“He needs understanding. He needs to know that he’s not alone. That his burdens aren’t meant to be carried in solidarity.”
Cirian glanced back at Bastien, his position unchanged as he continued to mutter under his breath.
“I don’t know how to help him.”
His words were broken. Just as broken as the man he longed for. I was broken, too. Broken by all the things that Rudderkinhad put me through. But I’d emerged from the wreckage of my life stronger. They could do the same.
Reaching down, I took Cirian’s hand, guiding him back to where Bastien slumped against the wall.
“What are you doing?” he asked, no longer hiding the tears that shone on his cheeks.
“Anger won’t solve this,” I told him, reaching out and taking Bastien's hand in my other. “I learned that lesson through broken bones and torn flesh when I was a youngling. Battle after battle, I fought, believing that enough violence could barter my way out of my misery. That if I leaned into the rage that came along with the unfairness of this world, I would come out unscathed. It was the lie that kept me scarred.”
“I’m not following you.”
“Bastien is at war with himself,” I continued. “And your anger is nothing but violence heaped over the top of his head. How will that help him?”
“So, you’re saying that I should yell at him some more—I’mkidding, Azrael. Please don’t give me that look.”
I wiped the disappointment from my face, shifting my attention to Bastien. He didn’t react to my touch, his lips still moving soundlessly as he stared, half-lidded, at a point on the wall opposite us.
He was broken. That much I could understand. Piling on the responsibilities till he fractured. He would never know peace so long as he suffered under the yoke of his own expectations.
Suddenly, I found myself wishing that it was only another battle that I faced. I would have felt far better prepared. But there was no escaping this place without Bastien’s help, so our only hope lay in the hands of this shattered man.
“Bastien.” His name echoed off the walls around us. He didn’t lift his gaze to look at me, but I continued, “Why are you here?”
Silence fell between us. On my opposite side, I could feel the irritation growing in Cirian.
“He’s not going to tell us anything?—”
“Quiet,” I urged him, tightening my grip on Cirian’s hand without taking my focus off Bastien. “Bast, why did you stay?”
“Because it’s easier.”
“What’s easier?”
“Everything. I don’t have to feel this way anymore.”
“Feel what?”
“Like I’m a mistake. Like I’m stuck between two worlds, neither of which wanted me.”
“Keep going,” I urged.
“I had to kill a part of myself to stay among the mortals. And even then, I never felt like I belonged. But it’s just the same in Paradise. I may be Reviled by blood, but I’ll never truly be one of them. So, I chose to be nothing. It’s easier to be nothing. Please, please just let me be nothing.”
“But you’re not nothing,” Cirian chimed in, stepping forward and taking Bastien’s other hand. “Source’s sake, Bast. You’ve never been nothing a day in your life. Can’t you see that?”
Bastien shook his head, each motion spreading splinters through my heart. How could we not have seen the cracks before now? The last months without Tobias had been difficult for each of us, but Bastien carried that weight in silence, and now it had smothered him completely.
“Then let us show you,” Cirian continued, glancing over to me. I nodded my head in encouragement. “Don’t trust that voice in your head. It’s deceiving you. Trying to convince you of something that simply isn’t true.”
Bastien didn’t respond.
“You fucking raised Tobias from the dead,” said Cirian, his words trembling. “You defied Adoranda Greene and lived to tell the tale.”
“You helped many of my people escape that day,” I added.
