It was the only thing I could think about when we reached the split in the road.
“The wayfinder is pulling me this way,” Tisaanah said, pointing in one direction.
“This road leads north, to Besrith,” Brayan said, nodding down the other path.
We all looked at each other, the unspoken weight of our separation hanging between us.
Brayan uttered a stiff, tight-lipped goodbye and migrated down the road, leaving me alone with them. I said goodbye to Ishqa first, which was easy because we didn’t especially like each other. Tisaanah wandered into the woods, her back to us, as if she didn’t want to allow herself to be seen before she was ready. So I turned to Sammerin.
He was an enigma to me in many ways, always calm and quiet. But I knew that we’d been close friends once. Some imprint of that familiarity still nagged at me when I looked at him.
Even now, a part of me considered telling him that I was going to stay with them.
Yet, as we traveled, Brayan’s words had echoed incessantly in my head. You’re going to get her locked up there, too. You make them more of a target.
They were louder than ever, now.
“So,” Sammerin said. “You’re going.”
Despite myself, I couldn’t bring myself to confirm it aloud. Sammerin seemed like he heard the internal struggle I didn’t voice.
“We’ve been friends for a long time,” he said. “Twelve years. When we first met, you were an egotistical, prematurely promoted Captain, and I despised you.”
He said it so matter-of-factly. I scoffed a laugh.
I wanted to ask—no, demand—that he tell me about those years. Really tell me, including all the things that I knew he and Tisaanah were holding back. But the moment my lips parted, the pain that skewered my skull took my words away.
“The thing is, Max,” he went on, “they were not all good years. I have been doing a lot of thinking about those times. The good days. The bad days. And some of the bad days were very, very bad.”
The hair prickled at the back of my neck. That image—the image of Sammerin saying, “That was a very bad day.”—brought with it the ghost of a memory, gone before I could grasp it.
“I want to know,” I said.
But the moment the words left my mouth, the fire poker lodged in my brain twisted, and white-hot agony pulsed through my head. I nearly doubled over, my hand at my temple. Sammerin gripped my shoulder.
“You alright?” “Fine.”
I forced myself upright. Sammerin’s expressions were always subtle, but I could see the concern in this one as stark as if it had been painted across his forehead.
“Is this the right thing?” I said. “I trust you, not that I even really understand why. Do you think it’s actually for the best, if I go?”
Sammerin was silent for a long moment.
“Yes,” he said, at last. “I don’t think it’s a perfect thing, but I think it’s the right thing. And in times like this, perhaps that’s the most we can hope for.”
|
WHEN I SAID goodbye to Tisaanah, the others moved away. She and I stood face-to-face in silence as they fell back into the woods, finding sudden overwhelming interest in the flora and fauna just out of earshot.
A breeze rustled the trees, and the scent of citrus washed over me, and it was almost all over right there and then.
I shouldn’t have stopped her that night in the pub. I wished I had gotten the opportunity to know all of her, even just once.
Before I could stop myself, my hand reached for hers and enveloped her fingers in mine. Her eyes met mine, spearing me straight through my soul.
“One word,” I said, my voice rough. “One word and I stay.”
Even if it was the selfish thing, like Brayan had said. Even if it put her further at risk. I wanted any stupid, self-indulgent excuse to stay.
I asked for one word, and she gave it to me. “Go,” she said, softly.
Fuck, I didn’t expect that to hurt the way that it did.
“It was a gift, Max,” she murmured. “A gift to have known you. I hope that you have the most incredible, happy life. I hope you find a future worth forgetting your past. Make it worth it. Find joy. Do you understand?”
In this moment, nothing seemed worth this. I was going to argue with her, but then her hands gripped either side of my face, and our mouths crashed together. The kiss devoured our unspoken words. My arms wrapped around her like the shape of her body was already a homeland I knew by heart.
We parted too soon.
“I love you,” she murmured.
I didn’t like that. Those words sounded like a goodbye. “Ask me to stay, Tisaanah,” I rasped.
But she pulled away too abruptly for me to stop her, the air between us suddenly cold and empty. She didn’t say another word. Didn’t even look
back at me again. I watched her walk down the path to Ishqa and Sammerin.
I could not shake the sensation that I had done this before—stood still and watched her leave. I imagined her walking up white stairs, pausing at a set of silver double doors. I imagined desperately praying that she wouldn’t open them.
This is a mistake. You can still do something. You can still go with them.
“Max.” Brayan nodded down the path in the opposite direction. “We have to move.”
You can still change your mind.
I turned away.
