He grabbed its reins. The words came unbidden to his lips.
“Bless the ones who carry.”
It was an old Ravani saying, one that his mother had taught him, yet the sound of the ancient language calmed the brenni. It snorted and nuzzled his shoulder. He stroked its ears.
“I thought you didn’t believe in the Phoenix or the ancient ways of the desert,” Elena said softly.
“Maybe I’m just feeling nostalgic,” he said. The mountain, the path, this forest, it all brought back the memories of summers spent in Sona Range: hunting with his father, stalking with his mother, searching the sky for falling stars with both at night. As Yassen studied their surroundings, he felt a pain in his chest. It had been there since he had stepped foot in the mountain town, but now it quickened, like a snake constricting its prey.
“Is that it?” Elena said, pointing to a slanting structure within the trees.
Blood beating in his ears, Yassen turned to see his father’s cabin.
Fashioned out of molorian wood, it stood on top of a hill between two thick retherin pines. Reflective panels on the roof warded off the sun. The door, black and heavy, with a golden phoenix knocker nailed across its surface, glowered in the distance.
Yassen slowly climbed the stairs to the cabin—every step felt as if he were wading through deep sand. He had been seven suns the last time he had visited. Just a week before his father’s death. A week before Yassen and his mother were left alone to pick up the pieces and make peace with the secrets Erwin left behind.
The phoenix glinted as Yassen stepped onto the landing. Its eyes opened, a laser scanning Yassen’s face and traveling down the length of his body and then up to pause on his arm. Yassen lifted his left hand. The laser followed.
“Are you supposed to do something?” Elena said.
It was the same question he had asked his father, and Yassen did the same thing his father had done. He reached forward and closed the phoenix’s eyes.
Even man needed time away from the gods.
The door swung open, and they stepped across the threshold. It was not a large cabin, yet it seemed to hold thousands of memories. There was the modest wooden furniture covered with colorful blankets that his mother had chosen; the fireplace of grey stone and flecks of Ravani gold that his father had built; the tea set that he had gifted Yassen’s mother, resting on the kitchen counter in the back. Sunlight streamed in through the window, brushing the dusty hourglass and cups.
Yassen had never believed in ghosts, yet here they were: the ghost of his mother, father, and the boy he had once been. They crowded the room.
Yassen whimpered, his knees suddenly weak. He dimly felt Elena’s arms around him, Elena guiding him into a chair before the fireplace. In the corner of the mantel, he spotted the initials he had carved when his father wasn’t looking. Of course, his father had found out. Laughing, he had carved his own next to Yassen’s.
Y.K. E.K.
Yassen Knight.
Erwin Knight.
When he would come to the cabin, Yassen had been comforted with the knowledge that he was worth something, that he was loved. Back then, the mountain had been his playground, the cabin his haven. He was free to be whoever he wanted, free to dream, to aspire,to be something.
Yet here he was, broken, useless. He had not become the man he had dreamed he would be. He had not even become the assassin he had trained to be.
In the end, he had amounted to nothing.
Yassen’s chest constricted. He was too stunned to move, too harrowed to speak. Elena squeezed his shoulder and straightened.
“Let me handle this.”
He watched as Elena vanished through the door, tying up the brenni, giving them their feed, returning to fill the pantry with their supplies and set water to boil. He watched her as if he were looking through a foggy window. She must have noticed him staring—she noticed everything—yet she said nothing. She was silent through her work, and when she set the tea on the table, she was soft—not in the fragile sort of way, but in the receiving kind. As if she, too, could sense the ghosts in the room.
“Here.”
Yassen stared at the tea but made no move to pick it up. His good hand shook; the other curled inward like a claw. He knew if he picked up the cup, he would spill all of its contents.
Elena sat down beside him and raised his cup. Gently, she touched his chin and brought it to his lips.
“Drink,” she said, her eyes holding him, rooting him. He fastened on to her like a wanderer hugs the rock that shields him from the sandstorm’s vicious winds. As if those eyes alone could save him.
Holding her gaze, he drank.
