Page 147 of A Promise of Peridot
“It seems too dull to hurt anyone,” a gap-toothed soldier said, reaching for the wooden weapon.
“Not when it’s going faster than a mare.” Amelia stole the boomerang back from his grubby hands. Then she turned to me, cool as a layer of frost.
“I’m happy for you and Kane. It was about time.”
“Thank you,” I said, before taking Ryder’s arm in mine. “Can I speak with you for a moment?”
I weaved us through the frenetic energy of the tent until we made it outside. My eyes fell to an unimpressive patch of baby-fine grass between two soldiers’ tents. Growing again after its seedlings had been ripped from the earth in a struggle months and months ago. Reborn after a gruesome death, newer, stronger, and taller than before. Just there, right outside this war tent, Kane had saved me from a horrific fate at the hands of Lieutenant Bert.
I had been so afraid then. So weak. Just a pawn in the larger game at hand. I didn’t even recognize that girl anymore.
Wind rustling my hair, I faced Ryder. “I have something I need to get off my chest.” I kept my voice low, but there weren’t any soldiers around. “Something I should have said a long time ago.”
“Is it that you and Kane are in love?” Ryder said, amused. “Because I put that one together all by myself.”
“No.” I studied my brother. I had let this plague me, and him, for far too long. “It’s that I’m sorry.”
Ryder’s brows pulled inward. “For what?”
“For being so jealous of you, for so much of my life. My whole life, actually.”
“Youwere jealous ofme?”
I winced from the shame. From his incredulousness. “I think I told myself a story in which everyone wanted to be your friend before mine, or Powell and Mother loved you more, and... I don’t know. One day it was true because I had made it true. Does that make sense?”
“Not really,” he admitted.
“Everyone in Abbington adored you. And they weren’t wrong to. You were more social than me, happier, braver—”
Ryder’s sigh cut me off. “Braver? I’m a deserter, Arwen. That day I stole the Onyx coin? The day I sealed your fate? Iran.Ran and left all my men to be killed.”
I shook my head even as I knew the words to be true. Hadn’t he told us as much? That all his men had died, and he had only made it out scot-free by hiding? Why hadn’t I heard it then? That he was not a hero from a folktale as I had once told him, but as scared as the rest of us.
“You,” he said, studying my face, “are actually brave. What you have to do, it’s... horrible. I couldn’t go through with it.”
The all-too-familiar swell of tears built behind my eyes. “I’m not sure if I can, either,” I admitted.
“You’re the bravest person I know, Arwen. You suffered my father’s beatings for so many years while none of us knew. You were always glad to put yourself second to Leigh or me or Mother. I’m sorry you ever thought otherwise about yourself.”
I hadn’t known how much I needed to hear those words until he said them. “It’s all right. Everything that happened... it led me here. I know we’ll find the blade on Hemlock Isle. It’s the only place that makes sense. And then we’ll defeat Lazarus together.”
“I don’t know if—” He shifted on his feet. “I don’t think I’m strong enough to lose you.”
“You were fine with it once.” My own words surprised me.
“How can you say that? You’re my sister.”
“You let me go. You let me run back toward certain death in Abbington. I don’t think I knew it then but... it broke something in me.”
There was such freedom in the words, I didn’t know how I had gone so long without saying them.
Ryder paled. But to his credit, didn’t argue. Didn’t falter. “I never should have let you go that day.” He shook his head. “I didn’t want to be the one to do it. I told you I was a coward. Probably still am. I’m sorry, Arwen. It should go without saying—and it’s my fault that it doesn’t—but I don’t want you to die.”
And I didn’t want to fail him. Any of them. “We’re going to try to find another way to defeat Lazarus.”
“Why am I not surprised? Optimistic as always,” Ryder said with a rueful smile.
I wanted to tell him how wrong he was. How I’d been suffocated by clouds of misery for weeks before I allowed a singleray of hope to peek through. But at some point, without realizing it, I had made peace with the fact that Ryder and I just didn’t know each other so well. Maybe, if we did in fact find a way out of this, I could try to change that. Maybe today, this moment, was the start.
