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I folded myself in half as I coughed, retching up seawater once again. My eyes were bleary and stinging as I realized I was laying on wooden planks, and I pushed myself up on my elbows.The dock.I felt a hand on my back as I expelled more of the ocean that had entered my lungs.
“Tobyas,” I choked, neither a question nor a statement.
“I’m so sorry, son,” the man’s voice answered. I looked up to see Tyrak crouched over me, his leathers sopping wet, water dripping down his face from his hair.
I heard the sound of pounding on the dock, turning my head to see two blurry figures sprinting toward me.
“Cal!” Aunt Berna cried, her skirts bundled in her fists as she skidded to a stop, bending down to hold me to her chest. She sobbed into my shoulder, and I was thankful the sound of her wails masked the sound of my own.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered in her ear between sobs. “I couldn’t save him.” My heart felt like glass that had been smashed with a hammer. I didn’t know how this much pain could be in my body.It was my fault.
“He…” Tyrak started, his own face marred with sorrow. “He jumped in to try to find him.”
Aunt Berna’s choked howls reverberated through me, lighting up every muscle I hadn’t pushed hard enough, every piece of me that I could have put into saving Tobyas but didn’t. I should have been watching him. I shouldn’t have climbed to the top of the cliff and left him alone.
The guilt was going to swallow me, and I was going to let it.
? ? ?
Losing Mama hurt. It hurt my entire body. But it didn’t hurt now like it used to. It had taken a while to get into the rhythm of our new life in Eserene, but once I did, laughing with Tobyas became easy again. Before long, I stopped thinking of the image of Mama’s head split on the floor every single day. It only came up sometimes, only on the bad days. I’d done just as she’d told me to do. I’d been brave and I’d been kind and I’d been honest.
But losing Tobyas…
There was no color. The world was gray where it had been bright. It was muffled where it had been teeming with sound. I couldn’t do this without him. We’d always been together. Losing him meant… Losing him meant losing me.
His wooden sword washed up on the waterfront a few days later. Lord Castemont and Tyrak found it when they were on a walk. They brought it home to me, Lord Castemont’s somber face contorted with as much of a smile as he could muster, but I couldn’t look at it. I told him to get rid of it. I didn’t want the reminder because…
We never found Tobyas.
My aunt’s movements were slow around the house. She always made sure I was fed and clean, but conversation was rarely made beyond that. We weren’t her children, but she’d raised us for the last five years. She’d poured her energy into making sure we were educated and sheltered andhappy.And we were.
But now the house felt empty. I felt empty. And I know she did too.
Aunt Berna wiped the countertops, her face blank. “Let me,” Lord Castemont said sympathetically, taking the rag from her hand and guiding her to the settee. “You should rest.”
I sat unmoving in one of the plush cream colored chairs, my cheek against my fist, watching as the Lord tidied the kitchen. He’d been by each day to make sure we were doing okay. And even though we never found Tobyas, Lord Castemont had purchased a plot in the city’s cemetery with his name carved across a stone. It was a shady spot beneath flowering trees, far too quiet and peaceful for the tornado that was Tobyas.
Aunt Berna collapsed into a puddle of tears when Lord Castemont led us to the plot, and he held her against him and let her cry. Tyrak’s hand rested on my shoulder as I clenched my jaw as hard as I could. They’d seen me cry so much already. I couldn’t cry again. It took all my effort to choke it back, to look at his name etched in stone and not crumble completely.
TOBYAS VIC MYRIN
RESTING IN THE ARMS OF THE SAINTS
I wished the inscription specified that it was the Benevolent Saints. Either way, he shouldn’t be in the arms of the Saints at all. He should be righthere, reading his books and traversing the cliffs and stealing my desserts. But he was somewhere at the bottom of the sea because I didn’t save him.
? ? ?
“Up for training today?” Tyrak asked lightly, craning his head around the corner of the living room.
I lifted my eyes to him, lids heavy and half-closed, managing a small shake of my head. It had been a month, and I’d only managed to leave the house once. To see Tobyas’ empty gravesite.
The guard walked into the room, cutting a commanding figure with his hand on his sword, his boots clunking against the marble floors. Lord Castemont had coaxed Aunt Berna into sitting on the front porch for tea. He’d asked me to join, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. Not when it was my fault my brother was dead.
“Come on. Give me an excuse to get away from the lovebirds,” he jeered, trying to inject humor into his voice.
“I don’t want to train.”
He crouched down, meeting me at eye level. “How about we work on balance? Hmm?”
