Page 164 of Fate and Flame
Nadra left Temir and yanked me into a hug. I closed my eyes and tried not to think of Gaea. I loved Nadra. She was my oldest friend. She had traveled the world to get to me, to warn me. But Gaea and I understood each other on a different level. She was my person.
“My father, Heva.” Temir swept his arm to the man standing with him.
Fen bowed his head. “I’m afraid we might have lost this battle had it not been for your assistance. I thank you.” He brought his fist to his chest.
“The gods shone upon you this day,” Heva answered.
“I’m sure they did,” Temir said in a flat tone. “Or your people forced you to get off your ass and do something for the world.”
“Temir,” Nadra gasped.
“I owe him nothing,” he answered and walked away.
“You are still welcome to join us,” Heva called out to his son.
Temir didn’t turn around, but instead gave a vulgar gesture and kept walking.
I’d never seen that side of him, but I liked it.
“I wasn’t sure I’d see him at all.” Heva reached into his pockets. “I would ask a favor, in return for my arms this day.” He pulled out a folded paper, the edges so worn it looked as if he’d opened it and closed it a hundred times. “If you would please give this to my son.”
Fen took the letter. “You no longer have to hide in the Winterlands. Autus is dead. His castle is in ruins. The Wind Court is no more.”
“I prefer my walls,” he said simply and turned on his heel and walked away.We watched as his army moved into formation and began their march back to the hidden world they came from.
Hours later, with less than half of the army we’d come with, an injured dragon, thousands of humans and still no sign of Greeve, we did the same.
I knew I shouldn’t do it, but I couldn’t help myself. When the final rays of that wretched sun moved across the battlefield, I turned and looked behind me. I gasped, and Fen turned too, just in time to watch Nealla, the God of Death, raise the souls of the fallen and disappear with the last light of day.
* * *
Days later, Greeve finally came home. The look on his face reopened the wound of losing Gaea. I tried to speak to him, to tell him that she loved him. I tried to console him. But he was entirely lost. A shell of the fae I’d known. We hadn’t just lost Kai and Gaea on that battlefield. We’d lost him too. And for the brief moment, he managed eye contact as we passed in the kitchens. I knew I was right. A warm tear slipped down my cheek as I understood what he meant to do.
“Please,” I begged him. “Don’t.”
He walked away.
Fen was hardly better. I’d found him in Kai’s room twice. Both times his eyes were ringed red and he couldn’t say a word as he sought comfort by touching his brother’s things.
“He was the best of us,” Fen said, his voice catching. “He never took life too seriously. He loved so deeply. Even as a child.” He audibly swallowed. “When we were just boys, he invented a game. We would pretend we were anywhere else in the world, trudging through swamps or climbing mountains, and we would have to guess where the other one was. He was shit at his own game though.” He laughed, fighting back the tears. “I never knew where he was, what he was doing with his wild hand gestures.” He paused and dragged in a shuddering breath. “It feels like that now,” he whispered. “Like I just can’t figure out where he is.”
He sat on the edge of Kai’s bed and buried his face in his hands. I sat beside him, my own tears falling as freely as his. My chest became so heavy, sitting in that room, looking at all the silly things he had collected. A single boot without a sole sat along on his dresser, missing the lace. He’d used it to tie back the curtains to one side. He had weapons strewn about, all worn so far down, they would never be used again. A lone seashell sat beside his bed, a token from his time in the sea court. Everything in that room had a small piece of him within it. Even our heavy hearts.
“He would have never let me die, Ara. Even when we were children. When my mother died, he saved me. He saved me even then,” he sobbed. “But I couldn’t do the same.”
Greeve appeared in the doorway. He looked carefully around the space, seeking the same comfort Fen had been. “Do you remember?” Greeve whispered, crossing the room to fill glasses with an amber liquid and passing them out. “That time after I’d just come to the castle and you both convinced me your father was running a black market from the dungeons?”
Fen smiled sadly.“You lost that bet, and he convinced you to go down there and steal a grendle’s liver.”
Tears pooled in Greeve’s eyes.“He found me scared out of my wits in the hallway and let me hide in his room while he convinced you all I had gone. Then we stole a pig’s liver from the butcher and Sabra threw up on the floor.”
“He always took better care of us than we ever did of him, didn’t he?” Fen asked.
Greeve nodded.
I stood and slipped out of the room. This was a moment they both needed. They needed to mourn their brother and Greeve needed to find a reason to live. I wandered aimlessly through the halls. Finding myself standing outside of Wren’s room, I raised my hand to knock on her door, but I couldn’t. It wasn’t fair for me to hope she would fill the void of Gaea’s place in my life. I loved Wren. But she wasn’t her.
Instead, I placed my back against the wall, slid down, and hugged my knees to my chest. I covered my face with my arms and began to weep. To mourn alone. We’d had a plan. We were going to grow old and bitter together. And now she was just gone. I’d watched her die from a distance without a twinge of emotion and I think I hated Autus all over again in that moment.
