The place has a distinct cabin vibe, but more rustic and handmade than anything I’ve seen before. There’s a large window to my left that’s letting moonlight trickle in to kiss the dusty surfaces, but when I look out, all I see are...tree branches.
“Where are we?” I ask, pushing out of Zeph’s hold.
He lets me go, but when the floor creaks ominously underneath me, I instantly wish he hadn’t.
“It’s safe,” Zeph reassures me. “My father laid the floor himself; it will hold us.”
“Your father?” I question, turning from the branch-hindered view back to Zeph.
“I lived here until…” he trails off, but I can fill in the blanks on my own. He lived here until they were murdered.
I look around the room and wonder if this was Zeph’s or if it was his parents’. When Dri told me about what happened to Zeph and his brother, I assumed it happened in Kestrel City, but I’m starting to grasp that might not be the case.
“Are we in a tree?” I ask, as the branches on the other side of the window catch my attention again.
“We are.”
Zeph’s voice crackles with emotion as he walks to the bed and runs his hand over the comforter that’s covering it. The air in here is stale, and everything looks like it has surrendered to disuse and age. Leaves are prying their way into the room at one corner, like the tree this place is nestled in decided to start to reclaim it.
I suspect there’s more house on the other side of the closed door, but I suspect cracking it open to see would force Zeph to deal with more than just stagnant air and dust bunnies. His whole world started to crumble inside of these walls.
Dri said that after Zeph’s parents were killed, he and his brother were forced to go live with Lazza and Treno’s family. I look out through the window and spot other houses in the branches of colossal trees, and wonder which house belonged to his betrayers.
“My brother and I used to sleep in this room,” Zeph tells me as he sits on the bed, a plume of dust rising up to greet him.
“He was older, right?” I question gently, my tone telling him he’s not obligated to answer if it’s too much.
“By a year. Issak was a good big brother,” he tells me softly, and I ache for his loss.
The name sparks something in me, and my brow folds in question. “Was Issak a common name?” I ask curiously, I’ve heard it twice now, which suddenly seems odd to me.
Zeph shrugs like he’s never really thought about it. I make a note to ask Wekun when I get back. I lean a shoulder against the wall and quietly try to give Zeph as much time in this place as he needs. I’m curious as to why he brought us here, but I realize that it may not have been a conscious decision, but more of a fleeting thought our new ability grasped onto somehow.
“Lazza had a tainted mind even when we were young. People don’t like to admit that about eyas, but sometimes you can see the rot early.”
I drop my head and nod in understanding. I had limited contact with Lazza, but I could definitely see that. I didn’t sense an ounce of compassion in him either of the two times I was in his presence.
“Issak found a nest of sparrow hatchlings in the training yard one day. He didn’t say much after we were taken away, but when he found the little creatures, and it was clear the parents weren’t coming back, he became single-minded in caring for them. I can see now that he was working through what had been done to us, maybe shifting his loss and hurt onto the tiny birds, but every day I saw more and more of my brother come back.”
Anguish throbs through me, because I can see where this story is going. I shove away from the wall and move toward Zeph as he stares at his hands blankly and continues.
“Lazza didn’t just kill them, he tortured them. Unlike his parents, however, he didn’t have the power to force Issak to just sit and watch like he had to with our mother and father. When Lazza broke that last little hatchling’s wings and then started in on its feet, Issak snapped. It all happened so fast; I should have helped him, but I was just so stunned. I didn’t move, not to help the little sparrows or my brother, and then…”
“They killed him,” I finish, and Zeph nods.
“I thought he’d be scared, and thatwasin his eyes when I pulled him into my lap and tried to stop the bleeding while also trying to get us away from the riots. But there was so much anger in his eyes too, anger and...relief. I’ve never stopped fighting since. Not against the Avowed, my past, the Ouphe...you.”
Zeph looks up, his golden, honey-colored gaze fixing on mine, and I’m taken aback by the regret I find in it. “I don’t know if I’m capable of putting aside the fight. It’s what’s kept me going for most of my life, but I don’t want to fight against you, little sparrow. I don’t want to destroy what we should have as mates.”
I stare into Zeph’s eyes as his confession sinks into me. His stare is filled with conviction, but I can see that he’s adrift too. That he’s just as lost as I am when it comes to figuring out how we all fit together. I question if what he’s saying is enough, enough to build on, to try to start fresh, but I need more than words. I need the kind of proof that only comes with time. I need to see the day-in-day-out kind of effort his conviction is promising me.
“Okay,” I concede after a while of us studying each other and trying to read into the other’s gaze.
“Okay,” he repeats, a questioning lilt in his tone.
“Okay,” I confirm, my eyes and resolve sure. I exhale, and the concern and anxiety that felt like it had settled in my marrow abates. I look over and trace the lines of the window. An idea occurs to me, but I need to figure out how to get out of this room. “Come with me,” I tell Zeph as I move closer to the window.
Crap.It isn’t the slide open kind.
