Page 67 of To No End

I looked down at his arm to my side, noting the black tattoos peeking out the end of his sleeve by his hand. I had been too brave, too bold with my decision to swap seats, because now I had the burning desire to reach out and touch him. Even if I could just place my hand on his, and feel the warmth of his skin against mine, I might be able to relieve the heavy lump that sat in my throat every time I looked at him.

Trace wasn’t exactly soft or sweet to begin with, but with me, he had been vulnerable—I knew that to be true. It was almost painful to feel the repulsion he emanated toward me. Did this place erase everything for him? Did I mean nothing to him now? He certainly still meant something to me. I had to find a way to talk to him.

After dinner, the others hung around in the common area, perusing the books. Now that we knew it was expected of us to be studying whenever we had free time, it seemed like people wanted to ensure they weren’t stuck with the undesirable texts. Most of us were quiet, likely fatigued with the same exhaustion of the day.

I noticed Nori at a table fiddling with a small sack of items, and I sat down to join her.

“What’s that?” I asked.

She looked up with fond excitement that I had shown any interest at all.

“It’s a game; I brought it from home. You probably think I’m silly for bringing something like this, but I packed it before I knew what this place was really about…” She trailed off, looking disappointed.

Trying to make her feel better and play along, I continued to feign curiosity, “What’s it called?”

“Bones and Stones. Do people play it where you’re from?”

I witnessed Nori pour the contents of the sack onto the table: a number of smoothly polished stones and small bone fragments.My sister and I played many games growing up, but I had never heard of this one—and given the name, I don’t think my mother would have let us play. I wondered to myself if they were animal bones… Certainly a pacifist wouldn’t be carrying around a bag of Fae bones, right?

“No, I can’t say I’ve ever encountered it. How do you play?”

She placed a long stick in between us on the table.

“You’re bones and I’ll be stones. The stick represents our sides of the board. You take your 5 pieces into your hand and hold them in a fist with your arm straight out in front of you over the center of the stick. You close your eyes and then call your hand, evens or odds.”

I listened to the rules intently, hoping that it did not get any more complex than this. I was not one for games with a never-ending list of rules to follow.

She continued, “Once you’ve made your call, release the pieces from your hand without looking. When you open your eyes, we count the number of pieces that fell on your side of the stick and if it’s a sum matching your call, you get a point. However, if the amount on your side of the board is the opposite, then I claim the point. Then we switch turns and repeat till the first person reaches 12 points and is deemed the winner.”

Upon her explanation of the rules, I considered how juvenile the game was. There wasn’t really any strategy to be had, but I was trying to forge friendships and didn’t have much strength to do anything else. After a few rounds of persistently losing to Nori, I began to wonder if she had been cheating or perhaps was able to see through her eyelids. Maybe next time I’d propose blindfolds. It was eerie how accurate she was at guessing on her turn, but I resolved to believe it was because she had played this many more times than I had, or perhaps, next time I’d play stones instead of bones.

Trace may have thought he was being inconspicuous, but I noticed him watching us from the corner of the common room while he pretended to show interest in a book. He retired to his room as soon as Nori let out a small cheer as she claimed her victory point.

Training with Theory, exposing ourselves on the terrace, and then listening to what might as well have been a monologue on magic from Saryn had made for a very, very long day. I found a piece of parchment and scribbled a note on it. Before the others returned to their rooms, I made my way back first and slid the note under Trace’s door asking him to meet in four hours after we were certain everyone else would be asleep.

I lay on my bed, waiting for the time to pass and for the hallways to go still and silent. When I was certain everyone else was asleep, I made my exit and was pleased to see he had decided to follow through. Honestly, I had thought there was a very good chance he would ignore my request entirely. His hair was a tousled mess and his eyes looked worn and tired like mine. He was in a loose-fitting black shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, exposing both marked arms.

I had no idea where I was going to take us to find privacy, but I led the way down the spiraling hallway. That tingling sensation had returned briefly but then quickly waned. Trace kept his distance from me but followed in silence. We walked for what seemed like forever till we reached what presumably was the bottom, as the hallway came to an end and the sound of the waterfall through the glass was even more deafening than it was higher up. We hadn’t been shown this part of Basdie yet; we’d both need to act surprised whenever we were brought here later by our instructors.

To my recollection, they hadn’t called out any specific rules about staying up late, being out after hours, or wandering Basdie. As Theory had said:If the rules aren’t stated, then there are none to break. I reflected on the memory of yelling for Gia to throw me a blade before I attacked Saryn.

There was an arched doorway and we wandered through it, unsure of what to expect on the other side. What we discovered was a small circular room with a steaming pool in its center, not unlike the pool at the castle where we had bathed in the waters of Mirtith.

Using his magic, Trace lit more torches lining the walls—a stark contrast from when he insisted on building his own fires. The water glowed and steam hung heavy in the air, making our skin hot. A sheen of sweat formed along my arms, and I removed one of my layers to relieve myself from the heat. I figured why not dip my toes in while we talked?

I removed my boots, placed them to my side, and sat on the damp ground, dipping my feet into the pool. It felt like warm bath water. Trace took a spot on the ground too, but kept a small distance that made the tension obvious.

The silence between us had begun to feel like a unique form of torture. I wasn’t normally one to apologize, but I figured the only way to get him to be vulnerable was to do so first.

“I’m sorry that I lied to you. I hope you can see why, since we were both in a similar predicament,” I offered, somewhat timidly. “Would it have made a difference?” I anxiously asked for an answer I wasn’t entirely prepared to hear.

“I don’t think anything could have stopped me from wanting you,” he replied, taking a long pause before adding, “My whole life has always been intertwined with every whim of my father or the king, and you were the first thing that made me want another life. One of my choosing.”

He turned to look at me directly—one of the few times since we’d arrived. “I knew where I was headed, but I wanted to believe you were somewhere living your life, freely, and that someday you’d find the happiness you deserve.”

I tried to interject, but he stopped me before I could get a word in.

“I have this rage inside of me now, a rage I’ve been unable to quell since seeing your face unveiled in that pool in the depths beneath the castle. You don’t deserve this, to have your life taken from you. I cannot bear to see you become the monster they want you to be, and for you to see the monster that I already am.”

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