49. Forty-Nine

Forty-Nine

“How is Wren doing?”

Pri flinched at the question as she ducked under a branch. “Honestly, I don’t know,” she said, fiddling with the collar of her leathers. “I have hardly seen him since getting home, and when I have, he’s been rip-roaring drunk, stumbling into bed.” Guilt gnawed at my chest as she spoke.

It was selfish of me to not have sought him out. I knew that. But I could not face him; could not face him with the knowledge that his brother, his only true family, had died because of me.

Died protecting me.

She sighed as we meandered down the green mossy trail. I had forgotten how much I loved the outdoors. How I loved walking through the trees and feeling the breeze on my face without the fear of attack looming over our heads.

I had spent so much of my youth running through the island forests, playing carefree under the open sky . . . I had taken that for granted.

“I just wish he would talk to me, let me in. I don’t want him to feel alone. To feel like he has nothing—no one—after this.”

I looped my hand through hers. “I know it will take time, and I know he will probably never be the same, but I hope when he is ready he will let someone in.” We stopped under a large oak, moss dripping from its branches as we settled onto a stone bench at its base.

“What about you?” Pri asked, turning her knees toward me. “I’m sorry, that . . . that was a stupid question.” She anxiously ran her fingers through her hair as I looked at her.

I pulled her hands into mine, quieting her agitated movements. “It’s okay, Pri. It’s not a stupid question.”

I was not okay.

Every morning when I crawled out of bed I was shattering, putting myself back together, piece by piece throughout the day, only to break all over again the next morning.

But I got his last moments.

I got his last words, his last touch, his last breath. So I had to play the part of the strong one.

I had to do that for him, for them.

I had to be the thread that held this torn up family together, or we were all in danger of drifting off into the wind.

“Ata still has not let me see her. I wait by her door every morning and every night just in case it will be the day that she lets me in. But she still refuses.” I dragged my hands over my face, shame prickling at the edges of my mind. “I think she blames me . . . Blames me for not saving him, or not getting to him fast enough.” Pri laid her head on my shoulder as I said, “And we still haven’t heard any news from Taft. Not one of Landers’s Intelligence Officers has been able to locate him or even obtain any information on his whereabouts. I don’t even know if he knows about Ardan . . . or if he is even still alive.”

We sat there for a long while, under that tree, sometimes speaking, but mostly listening to the sounds of the animals as they danced around us in the autumn breeze. So blissfully unaware of the people, the friends, whose souls were clawing their way back into the light.