Humans were never meant to come to terms with killing others, intentionally or not.
Kamine had become so focused on the barrage in front of her that she didn’t notice a rock coming down from behind. The force of it knocked her face down, and her glasses flew off her face. The blurring in her eyes raged as she tried to lift herself up, but her body became incapable of movement, her limbs stuck. She heard a terrible crash, and Kamine’s heart jolted inside her, terrified of what and who the rock might have hit. She didn’t let the panic sweep in—she thought instead of the past, thought of the good times with her family as she strained to push herself up.
She spit the dirt that got into her mouth, and assessed her body. Nothing was broken, but her protective gear had dented on her right leg. She crawled around, feeling the earth until coldmetal bit into her skin. Sliding her glasses onto her face, she inspected what had occurred.
The onslaught of rocks seemed to slow down. Either the Gods were giving her mercy or false hope. She used that time to wander towards her home, a slight limp in her gait. Right as she began trekking down the hill, careful not to slip on the slick mud, a flash of pink raced by her.
“Watch it,” Roz gritted out. She ran quickly, no armor covering her at all. Was she that confident in herself?
Kamine watched Roz, who kept her eyes open and searched every area around her. Behind stacks of hay, under wheelbarrows that held mountains of rooted vegetables, and even inside an abandoned barn. Each time she came back empty-handed, and Kamine could feel the frustration radiating off her.
Kamine skidded to a halt next to a fountain in the town’s square. “No luck in your village with the Heart?” Roz’s village neighbored Kamine’s, making it easier to get here than the others, but she expected that the rest of her cohort would be showing up, too.
Roz shook her head, her breaths heavy with exhaustion, but didn’t let her eyes stray away from her goal. She kicked over small rocks on the ground, and pushed aside sacks of grain.
“And you think it’s here?”
Roz nodded without a word, determined to accomplish her goal.
“Why?”
Roz sighed as she stopped what she was doing to turn towards her. “Because of how close you and Professor Grimot had become.”
Another figure bounded towards them. “Did you find it?” Lycaster asked as he rested his hands on his knees, taking labored breaths.
Kamine didn’t know what to make of everyone flocking here. Wouldn’t the Heart be hidden somewhere important? Kamine never considered her village to be special. Kamine just knew that her mother found the Heart hidden in a cave, a few villages over.
Janina and Zoya now jogged to the group. Kamine immediately inspected her friends, and besides a gash on Zoya’s cheek, they both were uninjured.
“You too?” Kamine asked.
They shrugged. “It seemed like the obvious place,” they said in unison.
Kamine crossed her arms. “It’s not like I cheated and had Kestra place the Heart here to make it easier for me.” She would never dare test the Gods that way, even if she believed that they almost encouraged such behavior, so they could punish someone. The Godswouldbe that manipulative.
“Maybe not,” Zoya said. “But the Gods would tell her to place it here. Somewhere it will hurt.”
Kamine supposed there was some sense to that assumption. The Weather Gods wouldn’t just make it hard to find the Heart, but also emotionally difficult. Kamine was also the easiest to target, with her past being so tied to this harrowing, yearly event.
“I—” But Kamine stopped herself. She suddenly knew exactly where it would be. Somewhere that she had avoided for years. Kamine didn’t utter a word before she sprinted off.
Being back home after months away had been disorienting. Everything around Grimot seemed to have changed. His favorite bakery had closed because the owner had died, the tree that he loved climbing on as a child had been cut down, and his room had turned into a nursery. His mother discovered she wasunexpectedly pregnant while he was gone. A welcomed surprise, his mother mentioned, especially at her older age of forty-five. A blessing from the Gods, she muttered.
His parents welcomed him back with open arms, but this home no longer had the same sensation of comfort and ease. All these changes weighed on him, because the world kept moving even if he wasn’t around.
He had no purpose, no direction. He had nothing to wake up for everyday. The one good thing he had was ripped away because his past decisions once again haunted, and found him, and ruined it. He had lost her.
Look at me now, he thought. He stared at himself in the freshly cleaned mirror, his mother’s doing no doubt, and barely recognized himself. His shoulder-length hair was down. He had a pair of scissors in his hands, ready to cut that unbearable history off him. His hands refused to move, his body becoming stiffer as each rock and boulder rained down around them. He could sense it in his fingertips that he would soon become a statue, lost to time.
He should be hiding somewhere, staying safe. He could hear the pounding of the rocks coming down at full force on the roof. Grimot trusted Zoya, though. She was the chosen protector of Grimot’s village, and Zoya was skilled with her powers. He selfishly hoped Kamine had followed her own desires to stay put, and protect her own instead of dooming herself to any regret.
He huffed, and sat down in the old rocking chair, one his mother used when he was a babe. It creaked under him.
A shudder rocked through the house. He clenched the arms of the chair. His hands would miss Kamine’s supple skin. His heart would miss the way she bit her lip as she read her book, or how she smiled at her friends with such open adoration.
He should go be with his parents. He should go make sure his mother was calm, and safe. But as he pulled himself up, one ofhis arms would not budge as it stuck to the chair. He yanked, but he hissed at the excruciating pain, as his body began to turn to stone and graft into the chair. He opened his mouth to scream for help, but the roof came down on him.
Twenty
