“Where are you taking me?” I glanced around at the remains of the battle and tears pricked behind my eyes. Valla had left nothing. “I need to find my pada. Who are you? Why did you help me?”
“I’m taking you to him.” Her voice didn’t sound reassuring as she went on. “I am—was—your mother’s teacher. I am one of the elderKumai. We stayed behind during the battle.” My mother had mentioned her teacher’s name was Willow.
“Where is everyone else?”
She didn’t respond. I saw bodies on the ground in front of us a short distance away, answering my own question, and I stopped in my tracks. They had covered some with a blanket or tarp of some kind. There was no rise and fall from their chests; they were already gone. Others lay still breathing, barely. I looked at Willow, her warm brown eyes filled with so much sorrow, but she broke my gaze, unable to meet my eyes as a single tear fell from her.
“Where is my father…?” My voice shook on every word, my body numb.
She couldn’t speak. She only pointed me toward a bedroll, where I assumed he was lying. It took me a moment to build up the courage to walk over there. My eyes grew blurry with tears as I pushed past Willow. Every step made the lump in my throat grow, clogging the airway to my lungs.
I slumped to my knees next to him. His breathing was slow and raspy. I palmed his cheek, pushing his brown hair away from his face.
“Pada…,” I whispered, and he opened his glossy, tired eyes to look at me. A small smile pulled on his dry lips.
“There’s my girl.” His voice was weak, but he struggled to sound like himself. I laid my hand on his chest. A thin sheen of water glowed under my palm as I tried to see the damage. Tried to heal him. He placed his hand over mine. “Eme…it’s too late for that.”
“No.” Tears streamed down my face. “Don’t say that.”
“I asked Willow to keep me here long enough to see you one last time.”
I sobbed at his admission.
“Pada, please…I can’t lose you too.”
He grunted as he moved his trembling hand and reached into his bedroll, pulling out a moonstone necklace. My shoulders quaked. I gave him a sad smile as another sob escaped me.
“This cost me eight skins,” he continued with a light chuckle, as if he weren’t telling me goodbye. He took his hand away from mine on his chest and tugged a pendant loose from under his clothes to show me he wore a matching one. I collapsed against him and wrapped my arms around him in a tight hug. He held me weakly, as it was all he could muster. He groaned in pain but continued to do it anyway. As I parted from him, he put the necklace around my neck and wiped away my stained cheeks. “I will always be with you.”
I kept his palm against my cheek, savoring the warmth of him before he tugged it free.
“Now, I need you to go with Willow.”
“No…I’m not leaving you.”
“Eme, I—”
“No, I’m staying. You will not leave this world alone.”
He was too weak to argue. I lay down next to him on my uninjured side and curled my arm under my head as a pillow. He cradled my hand on his chest, and I watched it faintly riseand fall. Willow walked up on his other side, and now that I was getting a better look at her, she looked exhausted. Both her tawny hands glowed as she examined him, and he grabbed one of her wrists.
“It’s okay, Willow, thank you. You can let me go now. I’m ready to be with my wife.” His words clawed and shredded my already broken heart, reminding me that I had not only lost my mother, but now I would lose him too. Willow had been keeping him alive with her abilities this whole time. I could tell she had gotten no sleep with the amount of people in bedrolls she and the handful of other elders were tending to. Her brow scrunched in pain at the thought of letting a patient go.
A leader, friend, and father.
She shook her head and looked away before looking at me. “It won’t be long without me tending to him.”
I nodded at her truth. My heart sank to the pits of my gut. A numbness fell over me as I laid my head back down and peered over at my father on his deathbed. I studied each curve, every line of his appearance, branding all the memories we had together in my heart to be sure I’d never forget them and everything that he was—and would always be to me.
My tears slipped freely as my face remained fierce. Willow used a damp rag and dabbed his face one last time as she murmured under her breath.
“For eternity, let the light of the Mother find you and bring you peace on your next journey. Your fight in this life is finished…Until we meet again,” she said, her last goodbye what we did to those who left us, before she stood to tend to her other patients.
My father’s eyes remained closed. He looked at peace. I lightly squeezed his hand, and he returned the action. I lay there for what felt like hours, but it was only a few more moments until his fingers went slack and his chest fell for the last time. Iscooted close to him. Tears blurred my vision as I buried my head into his chest and let all my broken pieces fall away until I was nothing but a hollow shell.
He was gone, and I was nothing short of lost.
Chapter Ten
