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I look up at her, startled, and her expression gentles. She heaves a deep sigh. “Yer sad, Deka. Yer stallin’.”
I huff out a laugh. “Why? Why would I do that?”
“Because once we find yer mother, we find the way to yer kelai, an’ once we do that, ye become a god. Ye leave us.”
And there it is, the fear that’s been haunting me all this while:
Once I’m a god, I’ll lose all my friends, the family I’ve painstakingly created over the past two years.
I’ll be whole and free of pain, but I’ll be alone again.
Suddenly, I can’t think; I can’t breathe. I have to clasp my hands to still their nervous trembling. “How did you—”
“I’m yer dearest friend, Deka. I know ye. We all do.” She nudges her chin toward my friends, who are all waiting with the projected specter that is White Hands, the moon gleaming high above them.
Britta continues: “I know yer frightened, Deka, but we all are. Otera is fallin’ to chaos around us—plagues, deluges, monstrosities at every turn. But that’s why we have to keep movin’. Because if we, the strongest an’ the fastest, are terrified, imagine wha it’s like for the rest of Otera. Imagine wha it’s like for the children, the girls.
“We have to keep goin’, Deka, no matter the cost.”
“But it’s always my cost.” The bitter words spill out of me before I can stop them. “Always, always. It’s always me making sacrifices. Even now.” I glare down at my wounded hands, at the golden sores crisscrossing them like lightning bolts.
“An’ wha about me?” When I glance up again, hurt is shining in Britta’s eyes. “Don’t ye think I suffer?”
“How?” I scoff. “You’re not the one in pain. You’re healthy. You’re still—”
“Whole?” Britta steps closer, eyes wide with pain. “How can I be whole when every step ye take makes ye flinch? When every movement makes ye gasp in agony? Do ye think I am without conscience, Deka? Do ye think I am without empathy?
“I can scarcely breathe, watching ye. All the time, I can’t breathe. Ye may be the one in agony, but I am the one who watches. Have ye ever considered that—wha it feels like to be the one who can’t do anythin’ but watch an’ hold their breath? Hope that they’re there in case ye— In case ye—”
Britta stops there, unable to speak further. Her breathing is heavy now, ragged with the weight of all the things she’s too devastated to say.
“My apologies,” I whisper. “I didn’t know.”
“Of course ye didn’t know. Because instead of leanin’ on us, ye’ve turned away, become this rageful…shell.”
“Because I hurt, Britta.” The words rip out of me, a deep and painful admission. “I hurt all the time. Every single moment of every single day, and I don’t know what to do. When I was in the cellar back in Irfut, there were moments of oblivion, at least, but this—it’s unending. It’s like my body is a prison, and I can’t break free no matter how hard I try.”
By now, Britta’s eyes are welling up, and she looks horrified. “I’m so sorry, Deka. I wish I could share yer pain. I wish I could take it into myself, or better yet, heal it. But I can’t. All I can do is support ye. An’ push ye, because…yer deterioratin’…fast. So we have to keep pushing forward. And swiftly.”
Her words are like a tremendous weight pressing down on my chest, sucking all the air out of my lungs. It’s almost unbearable, their heaviness. I have no choice but to do the only thing I can to break the tension: push out my bottom lip and pout in an admirable imitation of a six-year-old about to dissolve into a tantrum. “But I don’t want to,” I whine.
“An’ yet, ye have to.” A twinkle, the first I’ve seen in weeks, lights Britta’s eyes. She moves even closer to me—near enough to touch, but not so near that her skin accidentally brushes mine.
It’s the closest we’ve come to embracing in nearly a month. The closest I’ve gotten to touching anyone that’s not Ixa.
And it feels wonderful.
“Come along, ye,” Britta sniffs. “We have a kelai to find.”
“And a mother to reunite with.” I glance at her, uncertain. “Think she’ll be surprised by how I look?”
I’m still as lean and muscled as I’ve been the past few years, but now golden sores carve across my skin like lightning bolts.
Between them and the glowing reeds I’ve taken to braiding into my curly black hair, I look very different from the quiet, timid girl Mother left in Irfut.
“Well?” I prompt Britta when she doesn’t reply.
“More like horrified.” When I give an outraged gasp, Britta snorts. “Have ye taken a look in the river lately? Ye look like one of those broken potteries they piece back with gold.”
