Page 89 of Ruby & Onyx

“By the time we figured out how to pierce the barrier, it was too late. You were gone, and they seized us,” he says, but the amusement seeped from his voice.

“Us?” I ask, afraid to hear the answer.

“Preston and I went searching for you together. When they captured us, they split us up for interrogation. I haven’t seen him since,” he says, and the silence that follows speaks volumes.

Amin and Preston. Only two?

I remember seeing three.

“I’m sorry. Both of you sacrificed so much for me, and I… I’m sorry.” No words could convey how sorry I truly am. To Amin. To Guylita. To Paul. The woman in the market. So many bore the consequences of my existence.

“I would do it again a million times over for my king. And for you.”

“I also live without regret,” Guylita adds.

“Amin, I understand that you’re here largely in service to the king. But Guylita, how can you say that you have no regrets? You’re innocent! You’re only here because you got trapped in my web of mistakes!”

“I spent my entire life studying the gods, but I was never a god. I studied the prophets, though I was never a prophet, either. No matter how much I studied and tried to live a life of worth, nobody ever appreciated my knowledge, my life’s work. And so, I isolated myself, feeling worthless and rejected by society. It wasn’t until you came along that I finally served a purpose. If my decades of studying served even one person, then it was all worth it. Even if it landed me here,” she says, and I can hear the smile in her voice.

“Thank you,” I whisper, though the words could hardly convey the full weight of my thanks. “Your life means something.”

She hums in thanks, and then we nestle into a still silence.

I don’t understand what any of this means. How could I possibly be tied to Perdita? I fear that, once again, everyone is mistaken. My life is the one that is worthless.

* * *

The cell is cold and damp. The kind of cold that settles in your bones and rattles through you in an endless shiver. Time passes without measure. The cell offers neither comfort nor distractions. Every word of Guylita’s tale plays on endless loop in my mind, interrupted only by brief flashbacks of Olly that makes my heart hurt.

It is endless and unforgiving.

When I can’t take the silence anymore, I call to Amin.

A defeated “yeah?” is all I get in reply.

“Lord Myles told me that the men they arrested were caught rifling through my old cottage,” I say, pausing as I contemplate the question to come. “Did you find letters hidden under the mattress?”

When I saw the mirage of my parents, they mentioned the letters written to me many years ago. I had all but forgotten about them until that day.

“I did,” he says.

“Do you still have them?”

“No, they confiscated them before they brought me here. Used their bloody magic to force me into handing them over.”

They’re as good as gone. “Did you read them?”

“No.” The solemn silence thickens between us. “I’m sorry.”

I’ll never read their words – the last remnant of our lives together. Even if they explained the rationale behind agreeing to the arrangement, I’ll never learn it.

The room feels like it’s shrinking, sucking me down into the pits of hell.

Down, down, down, we go.

* * *

A noise snatches me out of my mind’s gloomy depths. It sounded like an explosion in the distance.

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