Page 118 of The Ashborn

“Then you’re lucky.” Kienna sat back, arms crossed, as her eyes darted away from him.

“Don’t pity yourself,” Tristian snapped, demanding her gaze back. “You have something the rest of us died to protect. Tislin. The Hollow Blades. All of them bled for you, and you still can’t see the path right in front of you.”

I just want to heal, she cried to Ruva. Gritting her teeth, she said, “I didn’t sign up for this.”

Tristian pulled his hair and paced the floor. “No one asks to become what they’re meant to be. They just do it.”

Kienna rose to her knees on the edge of her bed. The fury of her own heart thumped through her veins. They went around in circles in these conversations with a weight of expectations swarming her. “What if you’re wrong? What if I’m not meant to be anything?”

“Then we’ll all die for nothing.”

Silence, thick and bruising, encompassed the room. Kienna’s breath escaped her. She had nothing left to say.

The door opened with a soft creak. Connak slipped across the floor like a shadow. His attention averted them both. His boots barely made a sound as he crossed the threshold, the weight of grief tucked neatly beneath every movement. He stopped, hands at his sides, shoulders rigid. Tristian didn’t acknowledge him either. The tension between them spoke louder than words. They brushed past each other like old echoes.

Tristian turned, voice colder now. “Figure it out. Or don’t. But stop wasting what’s left of us, so we can go in peace.”

Kienna stared blankly at the wall. The door clicked shut behind Tristian, leaving a stillness that settled like ash. Even Ruva had nothing to say.

Connak stood there, eyes on the spot where Tristian had been, his jaw tight, fists flexing once at his sides before relaxing again. He turned to Kienna slowly, and for a moment, it looked like he might say nothing at all. Then, he crossed the room in a few steady steps, sitting beside her bed, heavy with the things that haunted him. “Is he right?” he asked coldly.

Kienna slumped into the pillows and scanned his face for any glint of friendship or warmth. There was none to be found. Her heart sank like a ship plunging into the Lysiria. Her breath wavered as tears fell from her eyes. Ruva howled as if a full moon beckoned her to the wild.

Connak shushed her with an edge to his tone that was unlike him. Ruva lowered her stance and growled, but then she whimpered to him, offering her presence to anchor him from his untethered despair. Connak lowered his head onto Kienna’s bed and cried into the sheets. She watched him with his back heaving upward and then out, a release of emotion finally breaking the barricade he’d placed in his soul between them.

Ruva licked their hands. We all need to rest.

Kienna reached her hands out, still trembling from the trauma of Dove Port. Her fingers caressed the back of Connak’s hair. He flinched at her touch but allowed himself to fall deeper into the warmth she tried to offer. Her mind pushed into his, sparking a small fire to bring him peace. Then she tugged on him until he crawled into the bed and lay there with her until sleep overtook him. Kienna waited until his body stilled, and then she moved out of the bed to let him rest peacefully.

She met Ruva’s stare. My presence might keep him from healing.

Kienna picked at wood with a blade outside the healing room. They refused to offer a knife, so she bargained with a soldier passing by. She had nothing to offer him in return, though he said she could give him whatever she carved the next time they saw each other.

Looking at the carving in her hands now, she didn’t think he would want it. She caught the likeness of Ash in the grooves. Her mind trailed to him often, wishing she had said more to him, heard more of what he would have to tell her. It was him all along, the one that Maren wanted her to find. But how did Maren know Ash? She told Kienna to find him, that he had a letter for her. Ash never gave Kienna a letter. What was she missing?

Tristian’s words rang in her mind while she watched the light peering through canopies like a ghost. They were all ghosts in their own ways, walking through walls, haunted by the war or haunting each other.

Kienna paused mid-carve, her blade trembling at the edge of a familiar curve. The light shifting through the leaves cast faint flickers across the ground. Connak stood a short distance away, partially cloaked in dappled light. His silhouette was softened by the canopy above, not quite returned from the place grief had taken him. His arms hung at his sides, shoulders rigid, but his expression was blank. Maybe worn, or hollow, but trying desperately not to be. He sat next to her on the ground, and they let a beat of silence pass between them. Like souls that wandered too far from the living but weren’t quite ready to be gone.

“I don’t blame you.” Connak waved his hand over his tired eyes, keeping his gaze from hers. “I did at first, but we all had choices, and it was ours to make to fight this war early with River Storm.”

“I’m not worth a war.” Kienna sighed, remembering back to a time when she met Connak in her mind. It was back in River Storm, before she knew the world out here existed, and that an entire group of people rallied to fight. He told her they were coming for her, and she didn’t feel like anyone then. Now, she had more history, and she knew the division that separated this realm. Yet she was tainted by her own kinship. She couldn’t keep anyone safe.

Connak took her hand. “I think Vaerin fears you.”

Kienna turned her head and stared at the ground. “Vaerin controls me.”

“You were strong enough to push against him. You’re a lot stronger than the King of River Storm, and he’s doing whatever he can to make sure you don’t realize that.”

“I would not go that far.” Kienna ran her fingers along her charm. Her old one couldn’t be found in the ruins of Dove Port. The new one was an earthy, handcrafted piece made of braided brown cord, knotted in a macrame style to cradle three polished, honey-yellow stones. Beads in shades of green and pale white were attached at intervals, shaped like delicate leaves and blossoms. Kienna thought back to the moments she took her old charm off. How Vaerin’s dark magic flooded through her each time she did. His darkness created the buzzing in her veins that became too loud to focus. She spent her whole life fighting against that feeling. “I need more answers than you’re giving me. I deserve to know who you think I am.”

Connak’s eyes drifted into the shadows, almost as if he was waiting to see his friend peering around, listening. The emptiness of Tislin’s presence left a weight between them. “You’re right. It’s not that we don’t want you to know certain things. We don’t know everything ourselves, and what we do know has cost a lot of people their lives. If Elira found out⁠—”

“What does the Elvish queen have against me?”

“Everything,” Connak whispered. “I am giving you what I can. I swear.” He gripped her hand tighter. “I know how frustrating it is. I spent years getting the knowledge myself, and it was not from the Elvish. I bartered a lot with remarkably questionable creatures. It’s just…” He stared at her intently, begging her with his gaze. “The Elvish Accords have bound us. Until you choose your path on your own, I can’t tell you anything. The minute I do, the Accords will dissolve and…” More urgently, Connak pleaded, “I need you to trust me. I am always on your side.”

“Tristian wants me to be the Ashborn Queen. I can’t give him what he wants if I don’t know what it means.” Kienna glanced out of the corner of her eye to prepare for another lecture and breakdown from Connak.