54
Lina
My mother once told me the sea is beautiful but dangerous. Inconceivably large. So large you can see nothing beyond the open water.
I’d always equated it to the desert. Open sand for as far as the eye could see.
But now, this pain, this fear, is a wide-open abyss, but it doesn’t feel like the desert—hot and damning.
This is the icy-cold, black waves she warned me about. They crash into your body, knocking you off your feet, and soon you are in a whole different dimension. Water surrounds you, blocking out your sight and your hearing. Like falling into the wrong part of the river, except it’s a whole world beneath the surface.
Right now, I feel like I’ve been rocked by those icy waves and sent reeling into the dark depths, where I can no longer tell which way is up.
I blink and realize I am in the hall, bare feet slapping against the stone far too loudly. I stop, panting, trying my best to get my mind under control. I have her coin in my palm.
My death will be assured if I do not stop panicking.
I close my eyes and think of Astella. Her kind-but-shrewd brown eyes. Her tiny limbs and matted hair. Her smooth voice, full of wisdom that made me feel inadequate.
Now, I only have myself.
Would she have told me not to trust my Dread? Or would she have shoved the dagger through his chest when she had the chance?
He’d be dead on the bed, pouring red liquid all over the floor of the room where we just—No, that wouldn’t have happened, if I’d killed him. I never would have known how it felt to have his body on mine.
Would that have been better? To never know the gentleness of his rough skin? The pleasure he gave so freely, as if it were his very purpose in this world.
I wish I had Astella’s certainty. I wish I had the sight.
To know for certain the right choice—no questions, no regret, no shame.
But most of all, I wish she was here now to hold me. To tell me everything will be okay.
Will things ever be okay again?
I am here when you are ready.
I grind my teeth together so tightly it hurts.I don’t know who you are!I internally scream at the voice.I don’t know what you mean! When will I be ready? How would I find you? What does itmean?
I want to slip to the ground, curl into a ball, and sob. I want to let my sorrows seep from my soul and sour the stone of this horrid place. Regret.
I wish I didn’t regret being with him now.
But that choice would mean certain death. It would make all of this meaningless.
I force the fingers of my tight fist open, revealing the beads that have ruined everything. My chin trembles with pain I cannot let free.
My eyes sting with tears.
Lucca.
The sobs begin to come anyway. I fall to my knees in the middle of this hall, where any moment, I could be found and dragged before the feral pit of Drak warriors. And I cannot make myself move.
Any moment, it could all be over.
And all I can think of is him. My friend. My first lover. A boy so sad and lost, whose smile was all the light in the world. A rare gift. A shooting star no one else believed was even real.
He was everything for that one short year.
