BLOGIVERSARY: 4x excerpts to celebrate 4 years

When I stepped back into the house, it was as still and silent as the grave. The only light left on was the one in the kitchen, which meant that Mum had already gone to bed.

I cursed the sinking feeling in my stomach. I was a fool to hope she would come back out and talk to me, to apologise for yelling, for breaking the plates. She was more likely to tear me apart a second time than she was to apologise for frightening me the first.

But I had to do better. I had to be better.

I was better than this.

Taking a deep breath, I crept across the living room and into the alcove that led to Mum’s bedroom. Her door was slightly ajar, so I slipped inside and peered through the inky darkness.

Mum was lying face down on her bed, clad in her fuzzy green dressing gown. Dad had bought it for her as an anniversary gift one year, claiming the colour made a lovely contrast with her deep auburn hair. The night leached both hair and gown to greyscale tones, but there was still enough light to make out the shape of the wine bottle lying on the floor.

I picked it up. It was empty.

Don’t think about it. She’ll be fine.

I set the bottle on the bedside table and, ever so gently, rolled my mother over. Her face was splotchy, and strands of hair were stuck to the silver runnels that tears had made down her cheeks. I brushed her hair back with careful fingers. She didn’t even stir. The lines of worry she wore during the day were smoothed out as she slept, and her mouth was slack and soft.

She seemed so innocent, so vulnerable, and I was swamped by a wave of emotion. Protectiveness and guilt, anger and sorrow and fear. I loved her and hated her and wanted so badly for her to wake up and look at me and smile.

I would do anything just to see her smile.

I didn’t know if she even remembered how.

Dropping to the floor next to her bed, I tucked myself into a ball. I couldn’t face the thought of crawling, alone, into my own bed. Not tonight. A part of me longed to join her beneath the covers like I did when I was small and nightmares kept me awake.

But I was no longer that boy, and she was no longer that woman.

What is wrong with you? she’d asked me.

Sometimes I wondered whether the thing that was wrong with me was the same thing that was wrong with her. This elusive but tangible darkness in both our lives that neither of us dared give voice to. Because speaking of it would make it real.

Speaking of it would give it power.

Tears were streaming down my face. “I’m sorry, Mum,” I whispered into the silence. Salt slipped between my lips, coating my throat and tongue. “I’m sorry I’m not enough.”

I held my breath, but she didn’t hear me. She never did.

Alex kicks away rocks and large sticks with the toe of his boot, then lays out the tent’s shell and guy ropes. “You going to give me a hand?” he calls. “Or are you just going to stand there looking pretty?”

Heat stings my cheeks. “Right. Sorry.”

The words have barely left my mouth before Alex plucks the bag of tent poles from my grasp. He yanks them out, slotting the segments together with practiced ease before placing them over the tent.

“You’ve done this before,” I comment.

“Sure,” he replies. “What you’re watching is the result of multiple family camping trips each year since I was a newborn. Here, help me feed this through.”

We work surprisingly well together. I don’t know why it catches me so off guard that Alex is good at this. Maybe it was all the moaning during the walk, but he did admit to liking being out in nature. Somewhere along the way, I’ve misjudged him. Underestimated him.

“So I take it family camping trips are not an experience you’re familiar with?” he asks when we’re done.

Standing back to consider our handiwork, I wipe the sweat from my brow. “Not really. Even before my parents broke up, we didn’t go away all that often. My dad works a lot and I was always swimming, so…”

I trail off, fighting a wince at how sad that sounds. It’s not like my parents deprived me of anything. Not at all. When I was eight, and ten, and thirteen, I couldn’t wait for the next swimming meet. I poured everything I had into the sport, and everything Dad had left over when the work was done went into me.

Only recently have I started to mourn what I’ve missed.

“Is he giving you his sob story, Florent?”

The familiar voice slices between us and Alex goes rigid. A cold hand clutches my heart as I turn to face Sebastian; it squeezes tight when I see the smirk on his face. It hurts to hear him talk about me that way.

“Actually,” says Alex, his voice flat, “he was just complimenting me on my mad tent-building skills. It pays to have a little sister who’s a scout.”

“Your little sister is a scout?” Sebastian scoffs.

“Watch it. She’d kick both our arses and still have enough left to dance a jig over our corpses. I’m not even kidding.”

A sneer curls Sebastian’s lips, but instead of responding he turns to me. “Ryan, Zach and I are cooking up a feast over at his tent. Come join us.”

“Uh…”

“Good. I’ll see you in a bit.”

Alex sputters as he leaves, an angry flush smearing over his cheeks. “That fucker,” he growls. “Seriously, why are you even friends with him?”

A million excuses leap to my tongue, but they turn to dust in my mouth. Didn’t I ask myself that very same question earlier today? Still, it’s one thing to harbour doubts about a friend in your own mind. It’s different when someone else badmouths them right in front of you.

“You don’t know him,” I whisper. It’s the truth. Alex doesn’t know a thing about Sebastian’s life. His parents. His enormous house that feels more like a museum than a home.

So it annoys me when Alex snorts dismissively. “No, and I can’t say I particularly care to. I’m going to find my friends.”

I don’t bother trying to call him back. Instead, I shove my hurt feelings deep down, collect the stove and this evening’s rations, and set off to find Sebastian.

As promised, he lounges on a log framing the campsite where Zach is set up. Adam Lai is with them, and Simon Isgro. They wave me over. The warmth of their welcome buffets me, but it doesn’t sink into my skin. It’s familiarity, not affection. Habit, not connection.

I don’t feel like any of them truly know me at all.

“I wish to…apologise…for what happened yesterday,” she said, her voice stiff.

Kael waited, but she didn’t say anything else. “What, that’s it?” he growled. “I’m just supposed to forgive you? You’re not going to tell me why you hate me so much?”

“I don’t hate you.”

“No?” Kael’s laugh was bitter. “So you’re only cruel to the people you don’t hate?”

Tora jerked to a halt right in the middle of the street. It took him a few steps to realise she’d stopped, and when he turned her face was a mask of fury. The sight of it made his insides clench…but didn’t stop him from following when she pivoted and stalked into the shadows of a nearby alley.

The moment Kael set foot beyond the alley’s mouth, Tora whirled on him. Her gloved hand grabbed at the front of his tunic and she slammed him against the cool stone wall, so hard he lost his breath.

“I am cruel to the people I care about,” she snarled, her eyes spitting black fire, “so that they remember to keep their distance from me.”

Kael squirmed against the stone, which stung his bruised back. “But why would you do that?” he wheezed.

Tora’s fist tightened on his shirt, right over his racing heart. For a moment Kael thought she might strike him again, but with a frustrated hiss she let him go and took several steps back. “What is my Talent, Kael?” she said through gritted teeth.

“You’re…you’re a Deathbringer. You can kill people with a single touch.”

“I kill people with a single touch—there is no ‘can’ about it.” She breathed in deeply, eyes intent on him, then pulled off one glove with her teeth. The hand she revealed was slender, bone-white, marred by a number of thin, silvery scars.

“I am not like other Adepts,” Tora went on. “I do not control my Talent. When I touch someone, I sever their khma from their corporeal body. My Talent claims the life of anyone whose skin comes into contact with mine; it doesn’t differentiate between friend or foe. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

Kael leaned further back into the wall. Now that he was still, he found the coldness of the stone was soothing to the heated welts the cane had raised along his spine.

Despite himself, he did understand what Tora was saying. She put people’s lives at risk simply by being around them—an intolerable risk, if those people were friends. So she kept her distance, pushed people away when they grew too close.

“I’m not so easily frightened,” Kael said quietly.

The Deathbringer’s face twisted. “You think that makes it easier? Kael, that makes it worse.”

But Kael found he didn’t care. He didn’t care what her issues were—what troubled waters he’d have to navigate to spend time with her—he just wanted her to teach him all she knew.

So he could protect his brother.

Lifting his chin, Kael stepped away from the wall and approached her. Tora raised her bare hand in warning, but he kept walking until her palm collided with his chest. He could feel the warmth of her skin through the thin fabric of his tunic. “I’ll accept your apology,” he told her, “if you agree to train me.”

She shoved him back.

They stood mere feet apart, glaring at each other in challenge. Neither willing to back down, to concede defeat. Kael’s heart thrummed within his ribcage, determination blending with desperate hope.

Tora jerked her chin towards the street. “Let’s go.”

Myrrine’s eyes narrowed. It had been a mistake for the Council to place Asa in classes with the Awakened when he was first brought to Asphodel. Myrrine put a stop to that the moment she learned of it—it wouldn’t do for him to become emotionally attached—but the damage had already been done. She only had to glance at his shattered expression to know he cared more than he could afford.

“You care too much,” she told him.

Asa went still. “Excuse me?”

“You care too much.”

Heat flashed in his eyes, sending a frisson of unease through Myrrine. “A child—a Graceborn child—is dead and that’s all you have to say?”

“I have seen many dead children,” she said. “Would you like me to believe a Graceborn child’s life is worth more than any other?”

“No, of course not.” Asa scrubbed his hands through his hair, glaring down at her with none of his earlier shyness. “I can’t tell if you’re deliberately misinterpreting me, Myrrine. She was my friend,” his voice cracked on the word, “and she reminded me of my sister. What happened to her is a tragedy she didn’t deserve. I’m allowed my grief. I’m allowed to mourn. That’s what it means to be human—to care. Perhaps you just don’t care enough.”

“I am not the one who froze when there were wounded who needed me.”

Asa recoiled.

Myrrine could distinctly recall the moment she’d turned from the corpse of a Guide she couldn’t save and saw Asa, blood up to his elbows as he stood before a haemorrhaging soldier, unmoving. His chest rose and fell much too fast, and the look on his face was dazed. Wild.

She’d seen that look before.

Asa dragged in a breath. The fading eyelight shone through the window and lined his hair with gold, a crown of brilliance for a man reborn from a legend. Myrrine felt the scant inches between them grow charged, like the moments before a storm struck, and she steeled herself.

You are the shield that all swords dull themselves against, Myrrine. You are the buttress against the storm and the sea. You cannot waver, no matter how hard they rage.

Asa exhaled. Shaking his head, he stepped back and huffed out a bitter laugh. “Maker’s Grace, you don’t pull your punches, do you?”

“Why would I?” Myrrine watched him, but it appeared she would not have to brace against an explosion. “Sometimes the truth is hard to hear. That doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be spoken.”

“And what is the truth I need to hear?”

“I told you. You care too much.”

“I—”

She halted him with a raised hand. “You think I don’t care because I am calm, but you’re wrong. I am calm because somebody needs to be. When chaos and despair descend all around us, somebody needs to maintain their composure or everything would fall apart. But don’t think for a moment that it means I do not care. I care just enough, and keep just enough distance, that I can wade through bodies and blood and pull back as many as I can from the brink of death. You trained as a healer for eight years. If you haven’t learned that lesson by now, your teacher did you a disservice.”

Asa was silent for a long time. He turned to stare out at the setting Eye, kneading his chin between forefinger and thumb. Shadows played across his features, rendering them thoughtful one moment, forlorn the next.

Myrrine waited, running through possible responses in her head. The season she’d spend tutoring him had taught her to expect anything, because Asa rarely reacted the way she thought he would. He could be unpredictable. Was that why her heart was beating a touch too fast?