by Miles, Amy
I look at the open doorway that leads into the bathroom attached to my quarters. Although I may be opposed to most of the modern conveniences I have been forced to endure since moving into Thalar, there is one I embrace as often as possible: a bath.
Despite the fact that it isn’t as refreshing as the waterfall back in the caves, I do enjoy a long soak in the slightly rusty yet beautiful claw-foot tub. It was once white and flawless. Now it has taken on a slightly dingy hue and boasts a few chips, revealing black metal beneath.
My room is simple, no frills like some of the homes I’ve been in. Candles line the wooden dresser on the opposite wall, their wicks charred and burnt to the halfway point. A wooden staff and a crossbow and leather quiver rest against the closed cupboard, reminders of my former life. Four knives of varying lengths are spread across my table, glistening beautifully in the warm sunlight. I love these most of all.
I’m not allowed to use the weapons to hunt in Thalar. Kyan says there is no need with active supply lines up and running smoothly. I have more food than I’ve ever wanted, yet I am unhappy, for many reasons, but mostly because I feel unneeded.
Eamon and I used to be the hunters of our group. We would spend our days in the forest in search of meat. It was freeing, rewarding. We ate what he killed and nothing more. Now I feel confined and lazy, trapped within a new prison.
A pile of books collects dust on my bedside table. A gift from Aminah not long after I was moved into these quarters. She was worried I would feel lonely. I cast a contemptuous glance at the pile, knowing nothing within those pages could ease the hollowness I feel.
Bastien would have loved those books, diving through them to discover their untold treasures. Maybe that is why I’ve never opened their covers.
Kyan has gone to great lengths over the past few months, teaching me about Earth, the way it was before. My vocabulary has swelled. I can now walk through Thalar and know what dumpsters and hairdryers are, read the faded billboards that perch on rooftops, and decipher a cookbook, although it is a waste of time. No one would want to eat anything I make.
I look beyond the books to the walls. They are a light yellow, the paint a bit worn and faded, but still hold a hint of false cheer. I suppose I could have picked a room with a more drab color scheme to fit my mood, but I liked the southern light in the morning.
My walls are free of decorations, barren. I like it that way. It reminds me of the dismal grays of my cave.
I sit up, rolling my neck from side to side to release some of the stiffness that settled in during my jaunt into the future. Kyan would be proud of my accomplishment if not for the fact that I was directly disobeying his orders and blocking him completely out of my mind at the same time. He knows I am angry. Let him stew over it for a bit. Maybe it will do him some good.
Aminah came to see me last night with a basket filled with freshly baked bread and Zahra in tow. I know she only came at Kyan’s bidding. Despite the friction Zahra and I used to share over her affections for Eamon, our relationship has begun to improve, slowly. That doesn’t mean I trust her any further than I can throw her, which is a pretty good distance. I’m pretty sure I could get a good mile out of her.
Eamon has remained absent from my quarters, although I don’t find that surprising at all considering how we ended our conversation the week prior. I knew he was hurt, but so was I. He can’t always treat me like a child that needs to be protected. As much as I love his concern, I also find it to be irritatingly suffocating.
From my window last night I saw the tip of Shard lit up until well after midnight. Kyan must have called together his advisors, no doubt to discuss the next plan of attack. I wonder if he discovered anything within the pages of Drakon’s diary. Surely if he had, I would be the last person to know about it.
A knock at my door draws my attention away from my thoughts. “I’m not allowed visitors. Head pain-in-my-butt’s orders,” I call out.
“It’s me.”
I sigh, unsure if I’m ready to go head to head for round two with Eamon. I wrap my arms about my waist, preparing for the worst. “It’s unlocked.”
As the wooden door begins to swing open, I can’t help but wonder if he has already seen how this conversation will go? His ability to look into the future, to manipulate it and bend it to his will, has grown exponentially over the past year. Kyan has been a wonderful teacher, always patient and understanding.
But it was Eamon’s obsession with the future that first drove a wedge between us. He always had a plan of attack when we argued. He would stunt my anger before I even had a chance to get wound up. This I could have lived with if it hadn’t been for his obsession with one future in particular: mine.
A cloud hung over us from the first day he began digging into my future. He became withdrawn, sullen. He lost weight despite my best attempts at cooking something moderately edible. Eamon turned inward, trapped within his own powers.
It annoyed me how desperate he was to know about my destiny when I wanted no part of it. Didn’t he know I could look myself if I so desired?
Those moments when he would drift away during a conversation, I knew where he had gone. What little time we had to spend together was eaten away by his driving need to know. Having me in front of him was no longer good enough.
I tried to make things work between us, but the chasm was too great for either of us to repair on our own. Bastien left behind a gaping hole in my heart, as if he tore off a chunk and took it with him when he left, but with Eamon it was different. His rejection was the slow poison of death that rotted out my heart from the inside, making me bitter. And that bitterness was left to smolder for far too long.
I snatch a robe off the end of my bed and wind the tie around my waist as Eamon enters. He clears his throat and shifts away his gaze, as if I were immodestly dressed. I can remember a time when he would have jumped at the chance to see me like this. “I’m decent. You don’t have to be such a prude.”
Heat stains his cheeks as he clears his throat. He clasps his hands behind his back and stands rigid, the door open wide to the hall beyond. I release my grip on my stomach and rub my forehead, already feeling the seeds of a headache beginning to take root. “Can you at least close the door so the guards have to strain to hear our conversation?”
Eamon takes a step forward and turns to close the arched wooden door. It squeals on its hinges as the lock falls into place. His movements are inflexible. His discomfort painfully obvious. A deep sadness falls over me. How far we have fallen, I muse as I slip to the edge of my bed, lacing my fingers together as I wait for him to announce why he has come.
It is hard to recognize the man I grew up with in the strong, hard planes of his face. His cheekbones are more prominent with his weight loss, his eyes slightly more sunken, giving him a severe look that contrasts sharply with the laughing boy I once knew.
His gaze sweeps over my face, slowly at first and then a second time with far more scrutiny. “I’m fine. Thanks for asking,” I say.
“I was assured by Aminah that you were.”
I bite my tongue against the sharp retort that is begging to escape from my mouth. “It was good of her to come and see me. I’m surprised she got past your guards. Did they pat her down in search for weapons too?”
He grimaces and shifts his weight. His hands hang awkwardly at his sides, as if he’s unsure what to do with them. “Don’t be like this. It’s for your own good.”
“My own good?” Anger simmers in my chest as I rise swiftly to my feet and face off with him. “You are not my father, Eamon. You have no right to scold me or send me to my room when you think I’ve been bad.”
“I have every right!” His face reddens as he shouts. His stance widens as he juts out his chin. “I wouldn’t have to do something this rash if you would just do as you are told.”
I step back, feeling the color drain from my face at the impact of his words. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing,” he mutters and lo
wers his intense gaze.
“No, not nothing.” I move toward him, attempting to restrain the urge to throttle him. I tuck my elbows in close to my body to keep from doing just that. “I want to know.”
For a moment, I think Eamon is going to lash back at me. I can see the desire in his eyes, darkening their lovely ice-blue color to something resembling a washed-out and dingy gray of a winter sky. And then he cracks.
The tight line of his mouth sags, his shoulders wither, and he slumps back into a chair that sits in the corner across from my bed. He looks utterly broken.
His eyes look over-bright, his face flushed as he looks up at me. “I can’t do this anymore, Illyria. I can’t keep fighting you, trying to keep you safe, when all you want to do is run headfirst into mortal danger.”
His head droops low as he buries his face in his hands. I watch in disbelief as his shoulders begin to quake. At the first sight of a tear hitting the floor I rush forward and fall to my knees at his feet.
“Talk to me,” I whisper, heartbroken by his wretchedness. My chest tightens and my throat feels dry, sore.
When he looks up at me, I can see the streaks of red in his eyes that betray sleepless nights. Dark circles ring his eyes. His cheeks are gaunt, his face drawn. It is as if he is wasting away in front of me. “I…” His voice trembles so fiercely that he pauses to clear his throat. “I’m going to lose you and I can’t bear it.”
“Is that what this is about?” I twine my fingers with his and hold firm. I can feel how badly he’s shaking. “You can’t lose me when I am sitting right here.”
“For now.” Haunted eyes shift to meet mine. “But it won’t always be. You will be taken from me.”
I attempt a smile but know it pales in comparison to a genuine expression so I let it falter completely. I settle for drawing his hand up to my mouth and pressing my lips against his knuckles. They feel cold against my lips, as if he has stood outside for far too long. I close my eyes and feel the tears that begin to build in the corners.
“I’m not going anywhere.” I pause, knowing I need to continue but dreading the effect it will have on him. “But you have pushed me so far out of your life I don’t know how to stay.”
I don’t have much time; we both know that. My destiny hangs in the room like an invisible stalker that can’t take a hint. I take in a calming breath and then release it slowly through the tiny gap between my front teeth before I speak again. “I want to be with you Eamon, but you won’t let me.”
His face crumples completely. The trembling of his lips makes me ill with regret, but this conversation, this truth, is long overdue. “I don’t know how to. Every moment I spend with you feels as if it will be my last. I keep waiting for you to be captured… or taken to him.”
“Drakon still has to find me before he can present me to Aloysius.”
Eamon shakes his head, looking down at me with tear tracks on his cheeks, shiny in the sunlight filtering in through the window. “I wasn’t talking about Drakon.”
I feel this low blow straight in my gut. It takes me a moment compose myself because I speak and when I do, I can hear the shakiness in my voice. “Bastien is gone.”
“Yeah, but he came back once. He can do it again.”
The raw pain in his voice tears me away from the whirlwind of volatile emotions that always come with hearing Bastien’s name. “He left… twice. I don’t think he came back for me the other night.”
“You didn’t see the look on his face after you passed out.” His chin lowers to rest upon his chest. He stares blankly at his feet.
The sudden need to know more nearly yanks the question from my lips, but I clench my teeth shut at the sight of his hunched shoulders. I frantically struggle to lock Bastien and his piercing gaze back into the hole that I shoved him in months ago to preserve what little life I had left. He made his choice… and so have I.
“He is where he belongs.” I clench my fingers into my palm so tightly that I can feel my skin begin to protest. I speak quickly so I don’t have time to dwell on my words. “I am meant to be here, with you.”
“But you still think about him…” He presses, his eyes wide with a fervent pleading for me to deny it, but I can’t. He would know it’s a lie, yet he still longs to be comforted by it. To wrap up inside my lie and hide just for a while longer.
“I think of him,” I admit softly, letting my hand fall away into my lap. I unclench my fist and find red crescents punctured into my palm. “More so now that you have dumped me.”
Eamon splutters. “I think dumped is a bit of an exaggeration.”
He pales at my livid glare. “Do you want me to remind you of how much time you have spent with me off the battlefield in the last month? The last half of the year? I won’t need more than one hand to do it!”
I can feel I’m close to crying and I struggle to rein my anger back in. Why do I have to be so emotional all of the time now? Why can’t I go back to the way I was before all of this mess landed in my lap? When life was simple and a solid spear and hunting sack slung over my back was enough to clear my head.
I never asked to be drawn in the middle between Eamon and Bastien. In fact, I would rather both of them left me alone in the first place. Then Kyan had to spout off about my stupid destiny and the whole world went into a full tilt, and I was left grappling for something to hold on to.
Bastien thought by leaving me, my life would get easier, but he couldn’t have been more wrong. I used to lie awake at night, trying to hate him for walking away, but I knew why he did it. It wasn’t because he was weak. No, it was because he was selfish.
He knew what I wanted from him, what I needed, and he wanted the same thing. If he had stayed, I would’ve freely given up everything for him. I know a part of him would’ve embraced our love, but he would have known it was wrong.
Fate is a cruel bastard.
I rise slowly and head toward the far wall, sinking down onto the wide seat that perches just below the window. I like to sit here in the early morning, before Thalar wakes and the noise drowns out the call of the birds or the splashing of water in the fountain square. It is the only time I can almost trick myself into thinking I am in the forest again.
Eamon rises, shuffling his feet as he comes to stand behind me. He reaches down and clasps my shoulder as he settles onto the bench, speaking so softly I struggle to capture the words. “I’m sorry.”
I close my eyes, wishing more than anything he had said this before. “Sorry isn’t good enough anymore.”
I lean forward and press my forehead against the windowpane. A small circle of fog puffs to life near my mouth. Two smaller ones appear and fade with each breath that passes through my nose.
“I’ve been hard to live with. I’ll admit that.” His hand shifts to brush thick strands of hair off my shoulder. My skin tingles under his touch. It has been far too long since he touched me like this. “I guess I didn’t really know how to deal with all of this.”
“And you think I did?” I turn to face him, realizing just how close he’s sitting to me. My shoulder presses against his chest as I shift around. Our knees brush against one another. “I’ve been so lonely without you.”
He offers me a rueful smile as his hand falls upon my arm. “I guess I haven’t been the best boyfriend, huh?”
“Or a good friend.”
He winces at that jab. “You’re right and I’m sorry.”
“You already said that.”
“And I mean it.” He stares at me, his gaze sweeping over my face as if memorizing my features for the first time. He hasn’t looked at me with such unveiled longing in nearly a year. My stomach clenches as he pauses over my lips.
“This changes nothing,” I whisper, wondering if I really believe those words. If it were true, why do I have a yearning beginning to grow within me? I want to be touched, to be reminded that the world is not crowded only with sorrow and disappointment. The past year has been filled with nothing but darkness. I long for a hint of
light, even if only for a moment.
“You have to stop saying good-bye to me before I’ve even left. I’ve been here, waiting. You just needed to wake up and realize that.”
“And Bastien?”
I growl and shove his hand away. “He has nothing to do with this. He’s not in my life anymore.”
His gaze darts away. “Do you hate me?”
“Hate you?” I gasp, taken aback. “How could I ever do that?
He leans his head back against the wall, staring blankly up at the ceiling. “I always wondered if you wish you’d chosen Bastien instead of me. If you felt trapped by your decision.”
So that was the root of all of this. I should have known he couldn’t let his own insecurity go. It wasn’t losing me to my destiny that he feared most, but that he’d never had me in the first place.
I cup his face with my hand, forcing myself not to notice the difference between the softness of his cheeks compared to the rugged stubble of Bastien’s. “If I still wanted Bastien, I wouldn’t be here now, fighting for us. I love you, Eamon, despite your bull-headed, annoying, overbearing tendencies.”
“I know,” he murmurs as a single tear slips from the corner of his eye. I watch as it trails down his cheek and falls onto my wrist. I can’t remember the last time I saw him cry.
“I don’t think you do.” I shift closer, tucking my leg in so I’m mere inches from him. I stare into his anguished eyes, seeing the guilt and poisonous doubts he has clung to for far too long. I trace my hand along the contours of his face, searching for the boy within that I know would sacrifice anything to make me happy. “I love you.”
His nostrils flare and his heartbeat pulsates against his throat. He reaches out his hand, tentatively cupping my neck as he lowers his lips, softly brushing against the corner of my mouth. I lean into him, encouraging him not to pull back as he has done more times in the past few months than I care to remember.