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Ayen nodded, his expression miserable. “Both of us have.”
“Both of you?” I swallowed again, my throat closing in on itself. “I don’t understand—”
“Faelyn and I were there when Amnestria crossed into the Spiders’ portal.” His expression crumbled then, skin paling a little like he was remembering a nightmare. His eyes glistened, and his lower jaw quivered. “It… it was all our fault.”
I stared at him in muted shock. They couldn’t have been there with her when she died. The earth children had said she’d been alone.
And their fault? How was it their fault?
Ayen’s words made no sense to me, but his terror and panic were real in the way he shook and how his voiced thickened and wavered.
I parted my trembling lips to breathe through my mouth. “What… what are you saying? My sister went alone—”
“We were there!” he insisted, dropping his head low as his fists held on to the grass. Silver beads rolled down his suddenly pale cheeks. “We were there because we were the reason she’d gone into the portal! After us. She’d gone after us…” A broken sob tore past his lips, and he shook his head, like he didn’t want to believe it either. “All because we wanted to explore all the worlds. Amnestria came after us to bring us back. She’djustcrossed the portal. She didn’t even takethree stepsand there was already a Cyrva who immediately noticed her. It was a complete disaster the moment we stepped on their land.”
He held back a sound of distress, nearly choking on it. I could only watch as the silver tracks fell from his cheeks and watered the very flowers he was creating, but his tears… histearsserved as their source of life, and suddenly they were curling around him like snakes. They could sense his distress. His tears had breathed life into them, and now they were free to move on their own.
My skin felt irritated and warm as the salty drops entered my parted lips and eased the dryness in my mouth.
“When we tried to leave, Amnestria was being dragged by thick red threads around her ankles.” His whine sliced through my ears like a thin needle, the veins and muscles around his neck straining. “Heavens, sh–she was screaming and crying and wetried.Faelyn was throwing his knives at the Spider and I was commanding plants to grab her and she wasscreaming.She was screaming at us toleaveeven though she was clawing at the ground because she was so scared.He was dragging her away, snarling and shooting fire at us, and we couldn’t doanything!”
I whimpered, shaking my head. When I pictured what he was saying, I flinched and drew my hands to my eyes, pressing on my lids with my palms to block out the terrifying imagery.
Am’s death… was their fault?
No.
“You were so young, and we couldn’t… we couldn’t look at you without feeling utterly terrible. For days, you believed it was because we were attacked by Werewolves.”
I opened my eyes when I heard another set of whimpering, only to see Yen the tiger, Ayen’s companion, nudging the male’s shoulder with his snout. Only then did Ayen lift his head, then he was burying his face in his companion’s fur.
Never had I seen Ayen so vulnerable like this, never ever sincethosedays.
They were so shaken during those days, as though they’d seen monsters made from the darkest nightmares, beasts so savage and brutal that had them flinching and weeping for days. A day after their experience, the disappearance of my sister was identified by earth children as her having been to the Spiders’ world, her blue flower growing in the Garden the only evidence needed to cement the belief that she was killed. Her violation was known by the holes in the leaves of her flower, marring the beauty that could have been whole.
“They said…” A sob tore through my lips, rattling my chest with it. “They said she was alone. Why didn’t they…”
I couldn’t finish my question, but Ayen still choked out, “Because they didn’t want anyone t-to think they could cross that portal a-and live. They couldn’t. The only reason we did was because that monster chose Am as his victim.”
I flinched again, because that was what Amnestria had been in that narrative all along. Victim. Captured by a monster only to end up below the earth.
Because of them.
Because of my two closest people after her.
I looked at him, finding him staring back with red-rimmed, shiny eyes, clouded by that shame and guilt I became so familiar with growing up. “Looking after you became our responsibility, and we vowed to never let anything bad happen to you—especially not because of us.”
I closed my eyes and let my tears drip in silence, my body curling into itself.
Seventy-two Blue Moons, only to know the truth now.
Was this how betrayal tasted? Was it so acidic and sharp that it burned my throat? So revolting that it churned my stomach and dragged bile up my windpipe?
“Please don’t hate me,” he pleaded. When I opened my eyes again, he was bowing before me, trembling still. “Please, ask foranythingand I will follow, but please, do not hate me.”
Because of them. Am was gone because of them. Because they’d been foolish and selfish and curious.Naive. Thinking there were no consequences for disturbing the balance of our worlds.
My tears continued falling, irritating my skin and turning it itchy.
