Page 119 of Memory of Ashes

Casyl was gone.

“I think that while the rift was open, its magic sustained us in this world. This isn’t our home anymore. It hasn’t been for a long time,” he said after a while. “When it closed, that connection was severed.”

“Then why are you still here?”

“I don’t know. It’s just a theory, but the rift pulled what remained of them in as it closed.”

That didn’t explain how she was still alive. She thought about the accidents she’d had, how her body had always recovered from injuries that could have killed her.

Eleandor’s comment burst into her mind.

Her mother.

Was she still alive? Did she really have fae blood in her veins? She tried to remember what her mother had looked like but couldn’t. She was a feeling rather than a memory, a sense of warmth within. Her father had told her that she was beautiful. Every time she had asked about her mother, he’d changed the subject. She had assumed it was because it was too painful to talk about, not because he was hiding something. And now her father was dead, and her mother could be alive in the fae realm. It was sealed. She’d never find out.

The sealed rift turned the possibility into another loss.

Eleandor had known and had kept this from her. Who did he think he was to decide what she should know? She had so many questions, and now she’d never have the answers.

“What about the creatures, the ones trapped in the pit?” she asked, suddenly remembering them.

Tharos frowned and rushed off. She followed at a slower pace and joined him on the city wall as he sent men to inspect the pit.

They’d gone.

At least they now faced only one enemy.

*

They waited inside the city for the inevitable approach of the human army.

She spent much of it sleeping. Although her body had healed unusually quickly, the injury had taken a toll, and a scar remained on her chest.

Tharos mostly avoided her company, preferring to spend time with his men. If the rift was closed, they were stuck here, and this walled city was the safest place for them.

She found him on the city walls, looking out over the land.

“Any sign of them?” she asked him.

“They arrived last night.”

She squinted into the distance but couldn’t see them.

“They’re camped a few miles away. That’s where our tracks will have vanished for them.”

His eyes were ringed with dark circles. He’d been here all this time, maintaining the illusion that concealed them.

“How long?” she asked.

He knew what she meant.

“Not much longer. They’ll be here by nightfall.”

“And then what?”

“Well, I’m hoping these walls hold them off for a while, but it won’t be indefinitely. We’ll just have to convince them to leave.” He smiled without mirth.

She spent the next few hours nervously pacing beside him. Her anxiety grew with the darkening of the sky.