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My mind was roaring as it had since that fateful day, filled with the promise I had made to my mother, my father.Look after Auriol. Do not fail her as we have.I had failed them all.
It is a relief.
Was it? Was that what waited for me when death finally caught up? In a way, I believed it, longed for it. No more worry. No more pressure. No more promises.
It is more than sadness and pain.
For whom? For the one who died, or the family they left behind? Because I had lived with shards of grief in my chest, edging closer to my heart every day that passed.
I cut through the night until Ana’s screams grew quieter, only stopping as water splashed beneath my boots and the ground seemed to swallow me up slowly. The calm waters of the Styx stretched out before me. Dark waves reached my boots as though encouraging me to give in to it.
Far in the distance I saw the bobbing glow of a light. The ferryman brave enough to journey through the waters patrolled the far edges of the lake. Faenir had commanded it of him, ensuring unwanted visitors were kept away.
I blinked away the tears and attempted to catch a deep enough breath to steady the thundering in my chest.
The waters of the Styx seemed to sing to me, questioning with each lap of a wave against the dark sands of the bank.
Why are you here? What do you come searching for?
Perhaps it was the peace Faenir had spoken about. The quiet. I could have thrown myself into the waters and found peace sooner than the sickness returned. Standing before the Styx, I contemplated ending it. The thought was fleeting and fast, but there undoubtedly.
At least death would be on my own terms. If there was peace, then I longed to find it. It was what I deserved.
“Arlo…” Faenir spoke behind me.
I had not sensed his presence, but as I glanced over my shoulder, face slick with sadness, I saw him there. Wind whipped his obsidian hair around his shoulders as his piercing gaze watched me.
“She is gone, isn’t she?” I shouted above the wind. I did not need to ask to know the answer, nor did Faenir need to reply, because the sombre expression etched into his handsome face answered for him.“Death is not fair. It is cruel and wrong.”
Faenir stepped cautiously towards me. “My darling, you are not wrong. Death is like a coin, two opposing sides and truths depending on which way it lands and to whom still lives long enough to flip it.”
I steeled myself as I turned my back on the Styx. “I couldn’t stay and watch. Perhaps that makes me a coward… so be it.”
Faenir was close now, hands out, reaching for me. Part of me longed to throw myself into his embrace, yet the other part had me rooted to the spot. As I looked upon him, I could only imagine his reaction when I finally was taken from him. Would he scream as Ana had? Fill the night with his grief until the stars burst and the sky shattered?
“Do you wish to speak about them?” His question caught me off guard. He noticed my trepidation and continued. “Myrinn told me about your parents. She explained your urgency to return to Tithe because of the promise you kept for them.”
What else had she said?
I prepared myself for him to drag forth the truth about the sickness and how it, too, claimed me. I, like my parents, was thetithepaid to death himself.
I could not speak from fear I would expose myself, or the weakness that longed to burst through the cracks across my soul.
“I understand you will leave me, Arlo, and I do not resent you for it. When the door opens up between our realms, you will return to your sister, and I will not stop you. No matter how hard, I willnotstop you. I want you to know that.”
My knees buckled, and I dropped to the ground. I gripped fistfuls of sand, hoping to feel something real.
Faenir was there before me, hands reaching for my downturned face.“Speak to me, darling. Tell me what is wrong.”
“What if I can’t leave?” I managed, voice breaking with each word.
Faenir misinterpreted me; I did not correct him. “I long for you to stay with me. Selfishly, I desire nothing more, but I love you enough to know that I must let you go home. It is my punishment for stealing you from it, one I must endure.”
I looked up; my eyes once again blinded by grief. “Say it again?”
Faenir’s cool fingers dropped from my face, and he rocked backwards on his knees. “What?” He had not realised he said it aloud.
“You love me?”
