“Maelis, look here. This is my friend.”
The man held out a cage with a little bird inside. I looked back to our house, trying to decide what to do. The man noticed my curiosity and came a little closer.
“This is my friend, he is trapped inside the cage and I can’topen it. What should I do?” he asked.
I shook my head, because how was I supposed to know? I was only a child.
“Is it happy in there?” I asked the man and watched the bird as it chirped and picked up sunflower seeds from the bottom of the cage.
The man smiled. “That is only something the bird can tell you, if you listen.”
His voice sounded familiar, like someone I should know but couldn’t place.
When I blinked, he was gone. I stared at where he had been, but my mother appeared in the garden and called me back to the house.
As I was racing up the hill towards the house, my feet grew heavy and slowly I started sinking again, into the deep black hole.
It was the first and only dream I had for weeks.
Chapter 40
Theo
It was my birthday.
I’d never celebrated it, not properly or meaningfully.
To me, it had always been just a date on the calendar, a reminder of the day I was taken from my mother’s arms and placed in the temple.
A beginning, yes, but not one I’d chosen.
As a teenager, I’d used the day as a convenient excuse to throw a party at the Lodge.
Loud, chaotic, rebellious.
A way to defy the sentinels and their endless rules. Not a celebration, but a statement.
Now, I stood in front of the mirror, buttoning up a dark blue shirt. The fabric was clean and well-tailored. I looked like someone who had their life together.
I didn’t feel like that man.
Downstairs, my friends were waiting. They’d organized a dinner in my honor.
I wasn’t in the mood for it, but I owed them the courtesy of showing up. After everything I’d put them through lastyear, simply being present felt like the least I could do.
It had taken time to rebuild things with them. Time, patience, and more apologies than I cared to count.
Next week marked exactly one year since Maelis entered my life. One year since everything changed. I could already feel the tide rising inside me, slow and suffocating. The anticipation of that anniversary hung over me like a storm cloud.
Still, tonight wasn’t about her. Or me. It was about the people downstairs. The ones who had stayed. The ones who hadn’t given up on me, even when I made it nearly impossible not to.
I paused at the top of the stairs, listening to their laughter.
Their voices carried up to me, teasing, bickering, warm.
For a moment, just a moment, it felt like it used to.
Before everything fractured.
