It wasn’t new. My brother always joked that I would sleep my life away if I could. But he didn’t know I had a different life in my dreams, a life that was now dead. No matter how much Islept, I hadn’t dreamt of Greyland Noren since he took me to the cabin.
And I tried. A lot.
I missed him, missed that version of him.
It made me question everything.
Neither of us brought up what happened in Tennebris, and I kept wondering if I made it all up. Maybe it wasn’t true. Maybe I imagined everything between us. Maybe I’d been so crazy trapped inside the cabin that I started making up false realities as a coping mechanism for being alone.
He wasn’t helping my conflicting emotions because he acted like nothing changed between us. Any chance he got, Greyland avoided me. If I was already in the dining tent, he’d take his food and leave. If he saw me with Sie or Peter, he’d walk away. He was even refusing his check-ups with the menders. I knew because I looked. He was supposed to come back daily to make sure his rib fractures were healing properly. But he never came.
But now he was walking right toward me, and I realized it was the first time I was getting a good look at his face. I knew he lost an eye—I read the healer’s notes about ten times before I finally let it register, but this was the first time I was actually seeing it—well, kind of seeing it. He had a patch taped over it until the stitches closed, which they should have fully healed by now, but he kept reopening them. Or at least that’s what I gathered from Peter. I overheard him talking to Sie about it, about how Greyland refused to stop training, how his healing was slowed because of it.
I was surprised he still looked just like he had in school. Intimidating. Mean. Dark.Attractive—
If losing his eye was affecting him, he wasn’t showing it. As far as I knew, he refused to talk about what happened.
“Are you writing your name down for the menders?” he asked. He nodded toward the second sign-up sheet. The one listed fornon-frontline-fighting.
I was so shocked for a moment, all I could do was stare at him. I hadn’t spoken to Greyland in months, and now he was just casually asking me if I was signing up for the non-fighting sheet?
It infuriated me.
“No,” I snapped, turning toward him.
I actuallyhadthought about signing up to be a mender… a lot. It was constantly on my mind.
All I knew was that I didn’t want to get left behind. I told Peter whenever the time came, I was going to Lux and Tennebris. I didn’t want to be stuck here, waiting while everyone else was off doing things.
I already did that. Months of it, trapped inside the cabin alone. Waiting. Thinking. Going insane.
So wherever the crowds were going, I was going too.
Lately, Ihatedbeing alone. It had a visceral effect on me now. Just the idea of it… of being trapped in a camp that was completely deserted… I shuddered. When Grey left me in the cabin, I thought he was coming back. He promised me he was coming back… I knew he saved me. I knew I should be grateful. I would have suffered the same fate as my parents if he hadn’t. And what he went through to get me there…
“Then what are you doing with the pen?” His one eye trailed down to my hand, bringing me back to the moment.
“I’m signing up to fight,” I said.
He laughed. It was soft and gentle, unlike when he used to tease me in school, but it still had me seeing red. He stopped as soon as he saw the scowl on my face. “You’re serious?”
“Yes,” I mumbled as heat rushed to my cheeks. I diverted my eyes and stared down at the grass instead. “I’ve been training with my brother and…”
The next second the pen was ripped out of my hand, and he looked—pissed.
“What the hell, Greyland? I was going to—”
“You aren’t fighting,” he cut me off.
“Yes, I am.”
“No, you aren’t.”
My eyes flared as rage sputtered through me. I knew it wasn’t smart. The most logical thing for me to do was to mend, and it wasn’t that I hated healing. I actually loved it, and I planned on continuing to help out while we were in Brighta. I found a weird sort of comfort from working in their tent these past couple of weeks. I was fascinated with the mix of Advenian and mortal medicine and how they seemed to combine both. It was what I wanted to Trial in, what I would have done if I had any powers—not that it mattered anymore. I was declared a servant before Greyland dragged me into those woods. I knew if I was still back in Tennebris, I wouldn’t have been allowed to mend.
So his comment shouldn’t have bothered me, but it did. It pissed me off that he didn’t think I was capable. “I’m fighting,” I said between gritted teeth.
“I’ve seen you fight Lander, Lilia. You’re not fighting.”
