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Einar clenches his fists and his jaw, his entire body going taut with fury, but he stays silent.
“These are things that are highly sought-after. After mine was sold, I knew they were going to do the same to my sister.”
“Who did this?” His voice is strained. “Where was your aunt?”
I close my eyes for the briefest of moments, willing away the images of them before I answer his second question. I can’t give him an answer to the first, even though a selfish part of me wants to.
“She was the one who brokered the deal,” I say flatly. “I tried to run away, and I took my sister with me. I had planned it out, down to every last detail, but nothing went exactly right. We were found right before we would have boarded a ship to freedom.”
Einar’s face is pained. He moves forward like he wants to touch me, but then pulls his hands away as if he is afraid to.
“She was furious.” I carefully choose my words while the reality of the situation plays on a loop in my head.
“Rose --” I nearly choke on her name. “Rose wouldn’t stop crying.”
She was afraid and wailed, as a child should be able to do.
“The family guards,”Madame’s soldiers,“were too rough with her... They beat her. At Mother’s orders.”
Madame knew they were going to kill her. She played God as if she had the right to, then forced me to watch as the sentence was carried out.
Einar’s eyes are wide as he soaks in every word, and I wonder if he can read between the lines to everything I still can’t say. Some small part of me wants him to.
“It’s my fault that she died.” I speak the words aloud, giving life to the guilt I have carried with me for so long.
She was calculating. She chose which of us was most valuable to her and decided how she could prevent something like this from ever happening again. And she was successful.
Einar walks toward me, his voice calm, his eyebrows gathering inward as he speaks.
“No. You were a child. Your family was supposed to protect you. This is not your fault, Zaina.”
“This is the price of your disobedience, child.” Madame’s voice was cool, no hint of anger as she sat back to watch her orders being honored.
“I haven’t been a child in a very long time.” My chest aches, and I rub absently at the pain that I know will never fade.
She forced me to watch as the soldiers tortured my helpless sister, my only friend. She forced me to listen to Rose’s cries while her men held me back, preventing me from helping.
“Do not fail me again.” Madame said coldly when it was all over. She handed me a picture of Melodi in an unspoken promise of the fate she would share if I did.
And then she found Aika, and no amount of sense or reason kept me from growing attached to her as well. My sister.
That was my punishment. Reliving Rose’s death, knowing I was powerless to stop it.
“I try to remember our happiest moments,” I add after a while, doing anything to quell the misery that accompanies the memories of that sands-forsaken night. “I try to remember the sound of her laugh, the music she played on the piano, the way she begged for one more lullaby.” A bitter smile tugs at my mouth.
“The song you sang for Sigrid,” Einar says, and I nod. “I can see why she loved it.”
This time, my smile is a little more genuine. “She did. She was learning to play it on the piano.”
“I would have loved to meet her. I am certain that her life was better for having you in it.”
This time, I look up at him, truly seeing him. Realizing that there isn’t a single thing he has judged me for, things other men would have. But it's more than that.
For so long, I have thought only about the death Rose suffered because of my incompetence. Because of my bad decisions. It never occurred to me what kind of life she would have had before that if I hadn't been around to protect her. For the first time in nearly a decade, the squeezing pressure around my heart eases just enough for me to breathe.
“How?” I ask, baffled by everything that he is. “How are you like this? Full of hope and life after what happened to your own family? After what happened to your people?”
Einar takes hesitant steps toward me, slowly moving his hand to my cheek, giving me plenty of opportunity to stop him if I wanted.
