Page 22 of In Death's Hands
I feel Nathan stiffen where he stands close to us. “I saw a hooded figure.”
“That’s it?” Nathan asks quietly.
“That’s what I saw.” That’s the truth, if not all of it. “So, what are you if you’re not human?”
Down what rabbit hole have I fallen to be having this sort of conversation? How did the heroines in the books I love so much handle it? I can’t remember. Why is this not feeling as crazy as it sounds? Why is the sound of the city beyond the huge windows more foreign to me than what they are saying? I keep waiting to freak out, keep waiting for the shock Nathan mentioned so elegantly to appear or maybe fade enough for me to start feeling something other than careful acceptance. Am I so broken as to also feel relief at what is clearly my life blowing apart into millions of incredible, unthinkable pieces?
That is a line of thinking I would rather ignore.
“We don’t know,” answers Nathan.
It takes me a minute to get free of my spiralling thoughts and remember the question I asked. “What do you mean, you don’t know?”
Nathan
I hate myself a little bit more as I lie to Liv. I wish there was a simple explanation to give her. I wish for a lot of things when it comes to her.
This game I’m playing is a dangerous one. One that leaves me feeling oily and ashamed like I haven’t felt in a long time. Truth be told, it’s not a game at all. But what choice do I have? Tell her the truth? Yeah, right. I’ve already said too much. And entirely not enough. But with Turan here, I can’t explain exactlywhatwe are. Or at least, what we told ourselves we are. Every year that passes makes it a little bit more true anyway.
Despite everything, I find myself deliberating. But before I can make up my mind, Turan answers, tone hard and final, “It doesn’t concern you for now. What does is finding out why these things keep happening to you.”
The look she sends my way freezes me to the bone. We both know why these things are happening to her. Turan felt it the first time I forced her to heal Liv. That girl exists out of the Order. Which is impossible. That’s what she is, an impossibility, but how do you say that to someone? How do you tell them they should be dead, and even I don’t know what the lost Fates have in store for her?
“Why are you so concerned with my safety all of a sudden?” asks Liv, so defiant.
She’s formidable, this woman. Countless souls would have been broken many times over by what’s happened to her in thelast few days, and that’s not even broaching what I am only now starting to figure out about her past. But no, she’s still here, trying to understand it all. By the Order, I wish I could understand it myself.
I feel so guilty I can barely breathe, and I know Turan sees it all.
“I’ve been dragged into this mess, and I must see it through. If only to help my brother.”
I sigh. “It’s not just a matter of your safety anymore, Liv.” Her eyes are so trusting it takes everything in me not to fall to my knees to beg for forgiveness. The look in her eyes when she explained how Deathhelpedher, like she wasn’t sure she would call it help, very nearly did me in. “Something is wrong, the Order is disrupted, and we have to find out why. And how to fix it, if possible.”And how to fixyou, if possible.
“We know why,” mutters Turan, and I feel a familiar cold crawl over my skin. I scramble to control it but not quickly enough, if the alarmed look Turan throws me is any indication.
“You’ve said that before, the Order,” says Liv, entirely ignoring Turan’s comment. “I could hear the capital you put on it this time. What does it mean?”
Running my hand through my hair, I try to explain it in the simplest way possible. “There is a flow of energy running through your world and everything—and everyone—that’s in it. That flow is governed by the Order, which in turn makes itself known through its guardians, the three Fates. From what we have gathered, together they weave the Tapestry and create an order that all things must follow.”
I wish I knew why we remember some things and yet our lives before the Awakening are still a mystery.
“I really should have died that night, then?”
“We don’t know that for sure.” I can feel Turan’s angry look like an annoying fly buzzing near my skin, but Liv’s voice is so small, how could I tell her the truth? Despite my lying, I can see in her wide blue eyes that she knows the truth and is somehow not broken by it.
“Then why did he save me?”
“That is a good question,” answers Turan.
And one I don’t have an answer for. Being saved forced this girl through a life of misery and accidents, and I don’t even knowwhy. A small voice that strangely resembles Liv’s resonates in my head, coming from the darkest corners of my mind. It’s saying that I’m lying to myself, and that I know why.
I ignore it all.
I face the windows to make sure none of this is visible to the women currently gracing my living room. There has never been so much life in this place. I took it long ago to fulfil some sick curiosity. I came to my senses right when everything was purchased and official according to the human I contracted, and so it’s sat here, empty. Waiting. Maybe waiting for this, for her.
I swore to myself long ago that I would not interfere. Turns out I’m really good at lying to myself. But that’s what we’ve been reduced to, lying, guessing, reaching for a truth that only ever turns to smoke. We are so far from what humans believe us to be.
Maybe it’s time to push further. Maybe it’s finally time to get some answers. “There are many good questions that need answers, and all of them lead us to the Fates,” I say, my back still to them.
