Page 112 of A Simple Truth

I had cried these tears before.

I cried the day I had made the decision to leave, and I had cried every single day after. But as I was soaring high above the icy clouds, with nothing but a small compass to keep me on track, I couldn’t cry any more I had to be strong.

The back of my legs cramped, but I ignored it as I continued flying through the night without a single break.

The stiffness of my body and the muscle aches were nothing compared to the gushing wound in my heart. But I had no one to blame for it. Not even Fate herself, because I was the one holding the knife.

I was the one who left.

This was foolish.

I understood that.

But reason wouldn’t fix a guilt-riddled heart.

The chances of Viyak surviving another year, another winter, were slim. You bet on someone dying, not surviving in theQuarries. But I had left everything andeveryonebehind in pursuit of this wild idea that he’d be there. That he was still alive. That I could save him.

Foolish, idiotic, and completely irrational.

Yet, just in the last week I had not had one single night of sleep where I didn’t see his face, not a single day where his crying didn’t echo in my ears as I woke.

If I were to be haunted by those dreams for the rest of my worthless life, I would go insane. I had to do something to combat that terrible feeling within me.

I needed something for my mind, for my soul, to hold on to when the pain and the agony and the terrible guilt suffocated me. Because if I didn’t, the guilt would spread, tarnishing everything in my life, even the purest feelings that I now harbored in my heart.

But my guilt would find a way to ruin it somehow, even then.

And perhaps it already had.

The air was gettingthinner as I neared the sharp peaks of the rocky mountains. I had forgotten how my lungs had starved for more oxygen each day as a slave, how we spent the little energy we had panting and gasping for more breath, to just keep us afloat.

My stomach was queasy; I wasn’t sure whether it was from the flight or the flooding emotions that came crashing down at the sight of the quickly approaching Rock Quarries.

My body painfully jerked back upon landing, my back cracking a few times as the long legs of the dragonfly touched down roughly in the small opening between the overgrown pine trees.

“Thank you, Greyfas, sorry your rider sucks,” I mumbled as I patted the beautiful creature on the side, tying his reins around a tree nearby. I clenched my jaw, securing a few more knives at my waist, crossbow neatly fitted to my back, and Heart Piercer sheathed at my thigh, before starting the long hike towards the Quarries.

It felt as if I was back in the lost villages with Priya, hunting for the priest, or the baker, or some other poor soul. So much had changed since then. Life never stopped its race, even as some of us fell.

A part of me wished to have Priya by my side. She’d casually stroll into the Rock Quarries, turning all the guards’ brains into mush while making some inappropriate jokes.

She would not question the insanity of my decision.

Though, perhaps she would.

I knew very little of Priya, as it turned out.

And yet, I still longed for her comforting presence to be near me as I climbed through the rocks and trees, up the hill towards the bridge, towards the one place I’d thought I’d never leave alive.

My thighs still burned from the steep climb as I laid on the ground, watching the two guards at the beginning of the arched stone bridge and the three guards at the end of it.

They never kept too many guards here—it was hard to feed them, hard to station them in these harsh conditions due to the high-altitude sun and thin air. Still, Royals kept enough of them to make sure there would never be any chance of an uprising; that we’d never consider taking out a guard because there would always be more to follow.

Though, even with plenty of guards there, Inadios was cautious. Never overfeeding a slave, never keeping a rebellious spirit alive, carving out life itself from within our souls.

One day, I’d come for his soul too.

I eyed the patrolling soldiers on top of the walls, with their large spear launchers protecting the bridge, the thin, sharp spears able to shoot long distance. I scoffed, as if a slave somehow would make it out that far.

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