Page 106 of Above
Since I was to be general, I was rarely awarded much time with the alchemists, because I was forced to follow General Altair. Zura had been trying to catch me, but I wasn’t in the mood to talk, so time away from my company wasn’t a bad thing.
Each council meeting was more and more hostile, the twenty family heads not liking me in the slightest. Other than Talon, ofcourse, who had stepped up and took on the roll after the death of his father.
We were both being forced to move on, our grief not welcomed.
At night, I’d return to my family home, feed Death, clean her litter box, and sob with her in my arms until I fell asleep.
On the fourth day of my new schedule, I was cornered in the hallway outside the council chambers, the three cores looking at me with devastation in their eyes.
Only Dofrel spoke at first, his hands reaching out to me as if to pull me in for a hug, but then thinking better of it.
“Nova, how are you?”
“As if you care,” I deadpanned. Otarn scoffed, her eyes rolling as she crossed her arms.
“I do care, of course I do.” Dofrel’s voice was gentle, missing its snarky edge.
“No, you don’t. Because if you did, you’d know better than to come ask me after I was stuck in a room with your hateful fathers and forced to listen as they belittled and berated me. Even worse, brought these two. Altair’s little posse until the end, right?”
I shoved through them, not giving them time to formulate an argument. But Otarn was quick.
“We need your help finding Az,” she shouted, stopping me in my tracks. I didn’t turn, not willing to let them see my broken face. “He’s out there somewhere and he needs our help. You can sense him. Bring him home to us.”
“We believe he’s innocent,” Elders added, his voice deep and sure.
“Please, Curls?” Dofrel begged, his strained words infuriating me further.
How dare they ask me to help them? How dare they suggest that vile snake was innocent? How dare they!
“If any of you bother me again, I’ll kill you all.”
Chapter Forty-Five
Nova
“I wonder if there will ever be a day that I don’t feel fucking worthless.”
-From the journal of Nova Tershetta, 9265 AS
One month after the Castle Zade attack, life began to feel less than pointless. It was exhausting. Overwhelming. Empty.
Air blew in through the open window of Talon and I’s old barracks room. It would lie empty for twenty-five years, as if nothing had ever happened. Across the hall was Altair’s old room, where he had brutally tore out the heart of his lover. Where he walked out and had spoken to me like I was worth something for the first time. Where he had plotted the slaughter of my family.
Now, every room was void of anything but the stripped furniture. Nothing but memories filling them otherwise.
Our window looked out onto the beach, the spot where I had stood with Altair making my stomach turn and twist.
I wished I would have killed him in his cell. Or left him for dead in the Star District. Anything other than walk away. Because now he was gone, and my family would never receive justice.
Maybe I should have killed all of the cores. Surely I’d have been punished, but my family would be alive and happy. At least then the world would be a better place. Now the vibrancy was gone—shining silver dulled to grey.
My mind wandered to the note they had found in Altair’s cell. Talon had brought it to me, and I found myself regularly reading it. I tugged it out of my pocket, though I knew it by heart now.
I did what needed to be done to ensure the new order. To bring the rise of the core values and make Dajahim pure again. I live with no regrets other than not doing it sooner.
A sick excuse. A pathetic reason. The snake eagerly slithering into his place as a monster.
But I was no better. It was my own fault they were there in the first place, and I would never forgive myself.
