Dess shifted so that his head was propped up by his elbow. “I miss it too sometimes, even though I’ve never really lived under it. I was in the Tyrant’s prisons, then Haven. And we rarely leave the forest these days.” He rubbed a hand over his hair, adding to the wiry blond mess it already was. “How can you miss something you’ve never had?”
She rolled over to face him. “My parents died when I was a baby,” she told him. “I miss them, even though I never knew them.” And what she did know wasn’t even true. She absent-mindedly rubbed the bruise on her forearm.
“I’m sorry,” Dess said. “I understand.”
She knew he did.
“Who’d you live with back in Kansas?” he asked after a moment.
“My grandma,” Thia said.
“No siblings?”
“None. You?”
“Not that I know of.”
She expelled a breath. “Right. Sorry.”
“Don’t be,” he said. “You’ve given me a chance to find out the truth. And besides, if Oskaren is anything to go by, it’s probably better that way.”
Thia tucked her hand under her cheek. “Did you grow up together?”
Dess nodded. “She and Sorscha arrived in Haven shortly after I did. I had no one, so Sorscha took to raising me alongside her own.” He expelled a pained huff. “But that sister died with the curse.”
Died? That was harsh, when Oskaren was right there. “Dess—” she started. The girl was difficult, yes. Cursed, definitely. But Sorscha loved her still. And Dess seemed like a generally amiable boy. Had something happened between them, more than just the girl’s typical brand of annoyance?
But he tugged his blanket over his ears and turned his back to her.
Message received.
“I always wanted a sibling,” Thia commented instead.
“Oh?”
“Someone to just…get it. I don’t know. Maybe that’s silly.”
It took a moment, but he finally rolled again, onto his back this time so he was peering up at the sky too. “Were you lonely?”
That wasn’t it, not exactly. She felt hollow, emptied out. She’d spent her entire life bolstered by the knowledge that, even though her parents were gone, her mother at least lived on in her. When she finally got home, what the hell was she supposed to do with that? Medical school, Harvard—they felt like the pursuit of a version of herself that also could no longer exist. Had those ideas even come from her? She couldn’t remember a time she wanted to be a doctor that wasn’t in some way linked to that desperate yearning for connection to her roots. A yearning her grammy had fostered, even knowing it was based on a lie.
“Are you alright?” Dess asked. A lump formed in her throat. He waited a breath, then reached out and squeezed her wrist. “Maybe we can be alone together.” His usually merry gaze was earnest and a little sad.
Maybe she was lonely, in a way—a stranger to the only family she still had. And he was evidently so as well. She thought of their earlier conversation.
Are you going to kill him?
Maybe. I don’t know.
The vulnerability in his young face tugged her heart. She hoped he didn’t lose it on her account.
She smiled at him. “I’d like that.”
It was about an hour to the forest’s edge from their camp. They set off under the light of a moon that continued to brighten as the trees thinned. Dess led the way, halting when the grasslands beyond became visible. He signaled for their group to wait and slunk forward on his own, and the fact that Oskaren reserved comment made Thia more nervous for what might lie beyond. But after a few moments, he waved them forward.
After nothing but dense woodland, out on the plains, the moon glowed brighter than the memory of the sun to Thia’s unconditioned sight. The terrain was a tangle of long grass, dirt, and stones seemingly destined to give her a sprained ankle. She trod as carefully as she could, grateful for the clear sky and the light it provided.
They walked for some time, mostly in silence, until a large circle of boulders disrupted the horizon. Dess suggested they use it as a vantage point to try to make out the river, and when no one disagreed, they changed course toward it.
