And about other dimensions, even though I’m not quite certain he believes me regarding the possible other-dimensional aspect to what’s going on.
I open Disa’s first missing journal and start scanning. When I’m done, I open the next one. I read each journal within the span of the thirteen years I’m still missing, scanning the pages for any mention of me. I hand each to Rath after I’ve done my first pass. He reads them as well, making meticulous notes, with dates and even numbered footnotes.
We don’t talk about any of it. Not yet.
I just need to fill this void — a void felt more in my mind than my soul now.
I get through those thirteen years, noting with a kind of detachment that Disa encompassed my first death in only two lines — a simple note about my being Everlasting. Then she didn’t journal at all in the six months after. When she did start noting things she deemed of interest once more — mostly areas of study and an almost-clinical distillment of the knowings that sent her all around the world — any mentions of me were kept brief and focused on my training.
Not once did Disa note anything about what she’d stripped from me, what her plans were for telling me about what she’d done — or rectifying it. Nothing about any of the other half-truths she’d spun.
“There’s nothing here,” I mutter to Rath, rubbing my eyes and resisting the urge to fling the last journal across the tower instead of placing it into his outstretched hand.
“There’s plenty here,” he says, admonishing me just a little. “If we read into her interactions with —”
“I don’t want to read into it,” I say mulishly, stretching my back and realizing my leg is weirdly cold. I look out the window, blinking as I note that the sun has set, though the sky isn’t dark enough for the stars to make an appearance yet. I glance around the tower, noting a tray set at the edge of the desk, holding grilled-cheese sandwiches and tomato soup, presumably all cold now. I’ve missed Rought bringing us food. Rath hasn’t eaten either.
I’m pissed at the amount of time I’ve wasted. I was going to work with Bellamy and Presh today, both of whom are more important than the heavily redacted garbage in my aunt’s journals.
I surge to my feet. Well, I try to surge to my feet, only to stumble when I realize that my leg is numb and my joints all ache.
Bent over my aunt’s final missing journal, Rath barely notices. Thankfully. I know I’m acting like a brat, expecting that my aunt planned for her death, that she would have bequeathed me all the secrets she hinted in the note left with the ice-cream maker. Hoping that she would have hidden them all somewhere for me to uncover.
Once more eyeing the armoire that I’m still not quite ready to deal with, I pluck up half of one of the grilled-cheese sandwiches, taking a frustrated bite. It’s still tasty cold. Rought has snuck in extra protein in the form of a slice of smoked turkey and used at least two different cheeses. I lean back against the desk as I stare at the open armoire, the severed bonds aching through my —
A black leather journal has fallen against the side of the space within, all but hidden in the shadow of the deep shelves. It doesn’t match the green of Disa’s other journals.
Wiping my greasy fingers on my sundress like the utter brat I’m channeling, I pick up the journal, cracking it open and noting the date — October 21, 1918. My aunt’s handwriting isn’t as cramped as it is in the journals I’ve just read cover to cover, but it’s clearly still her hand.
I don’t page backward or forward. I read from exactly where the journal has fallen open.
And within those few pages, I split my aunt’s last remaining secrets wide open.
I stand stock-still, mind whirling, clicking so many things together. Such as the comment the Outcast made three months ago during breakfast with me, Rath, and Rought about defending the intersection point and my father’s family. Yet another reason to be pissed at Disa’s rejected mate, for all the secrets he could have so easily shared, and all the confusion and pain that then could have been avoided.
The journal abruptly ends, leaving blank pages. I don’t go back to read from the beginning. I could pull all the other journals from the shelves to confirm, but it was likely years before my aunt started writing again. I likewise don’t have to look to confirm that the years surrounding the death of Ward and the rejection of Ari and Oso were never documented. Just as my own death really wasn’t. Not in any detail.
I watch Rath’s fountain pen scratching across the page of his notebook, then I stare out the window overlooking the bluff. The bluff on which I died.
The cu-sith is still sitting there, watching the tower. Waiting for me?
I tuck the 1918 journal in the pocket of my dress, though it really doesn’t want to fit. Then I pull the last two glasslike objects encompassing my severed soul bonds from the shelf.
“Tempest?” Rath asks in a carefully pitched rumble.
“I need to take a walk,” I say gently, but making it clear that I need some space.
Rath swallows, his gaze flicking to the severed bonds I’m cradling against my chest. “Do I … should I …?”
I haven’t looked within these bonds, not as I did with those I shared with Reck and the cu-sith, and I still don’t. Perhaps I’m able to shield my mind better now that I’m fully bonded to Rath, or more specifically to the dragon, with the chosen bond between Rath and I well anchored.
“No,” I say finally. “This future has been rewritten. At least in part. I need to let it go. Then we’ll move forward together.”
That’s the only thing that Disa’s journals have taught me in all these wasted hours. I need to let all of this go. Not hide it, not pretend it never happened, but acknowledge it so I can move forward. So we can move forward. Together.
Rath nods, though I can see him holding himself in check.
I cross to the stairs, then down through the house, swearing I can still feel Rath’s gaze on me. Perhaps that’s the bond I feel, and he’s actively tracking me on an essence level.
