Yes,I thought.You did.
“And I was clumsy with it,” he concluded. “Careless. I had it once, and I didn’t even know it until it was too late.”
“You had the heart of a girl who didn’t know better,” I told him, keeping my voice light when he pulled back to look at me. “It was an innocent love. It didn’t mean much.”
“And still, I want it back,” Kaldur replied simply, his eyes gleaming. “Because then I could nurture it. Care for it and grow that love as I should have.”
I didn’t know what to say. My tongue felt like heavydravametal in my mouth.
Kaldur’s smile was knowing, a little sad, even.
“Thank you for offering your blood, mydallia,” he said. “But I think feeding right now would mean something different to me than it would to you. You’re not ready—you might never be. I understand. But this is my choice.”
My shoulders sagged. Too many words were jamming up into my throat that they were getting stuck. I didn’t knowhowto explain what I felt to him.
“Let’s go back. You need to eat,” he said.
So do you,I thought.
But I followed him regardless.
CHAPTER 38
KALDUR
That night, after I’d made sure that Erina ate a hearty dinner, I received word of a potentiallyvinpack—again—along the outer villages. And so I left to meet with the soldiers I’d dispatched.
The village, ironically enough, was where Erina had grown up. Wrezaan’s abandoned orphanage lay on the outskirts, and I flew over it on my way to the edge of the forest.
It was mostly farmers in these outer villages, taking advantage of the sprawling fields and land that rippled outward. As such, they abutted the forests.Lyvinsweren’t common in this area, but I feared that the construction of the South Road was pushing them inward toward the main towns instead of farther away. I’d received more and more reports of them in the last two months, encroaching on new territories and becoming aggressive when a villager strayed too close.
Luckily no one had been hurt yet, but I feared it was only a matter of time. And the villagers didn’t want protective fences along the forest’s edge—they thought it clashed too much with the natural beauty of their land.
That night, thelyvinswere long gone by the time I reached thevillage, though I could still hear their hair-raising howls echo in the forest. I spoke with the soldiers briefly and ordered three of them to keep posted there through the night as a precaution.
Then I left. But as I flew over the orphanage, curiosity got the best of me, and I circled overhead before landing at the front entrance. It was an old manor-style house, dark in color with gray tinted windows.
I frowned, unable to imagine Erina here. When I went inside, the wood floors creaked under my weight. The choking layers of dust made my lungs squeeze tight, but I explored the old house, peering into the different rooms. It was smaller than I’d thought it’d be.
Stricter laws had been passed within the Kaalium for orphanages a decade before. Wrezaan’s hadn’t passed inspections and had been shut down, the remaining children sent to a newer one on the opposite side of Vyaan, one more closely regulated by the council.
I went upstairs, though some of the wood steps had disintegrated. They’d likely been old already when Erinahadlived here, and knowing that only made that restlessness prowl in my body again.
In one of the back rooms, the largest of them, I saw dusty old cots lining both sides. A single window was at the far end of the room, one that would overlook the front of the house. The entirety of the room was cleared out except for the cots and a few mounds of what I thought might’ve been old, disintegrating clothes.
That was when I saw it.
A dirty painting, hanging precariously by a single nail in the wall, tilted haphazardly as if it used to hang by two.
The glass was covered in a thick smearing of dust, but I wiped it away with the back of my sleeve. Through the thin clearing I’d made, I saw a landscape. Of a pink sky and hills.
My heart twisted in my chest. I looked behind me, at the cotthat lay across from it, and I went there. The quilt was thick, though coated with dust. The pillow was thin, and I imagined mykyranalying here, her young eyes pinned on the painting across the way as she drifted to sleep.
I sat on the cot, my hands coming to my face, and rubbed at my eyes. Life had disappointed her. Over and over again. She’d remained hopeful and optimistic throughout it all…byherchoice, I’d learned today. Knowingly.
It made her stronger than I’d ever realized.
Except…I might’ve been the one to have finally broken her.
