There was never any need for vanity back then. Never a need to know what I looked like. I could see myself a little in my brothers at the village, and that was enough.
One of them would braid my hair, and I would do the same for them. We ensured we each looked as we should.
It’s different now.
The coat hangs off my shoulders, and I put the panties on after Dante left. The feeling of the lace against my skin is an odd comfort. I look like myself—at least, I have not changed much.
The places where I was once pierced still feel far too empty, but with how content I am here, it hardly matters.
All the same, I run a claw over my earlobes. I was forcibly given zitha so the holes would heal, and now there’s nothing more than a tiny, thick scar as I squeeze it.
I turn my face away. There is no need to mourn something like that. I will be re-pierced by my Dante, but it feels unfair to burden him with such a thing right now.
Suddenly, my phone begins to make a noise when someone wishes me to see their face and speak to them. Walking across the room, I pick it up from the side table and see Everest’s name on the screen.
Anger strikes me for a moment, but it does not last. This is Everest. My first friend. The human who saved me. The human who has risked so much to keep me and my brothers safe.
I let that eclipse the pain I’m feeling and tap the screen to answer.
“Cielo,” he breathes out. His face is splotchy—the peachy tan mottled with deep pink. His hair is messy, the skin around his eyes is puffy, and the whites are tinted red. “I wasn’t sure you were going to answer. I know everyone is pissed at me.”
I take a breath. Once more, I wish that the cum allowed me to speak more clearly. I have a much better grasp on the language now, but even my brothers who did not understand English at all are better than me.
“Zane,” I tell him, and he winces.
“I know. I…please don’t think I’m letting him off the hook, okay?”
I do not know this phrase, letting him off the hook. But I can infer it means some kind of absolution.
“I’m so fucking angry at him. I knew he was kind of an idiot about all this Vyastil stuff, and I knew his parents were filling his head with garbage. But I thought…” His voice cracks and his chin wobbles. “I thought he was getting better. He’s working for Quilliyn, and you two are friends?—”
“Not,” I snap before I’m able to stop myself. “Not friends.”
Wewerefriends. I think. Or something like it. And ah—there is the grief. It’s heavy on my chest, not because I lost him, but because I never really had him in the first place.
I cannot allow myself to believe that Zane ever cared for me. He was using me to obtain the portal key, which is still missing. It is in the hands of the human rebellion, and while they cannot use it yet, Eissa believes they will eventually learn how if we do not stop them first.
Which means they are a threat to my people.
And Zane forced me to become part of that plot. He forced my hand in hurting those I love.
I swallow against a hot, thick throat.
“I’m sorry,” Everest whispers. “I shouldn’t have believed him. I should have realized that he was full of shit when he woke up one day and decided he was fine with Rath and me, and with Quilliyn, and with you.”
I bow my head and shake it. “No.”
“Cielo—”
I look up at him. “No sorry. Everest,” I tell him, taking the greatest care with my words. “Not your…faullllt.”
He winces. “I know him better than anyone. I know how stubborn he is. His random change of heart made no sense, but I was so fucking desperate for him to be happy for me—for him to understand that everything his parents taught him was bullshit. I thought if he just got to know you, he’d see the truth.”
I understand what he means. There are so many things that I must learn, but there are so many things I must also unlearn. And the same should be true for Zane.
I also understand loving someone so much that I could be willingly blind to their faults. If this were Dante, I would not want to accept the truth.
“Listen,” Everest says, “Eissa got a house for us, a place that isn’t being monitored by the human or Vyastil government. It’s a place we can all meet up and talk. Your brothers, too.”
