“I didn’t. There are a lot of things I’ve been educated about over the last few weeks.” I pause, the memories of the pain that was cut out of us all, the power that I opened myself up to, the truths from Kalan, and all of it leading to the bitter consequences. “Thank you. For coming here. I’m sure it couldn’t have been easy.”
“Stars, Ever, easy? I had no idea what to think. You were dragged from the cell, freed by people I’d never seen before, and l was left, locked inside with my brother bleeding on the ground. Dead, on the ground. After that, coming herewaseasy. The truths uncovered between then and now were… less so.”
It seems that we have more in common than we first thought. We wait, in silence, the little cottage quiet, the occasional creak of the floorboard upstairs, telling me that Lyle’s in her bedroom.
“Lyle gave me your room to sleep in. While we waited.” Kyra changes the subject, as if the little nudge from Lyle upstairs has given her a new direction to her words. “It’s been nice getting to see the life you had before coming to Kirrasia.”
“My bedroom isn’t much, but I’m happy to share. Sleeping here tonight sounds like bliss.” The thought of sleeping in a bed—a real bed, without bars, without locks, with no fear—melts into my bones. “I’m not sure where we’re all going to sleep tonight. The house was only for us, now it’s fit to burst.” There is another twitch of my lips at the lightness growing between us again.
“I’m not sure Lyle will allow Kalan to stay. And I’m pretty sure that after everything, Ten won’t be letting you out of his sight. Calix and I will be fine.”
I gloss over those comments. Since I woke up, everything between Ten and me has been… strained like we’re not sure how to be around each other right now. It’s like the beginning, all over again. I know how he feels about me, and I feel the same, but we need to learn what this new twist, my loss of magic, means. And maybe, being able to be with Ten without inflicting pain, or rendering us stuck in a possible vision of the future, will only be good. We need some good.
“Is Calix better? Mended?” I ask, changing the subject as my mind drifts to Ten.
“He’s fine. Frustrated and restless. I’m not sure if that still stands, though.” She looks at me, and silent words pass between us. She doesn’t have to ask. She knows the only reason why Crimson didn’t return is that she didn’t make it.
“Your brother?”
“Fenix,” I correct again.
She nods.
“I mean it, Kyra. I am so thankful that you’re here. I couldn’t have gotten through…” I take a stuttering breath as I think of all the times I thought of Kyra and her lessons. “I wouldn’t have made it without you.”
Her cheeks flush a little at that comment, and her smile makes a happy appearance. Maybe we will be okay.
“What happen?—”
“Would you mind if I left you and went looking for a change of clothes and maybe convince Lyle to heat the water for a bath?” I stand and place myself in front of the fire.
As I stare at the flashes of orange and gold, fighting against each other to smother themselves around the logs in the fireplace, a scattering of images jumps through my mind.
The cottage. In the thick of night, with Aslendrix hanging low in the sky, the stars choked out around her. Fenix, filled with an anger that sucks all the air around him, like he’s gathering everyscrap of energy and power and pulling the light from around him.
The sound of broken bones. Of screams.
The faces of the people I love, bent and twisted in strange angles, lying in a trail from the cottage into the forest. Lyle, Kyra, Calix, and Ten.
The same image of the cottage—my home—as I saw when I left on Nettle all those months ago.
With one difference. Fenix is at the threshold of the door. Blood on his hands.
Fenix didn’t control them. He broke them all into pieces. Just like he snapped Crimson’s neck.
I suck in a gasp, and the tang of copper coats my tongue, as if the images of what I just saw weren’t just a vision in my mind, and that they happened, all around me, the blood tainting the air.
“No.” It’s my time to shake my head in denial. That won’t happen. It can’t happen. I refuse to believe that every vision, any image I see, will come to pass.
That is not what I am.
I have no power.
But the very real fear, seeping into my veins and blocking out any warmth I’d just regained, is that this might be a future I’m yet to face. And what I did to him, what we did to him, is the motivation for Fenix to come here for me.
thirty-two
. . .
