Chapter 31

Karys

I had a plan.

I'd spent the past two days making up my mind about it, pacing the edges of the yard, double-checking every square inch of rune-inscribed ground as I continued to try and make sense of the power those symbols invoked.

My sister came and went throughout the days. Whenever she was with me, I stayed away from the edges, pretending to be centering myself once more within my old life.

This was only a ruse, of course.

A way of hiding my actual intentions from her.

That's what I told myself. But truthfully, it was alarmingly tempting to fall for my own lies. It was fast becoming too easy to talk to her again. To laugh and reminisce about our old life in between the painful questions and awkward silences.

I should have known better by now, yet something like hope threatened to bloom inside of me every time my sister returned.

Until she left again, anyway, and I found myself wondering—as I had so often throughout my life—where she'd gone.

True to form, she left me in the dark about most of the details. Only now I had things to fill those dark spaces with—the ugly, bloody, complicated things that I'd witnessed her doing.

So though I could fool myself into believing I had my sister back whenever she was here, every time she left it was like dropping on a pair of glasses that instantly made the truth perfectly, painfully clear once again.

It was approaching twilight. Savna had been gone for most of the day. Long enough that a familiar question had time to worm its way into my thoughts.

Is she coming back this time?

My chest always became painfully tight in the minutes following her departure, my heart instantly hardening in preparation for being abandoned again. The pressure had eased throughout the day as I focused on other things—more important things, like escape—but now it was growing tense yet again; this was the longest she'd been gone over these past few days.

"All the more reason to focus on my plans and not her," I said aloud to no one.

And I continued to do just that, telling myself it didn't matter if I ever saw my sister again.

If she stayed away, it would just make my plotting easier to carry out.

My plan was this: I didn't need to destroy the barriers keeping me in. I only needed to be strong enough to destroy the runes holding them in place. And after diligent note taking and hours spent deciphering those notes, I was reasonably certain I knew which of the runes to aim for first—where I might be able to do the most damage. Enough damage to open a passageway that I could slip through.

I would set fire to the symbols holding me hostage, and then I would be free.

After I slipped away, I would just have to hope I could remain conscious enough to follow up my destructive spell with one that would carry me back to the middle-heavens. Back to Dravyn.

Just thinking about it—about him—made my heart pound faster.

The effects of the poison my sister had used to get me here still lingered, even all these days later. Drawing closer to the yard's edges still made me feel like I was in danger of being peeled apart.

I needed to get as far away from the barrier as I could, I decided, to make sure I had an entirely clear head before I made my move. That farthest point, after some quick calculations, ended up being in my parents' old room.

Which was how I ended up inside of this room, sitting next to the same shrine table my mother had once knelt and prayed before on a daily basis.

The space underneath was where I had set my first fire—an accident that all but destroyed the small table.

Mother had repaired and repainted the damaged parts, but it still carried the faint scent of smoke. In some places, scorch marks could be seen bleeding through the newer coats of stain.

The statues that had once adorned the table were all gone. They were the first things my mother packed before leaving us.

If they had still been there, would I have been tempted to set them ablaze? It would have been easier, now. Even in my weakened state, I could still summon enough power to set small things on fire.

Yet it also would have been harder, as I no longer believed all the gods should burn.

I was still debating which deities deserved my flames when my sister finally returned. I tried to collect myself, the notes I'd been studying, and to escape our parents' room before she found me there, but I wasn't quick enough.

She walked inside without saying a word, pausing in front of the table and kneeling as Mother used to do.

She wasn't praying. She never prayed. She only ran her hands over the faded, stained wood, tapping thoughtfully in the places where the burn marks bled through.

Finally, she glanced at me and said, "Sorry I was gone so long. Have you eaten dinner?"

I shook my head.

I didn't protest when she led me to the kitchen, sat me at the table, and plopped a plate of food down in front of me. I picked at piles of vegetables and the heavily-spiced and roasted meat. My sister was an excellent cook—naturally gifted in ways I could only mimic after years of practice—but mortal food didn't taste as good as it once had to me. Not even hers.

Or maybe it was just this house, its wards, this whole situation making everything unappetizing.

Savna settled down in the chair across from me, carrying a plate of her own. "How are you feeling?"

My head felt the clearest it had since my arrival…and the downside of this was that it left too much room for anger to fester and turn my tone venomous.

"Relatively healthy," I spat, "for a prisoner on her—what is this, the fourth day?—of being tortured by the remnants of her past."

She arched a brow. "Well, I pride myself on pristine prison conditions and relatively healthy torture practices. I'm glad you approve of my methods."

I bit back a laugh, hating that we still shared the same sense of humor.

The next few minutes passed in silence, but we eventually found a way to maneuver around the tense and sharp uncertainties, making more small talk and the occasional sarcastic jab at one another.

Jabs that soon led to glimmers of real laughter.

I was falling for her. Again. I could feel myself tumbling down, and I again hated myself for it, but I felt powerless to stop.

I stared at my hands as she chattered on about some game we used to play as children. I was half-expecting to find that she'd carved runes into my palms like she had in the ground outside—proof of whatever strange spell she'd woven over me. Because surely that was the only explanation for why I kept getting caught up in the possibility of us again and again and again.

The spell broke several minutes later, but only because she released it; she fell silent, the laughter fading from her eyes as her mouth pressed into a thin line. The abrupt shift in tone was jarring.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

A long pause.

A chill of uncertainty swept over me, raising bumps along my arms.

Savna gripped her drink more tightly and said, "I need to tell you something."

She was silent for such a long time after that I began to think she'd forgotten what that something was. Maybe she was trying to forget it.

"Well?" I prompted.

She looked up, gaze focusing on the wall behind me—on a peeling painting of our family's ancient coat-of-arms—rather than on my face as she said, "Andrel is coming here later tonight."

I put my fork down. "Why?"

"Because I asked him to."

I dug my fingers into the edge of the table. There were already scratch marks in the wood from heated dinner conversations of the past, back when I was still a child and my claws were harder to control.

I kept those claws retracted, now.

At least for the moment.

Savna abandoned her food, her hands moving instead to her napkin, which she continuously twisted and untwisted as she spoke. "I knew you would be upset."

"Then why did you arrange it?"

"Because I think we all need to clear up some things between us."

"There is nothing to clear up . He's a monster. He's poisoned your mind. He tried to do the same to me, and when I didn't swallow that poison without complaining, he tried to kill me ."

She ripped the napkin in two, letting the pieces of it flutter to the floor. Her eyes locked on those pieces and stayed there, her expression pained as I continued.

"I haven't told you the half of what he's done because I…I…couldn't bring myself to speak of it. Just believe me when I tell you the war he's trying to wage is wrong , and it will end in disaster for every side involved—humans, elves, and gods, alike."

"The alternative is disaster reserved solely for elven-kind—do you honestly think that's better?"

"That isn't the only alternative."

"What else is there?"

"Compromise. Peace."

She scoffed, shifting her weight from side to side, stretching and rearranging her limbs as if the dinner table suddenly felt too small for the conversation we were having.

Yet we were still having it, I realized.

She wasn't leaving for once, and, despite her discomfort, she looked prepared to actually listen to me.

Astonishment rendered me momentarily speechless.

"He lost everything because of the humans, and the gods that enable and protect those humans," she said, slowly, before I could find my voice. "And you and I have lost more than our share of things as well, we deserve a chance to—"

"I am tired of being defined by loss. And I don't want to hear any more excuses for him or anyone else."

She took a deep breath. Frustration lined her tired face, but she fell silent again, watching me closely, as if still genuinely trying to understand where I was coming from for the first time.

A sudden burst of hope—and courage—seized me. I still didn't know the exact words I needed to say, but I stood and went to her side, pulling the collar of my shirt down so she could see the scar left by Andrel's knife.

Her lips parted with a soft gasp.

I often wondered why the Moraki—with all the magic and power at their disposal—had insisted on leaving this ugly marking of my mortal life even after granting me divinity. Both this scar and the ones on my face. Why had they not made me as flawlessly beautiful as almost all the other goddesses?

Now I believed I understood the reason.

Because I needed to show my scars to others. To speak of them. To not hide from them.

My sister didn't flinch as she stared at the one near my heart. Tentatively, her hands moved as they had when we'd first reunited, her fingertips tracing my ruined skin before drawing back into a fist.

One minute passed.

Then another.

I realized I was holding my breath, my entire body tensed as if anticipating a punch from her clenched hand, even though my sister had never physically struck me.

She never moved.

The weight of all the unspoken things between us threatened to buckle my knees. I backed up a few steps and sank into the chair closest to her.

Quietly, she said, "I just wanted us to be on the same side again."

"I wanted that, too." I inhaled deeply, trying to take in more of the courage that had enveloped me a moment ago. "But things are different, now. And if you are on my side, then you have to keep listening when I speak my truth. Even when it's not what you want to hear. Even if it's not the same as your truth anymore."

Her eyes narrowed at first—the reflexive, defensive anger I'd mirrored so well for so long—but it burned up quickly, this time, leaving behind nothing but a deep, aching sadness in her gaze as she said, "You're still my little sister."

I couldn't speak over the thickness in my throat, so I merely nodded. There was no changing where I'd come from. No changing what I was, or where I'd been.

Savna clenched her other hand into a fist and fell into her habit of knocking them against one another.

Clap.

Clap.

Clap.

I averted my gaze. It eventually caught on the painting on the back wall. A myriad of conflicting feelings overcame me at the sight of the cracked and peeling mural of my ancestral house's symbol. I'd always debated what to do with this wall; the art had been fading long before this home was abandoned. Should I repaint the symbols—sharpen the edges of the feather-wrapped sword, add shades of color back to the jeweled goblet?

Or simply paint over it all?

Or maybe just ignore it?

I still didn't know.

When I looked back to my sister, something had hardened in her expression. Another defensive tactic I'd learned from her, that specific way of setting our jaw and silencing our emotions —like a steel barrier dropping down, cutting off the air so it couldn't feed the flames inside.

"I am listening to your truth," she said evenly. "But Karys, I think maybe you're being—"

"No."

I didn't realize I'd managed to say the word out loud until the surprise registered on my sister's face.

My heart pounded painfully fast, but I didn't take the word back. For once, I was not going to let someone else tell me what or who I was. For once, I didn't feel the need to keep explaining myself.

For once , ‘No' felt like a complete sentence.

And I realized, with a mixture of pain and relief, that it was all I had left to say.

I'd started the day with a plan, and in that moment, I made up my mind to follow it—I would be gone from this place before the night was over.

Even if it meant saying goodbye to my sister and everything else I had been holding on to for so long.