I run my fingers against my surcoat and shake my head. If I speak about the day he executed Malachi, I will shatter, just like that jar I destroyed.
A frown pulls at the edges of Hector’s mouth. “You are clearly upset. Tell me.”
I look down, still refusing to talk.
He lifts my chin. “Please tell me, Sol.”
“You murdered Malachi to hurt me.” The words break out of me, shattering into tiny fragments and piercing my heart.
The memory refuses to be squelched. Hector standing in the clearing with a throwing knife. He could have used a bow. He could have even allowed an executioner to kill Malachi, but he didn’t. He was cruel and vengeful.
“I did not.”
I push Hector’s hand away. “He was innocent, and you know it.”
Bitterness laces Hector’s tone as he speaks. “That man was far from innocent.” Hector shoves his fingers through his hair and exhales. “I wasn’t going to tell you yet. I thought it would only hurt you more to know the truth.”
“Tell me,” I say through the pain of losing my friend. “I want to know.”
“Malachi was a spy, and you were his target.” How blunt Hector’s words are. How cruel.
My mouth falls open before I recover and snap it closed. “That’s a lie.”
Dark strands of hair fall over Hector’s forehead as he shakes his head. “We were able to intercept his coded messages. He was working to stop you from restoring magic to my people. The Kyanites knew he was living among us, and when they learned you were here, they either convinced him or forced him to help them.”
Coldness splashes over me as the day in the barn with Malachi floods my thoughts. He was clearly there to warn me. Then, at the festival, he told me my serpent mark would kill me.
“He was going to kill you, Sol,” Hector says, his words shattering something deep inside me. Something that clung to the memory of my friendship with Malachi like a spider clinging to its web.
There were so many happy moments stored in those memories. Now, Hector wants me to let go of that web, to sever it as if it never existed, as if my friendship with Malachi was just an allusion.
“You could be lying to me,” I say after a while of stifling silence.
Sincerity threads into Hector’s words as he speaks. “I have letters in his handwriting that prove his guilt.”
I let out a shaky exhale and clutch my fingers against my mouth.
Hector goes to his satchel and pulls out two pieces of parchment—the one I read and another. “These are some of the letters Malachi’s wife gave to us.”
Numbly, I walk to Hector, and he hands me the parchments. I read the second one.
Tomorrow, I will obey duty, and I will stop Sol before she unleashes the Bloodstone’s plague upon this land. I will take her life, but in doing so, my dear wife, I will lose my own.
With a strangled cry, I shove the parchments back into Hector’s hands. “Burn them.”
“If that is what you want.”
Hollowness takes root in my chest, growing weeds of heartache as I scrub at my surcoat with a clenched fist. Hector moves to the fireplace and lowers the parchment into the flames. The edges curl and blacken, the ink melting away into nothingness. It’s as if I’m watching a part of myself being destroyed along with the letters. Malachi was my friend, my confidant, and now he’s just a memory tainted by betrayal.
I collapse into a chair and exhale as Hector comes to kneel in front of me. His hands find my knees.
“Sol.” When I don’t look at him, he continues in a gentle voice. “I’m sorry I killed him in front of you. I shouldn’t have.”
A raspy confession emerges from my lips like a piece of charcoal grating against wood.
“I hated you for it.”
“I know. I was full of rage. Vengeance took hold of me and wouldn’t let go.” Hector’s face twists with remorse, regret blazing in his eyes so bright it could set a forest ablaze. “He deserved to die, but not like that. Not with you being forced to watch.”
