I hold up my hand. “How did you get her killed?”
“I had a job to stake out Foreen, and she found me. She’d told me not to go, but I insisted, telling her that her stories were crazy. As if the world’s fate would rest on my shoulders. As if I were important to anyone.” He huffs. “She drugged me and left me alone, and she got caught and taken in. But I found a letter when I woke up.”
He reaches into his pocket and pulls it out.
I reach for it and carefully unfold it.
Lucian,
You have no idea how important you are. The fate of the world will rest on your shoulders and only love, only your pure love, will save it. Learn how to see monsters. Don’t listen to everyone else; trust yourself.
And tell Keres that I gave her the information to find the escape out of that nightmare. She knows if she just thinks about it.
Stay smart, little boy.
This was my choice and my time.
I turn it over, but that’s it. I press my lips together, frustrated.
“It’s not your fault. She says it right here,” I mutter. “I want to hate you, but I can’t. My mother was like this. She just did everything her own way, and to hell with the rest of us.”
I huff and turn away.
“Do you know how to find this escape?” Cadel asks with a fierce glare at Legion.
“No! Yes! I don’t know. She would tell me everything through coded fairy tales and stories. A lot of what she taught me makes little sense until it happens, and then I’m like, oh, that’s what she meant.”
Legion smiles. “I picked up on that a lot.”
“She would always say if we just stay true to ourselves, we’d stay on the right path. So, I guess we just go on, and eventually, I will find something that jogs a memory, or Jarek will find it.”
Cadel lets go of the back of my neck and walks past me, his fingers brushing mine. Legion and I walk side by side.
“Was she okay when you saw her?” I whisper.
“She refused to tell me what happened, but she cried in her sleep. She called your name and cried for you. I think, whatever you did, she never expected you to do it. She was panicked and kept going out and meeting people and coming back at night exhausted.”
“You took care of her,” I say, suddenly understanding.
“I tried. After she looked after me, I owed her. It was only for a few months.”
We walk in silence, and a wind blows, bringing the faintest trace of wildflowers in the blood-soaked air. I stop, turning with the air. The grass rustles. I lean down, letting it tickle my fingers.
Legion withdraws silently, giving me a moment.
My mum is dead.
A tear runs down my cheek and falls into the grass. Somewhere in this skeleton of a city, her body has fallen, forgotten.
I lick my lips, trying to breathe through the pain. All these years of searching for nothing. Going down into the citadel didn’t save them. They lied.
I gasp, sharp and deep, but no air goes into my lungs. My knees tremble, and I throw my head back, gasping again.
Jarek slams into me, wrapping around me and squeezing me to him.
“Please don’t cry, Kaida. Please. I can’t bear it.”
“My family, my friends, everyone I knew, they are all dead. It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have…I should have done something, anything. I thought it would help, I thought…”
