Chapter 29

Karys

I sat on the floor of my old bedroom, using a stubby pencil and the few scraps of paper I'd scrounged up to create a series of drawings.

One after the other, I was recreating the runes I'd noted along the yard's edge, rendering each one in painstaking detail.

I was determined to memorize them. To figure out the patterns they'd been set in. To make some sort of sense out of this power the elven-kind had created.

After Andrel's visit last night, I'd tried several more times to walk through the rune-powered wards. Each time had left me more dazed and drained than before. My magic—and alongside it, my divine strength—seemed to be dwindling more with every passing hour, as I'd feared it would.

Being separated from Dravyn wasn't helping, either.

I didn't know how much longer I could withstand it all; I needed to be smarter about plotting my escape.

So I was done with reckless charging. I was calmer, now, and approaching things in my usual methodical way. I had stacks of papers hidden under my bed already. I snuck out every chance I could, creeping my way along the edges of my prison—close enough to make the symbols on the ground flare more brightly, but not close enough to subject myself to the full extent of the ward's draining power.

If I could figure out what patterns had created that power, then I could find a way to undo it, I reasoned.

As I finished filling another page with a recreation of the last symbols I'd seen, my ears twitched, picking up the sound of my sister coming in from outside.

Even after years spent apart, I could still recognize her steps. Her tendency to tap her feet. To sway in place. She rarely moved quietly, and this evening was no exception; she fumbled around in the kitchen for a few minutes, banging pots and clinking glasses, before making her way toward my room.

I hastily shoved my newest drawings under my bed and stood, walking to the window.

It was a dreary evening. Fog blanketed the yard, making the already secluded house feel even more cut off from the world beyond it.

Savna appeared in the doorway of my room a moment later, clutching a steaming cup in her hands.

"A peace offering," she said, lifting it toward me.

I stared at the steaming cup. I recognized its scent and instantly knew what it was—a drink we'd indulged in on special occasions and on the difficult days we'd shared growing up.

"Cinnamon milk." I made myself hold still as she approached and offered it to me. "It's been a long time since I've had this."

"I thought it might've been."

I accepted it but didn't drink right away, as my throat had developed a habit of swelling up every time my sister drew near.

She suddenly seemed eager to look everywhere but my face. As I inhaled the creamy, spicy scent wafting up from the mug, her eyes fell to the floor near my bed.

I sucked in a breath as I spotted my mistake: One of the charts I'd been working on was still sticking out.

"What were you drawing?" she asked.

"I wasn't," I croaked out. "It's just…it's nothing."

She gave me a curious look before walking over to pick up the stray paper. "I find that hard to believe. Even when we were kids, you were always drawing something ."

I thought about stopping her, maybe stomping over and ripping the page from her hands.

I couldn't get my feet to move.

"I remember all your lists," she said, distractedly, smoothing out the paper and studying it closer. "Your diagrams, your charts, your maps. You had a gift for remembering details." She was quiet for several minutes, eyes still on my work, before eventually saying, "You've gotten even better."

I swallowed. Or tried to. The swelling in my throat was becoming painful.

She sighed. Her voice trembled a bit as she asked, "So tell me…is there a map for us ?"

The question caught me off guard.

"I don't think so," I said. "Not one I've managed to draw, anyway." I clutched the mug more tightly. It might have burned my palms if not for the command I now had over fire; as it was, I found the blistering heat comforting.

With a sigh, Savna placed the paper on my nightstand. Her eyes lingered on it for a moment longer, and then she said, "Those are the runes I set along the edges of our yard, aren't they?"

There was no use in denying it. "Yes."

"You want to know how they work?" There was a painful hint of hope in her tone. "I could teach you to create them if you wanted me to."

Her last sentence slid like needles under my skin. "I don't want to create more of those wards."

She visibly braced herself, as if I'd drawn back a sword and prepared to stab her with it.

"I want to break them," I continued, quietly. "I want to leave this place."

She stared at me for a long moment before hastily dropping her gaze back to the runes I'd sketched. "Andrel warned me you would try everything you could to get back to the gods. I'd hoped he was wrong—hoped that you'd want to stay as long as I was here, and maybe we could…" She trailed off, shaking her head.

"What else did he warn you about?" I demanded, temper flaring at the mere mention of his name. "I would love to know the extent of the lies he's told about me."

She gave me an exasperated look. For a moment I thought she might throw up her hands in defeat and storm away, but she stood her ground, her exasperation turning to the calm fierceness I'd always admired in her as she said, "I don't know what's happened between the two of you. All I know is he's helped me hide all these years. Helped me stay safe, and helped me build an army worthy of the cause I'd envisioned—a cause our ancestors would have been thrilled about."

"An army he wanted me to serve without question."

"Of course. And I did, too, because—"

"But has he told you what he tried to do once I opposed him and that army?"

Her fierceness faltered for an instant, and I blurted out more words before I could lose my nerve: "The gods are not blameless, no. But he's more of a villain in this story than they ever were."

My voice shook, as did my hands, but it didn't matter. I'd gotten the words out. And speaking them made me feel more powerful than I had when gripping a blade of pure fire.

I didn't regret them or doubt them, even as the silence between us became unbearably tense, like a bowstring drawn as far back as it could go while I braced for the arrow to pierce my heart.

"We have a lot of things to work out," Savna finally said. "I am trying to make sense of so many of them, and you and me, we…"

"We always made sense," I reminded her, breathlessly. "Even when nothing else did, there was still you and me. Why is that so different now? Why can't you just believe what I'm telling you?"

She hugged her arms around herself and slowly circled the room, taking in the sight of my old things, clearly losing herself in memory instead of answering me.

"Savna. Please ."

Her gaze flickered back to me. "I was surprised to find this place so intact," she said, changing the subject.

"…There was little worth stealing here," I said. "And the humans started avoiding this place more than ever after the rumors about your disappearance and the divine creatures and curses surrounding it began to spread."

"Right. But I thought you would have taken more of your belongings with you when you moved out."

I'd considered it.

In the end, it proved easier to leave most of it behind. Almost all that I had taken were things that belonged to—or reminded me of—her.

Everything else had been left to rot and gather dust, a decaying monument to all we'd once been.

I'd dusted a few things off since my arrival, and Savna continued to absently swipe at cobwebs and shake the staleness from throw pillows and other decor as she circled the space now.

But no matter how much we cleaned, I knew we would never again uncover the place where we'd once lived.

I still watched her as I had when we were younger. Wanting to follow her lead, to take my next cue from the big sister I worshipped. I'd been so eager to exist in her wake for most of my life that it was what I defaulted to even after everything that had happened.

But I didn't actually move to follow her this time.

And soon I realized why I couldn't move: Because I'd grown. I'd changed. I'd stepped outside of her and this house and all it represented, and now, I burned too brightly to be confined to my sister's shadow.

I finally lifted the drink she'd brought to my lips; I wanted to focus on the taste of it one last time, and not on the bitter uncertainty lingering between me and her. The milk was sweet but burning, much like the memories it invoked.

"This makes me miss Mother," I whispered, the words cracking as they escaped my swollen and aching throat. The drink had been her own mother's original recipe, and sipping it alongside her was one of the few pleasant memories I had of the two of us.

Savna nodded in agreement. Her eyes glassed over as they settled on the window, her mind clearly overtaken by some thought she didn't want to share with me.

"What is it?" I pressed.

Hesitantly, she said, "I found her, you know. Several years ago."

I froze mid-sip.

My sister hesitated a moment longer, bright eyes watching me closely. Silently searching my expression, wondering if I truly wanted the knowledge she had been carrying for all these years.

My heart had endured so much pain at this point that it almost felt wrong not to invite more. What did it matter, when it was already so used to aching?

I asked, "Where?"

"Olithia."

"That far south? Why were you there?"

She shrugged. "I was doing my best to keep the gods and all the other troubles trailing me as far away from you as possible."

Protecting me .

Or hiding from me?

Maybe both.

I took another sip of the milk to avoid having to speak.

"The temples to the divine in the capital city of the Olithian Kingdom are said to be the most splendid on the southern continent, and I was drawn to them out of curiosity…and disgust." She stared at the ceiling as she spoke. "Those temples have keepers. The Heart of the Divine, they call themselves. And Mother took up their garb and their oaths years ago. She wouldn't speak to me when I saw her. Wouldn't even acknowledge her own daughter. It's common practice in the Heart's circle, from what I gathered, to not associate with non-believers."

"You couldn't have pretended to believe for a minute, just to have a chance to speak with her?"

"Why should I have pretended? She was the one who abandoned us. The effort was hers to make, not mine."

I sighed.

Savna went back to staring out the window. Even though she didn't say it out loud, I could guess what she was thinking; she was comparing the loss of our mother to the loss she felt whenever she looked at me. Because she thought I was the same —a fool taken in by the gods, worshipping them blindly, turning my back on all the ones I'd loved before.

"She would be thrilled to know that at least one of her daughters is so closely connected to the divine world, now." There was a bitterness in my sister's tone that made my hackles lift.

I sat the mug down next to my drawing on the nightstand, no longer thirsty, nor eager for the memories the drink brought with it.

"I felt abandoned by you, too, you know." I tried, unsuccessfully, to keep the bitterness from rising in my own voice as I continued: "Do you have any idea what it's been like for me , living without you all these years?"

We glared at one another, on our way to yet another deadlock. Or so I thought—until she unexpectedly broke, and the fierce lines on her face began to soften.

I was even more shocked when she said, in a slightly uneven voice, "Well…why don't you tell me what it was like?"

I took a deep breath, unsure if I could truly put it into words—even though I'd done it before. Not for her, but for Dravyn and the rest of the divine court that took me in. They'd listened to my story countless times over these past months, patient with me even as I stumbled over the words and held back the more painful parts.

Thinking of them now brought me strength; I didn't realize how much they'd helped me heal until this moment, back in this place, surrounded by all the things that had made me sick.

My sister remained silent, her gaze heavy and conflicted.

"It was like…a tightness," I finally said. "Like being encased in rock, unable to move unless I chiseled my way out, bit by bit. Over and over. Nearly every single morning for over five years, I had to start each day by scraping away the heavy weight of stone or else I couldn't even get out of bed. And then, when I finally did make it out, I was just… angry. "

Savna frowned, lips parting with questions she didn't manage to get out.

"Furious at you, but also at me ," I went on, "because how weak, to not even be able to get out of bed. How maddening to have to carry this weight around, to not be able to throw it off. I wanted to be rid of you so many times, yet I clung to you tighter than I've ever clung to anything. I knew it made no sense. But I couldn't stop. Until I…"

Until I replaced you .

My sister kept her lips pressed tightly together this time, her eyes shining with emotion, urging me on.

But I couldn't bring myself to tell her I had become someone powerful and new—someone who existed outside of her .

It was true, yet knowing this didn't stop the guilt or the pain that came from letting go. She had been my comfort for so long, even in her absence. I'd grown used to the grief of that absence. I'd built my life around it.

Grieving the loss of her while she stood directly in front of me was a different challenge, all together.

I looked past her, to the same window she'd been staring through. My thoughts again turned to escaping. To running out into the fog, putting as much space between us as I possibly could, attempting to shove my way through the wards at whatever the cost.

"I understand why it made you feel weak," Savna began before I could convince myself to move. "How tired it must have made you, clinging to our old life. But…"

My gaze darted back to her. It seemed to startle her, my sudden, rapt attention—or maybe just the fact that I was still listening at all.

She calmed her breathing and quietly finished: "But how strong you must be at this point, to have managed to claw and push your way through the heaviness so many times."

I bit my lip. Hard. Trying to cause pain, to draw blood that I could focus on instead of her voice.

"I mean it. You really have grown strong."

She didn't move.

Neither did I.

But the space between us felt like it was shrinking, forcing us closer and closer.

Why did I let myself get so close to her again?

"I'm sorry you had to be so strong, Karys."

"It doesn't matter anymore."

"Yes, it does."

I shoved past her, heading for the door.

She caught my hand. Held it gently, uncertainly—it would have been easy to pull away from the timid grip.

But I didn't.

"I'm so, so sorry," she whispered. "For everything."

Her grip on me tightened. Something inside of me crumbled—one of the countless walls I'd built around my heart breaking apart, parts of it settling like actual bricks in the pit of my stomach.

And I forgot, just for a moment, about leaving.