“Let’s go,” he informs me. I want to scream. What about her body? Instead I stay silent, trying to process what just happened.
Without asking I let him take me to follow his brother.
His brother is being put in a room. Not a healer’s room, but a room like it. Cries leave his throat. We stand there in the doorway. I sniffle my nose and he looks up. His eyes are bloodshot and red. Tears glide down his face. Braxton moves towards him. He gives him a hug.
“I am sorry, brother.” He puts extra emphasis on the word brother. Did something change after this trial? I did see Zephron there. Braxton doesn’t ask about what their relationship was or how or what. He just gives him comfort.
“I am s-sorry for you too,” he whimpers, looking at me. I step forward, sitting next to him on the bed.
“What do you mean?” I ask. Nobody should know she is my sister. I didn’t tell many people. He confirms my doubts, because apparently he did know.
“She was your sister,” he stutters, and I freeze. “I helped her find you. I am the reason she entered. I am the reason she is dead,” he rattles, pressing his face in his hands.
I am not able to move. Is that how they met? Braxton speaks up.
“You are not the reason she is dead. The king is, Zephron. You did great. You helped her find Eliane. She would have giveneverything with or without your help,” Braxton announces. His shoulders are high and his chin is lifted. His jaw is clenched tight, and he bites his words back.‘And you two fell in love with each other,’ is what he wanted to say but he holds his tongue. How do you know? He is in my mind because he answers before I can ask.
“Because she asked me for help first.”
Ouch.
That hurts.
Did he know she was my sister all along?
“No, not really, but I had my expectations about why she tried to find you,”he explains, his face still with no emotion or movement.
Oh, okay.
“You didn’t tell me about her? That someone tried to find me?”I argue, folding my arm together. He cocks one of his brows up.
“I knew you just as little as her,”he argues back, folding his arms over each other as well.
“Can you stop silent fighting please. Hazel is dead.” Zephron brings in, looking at the both of us, his face even more puffy than before. It brings me back to reality.
Hazel is dead.
My sister is dead.
I hate myself for not getting to know her better.
She did so much for me, and I didn’t do anything.
I wanted to get to know her better.
Visit all the villages of Drimyé together.
But I thought we had time.
Time after these trials.
Time we, as it appears, do not have.
And now all I feel is guilt.
I try as hard as I can to push that memory and feeling away.
“I am tired.” I press out a fake yawn and stretch my arms. I turn to leave. It takes a while, and I hear Braxton talk to someone before the door closes. Footsteps follow me as I walk into the darkness and silent cries keep coming from my throat.
