He held my gaze, peering through my eyes as if to discover the pain, sorrow, and fury I kept so carefully locked inside my mind. If my emotions troubled him, he didn’t show it. But his silence lasted long enough that I felt hope flicker in my chest. He would’ve already said no if that were his answer. I gripped his hand tighter, waiting.
Finally, he spoke, his speech slow and ragged. “Perhaps… there’s one way. But I’ll need the prince.”
I paused, nervous. “Ren? Why?”
“There isn’t time to explain.” As if to prove it, he let out a shaky breath, the air catching in his throat and making him cough. He wiped the blood from his lips, then continued, “Just bring him here, and I’ll take care of the rest.”
I nodded and crossed the room to the door. I anticipated having to find Ren in the guest room or prayer hall. But the moment I stepped over the threshold, I caught sight of him sitting just a few feet away, his legs hanging over the veranda’s edge.
He looked up at the sound of the door opening.
“My father wants to see you,” I said before he could speak.
He scrambled to his feet. “Why?”
His hand lifted toward mine, but I drew back.
“I don’t know,” I said, unable to meet his eye. A chasm still hung between us, filled with the debris of all the things we’d yetto piece together. But I couldn’t speak of them yet. Not until my father was well. “Please come in.”
Ren didn’t question me further, following me into the room. The moment he walked in, my father motioned to me and Lilan. “Leave us,” he said, “and close the door behind you.”
I began to protest. “But, Baba—”
“Please,” he said, nudging Lilan to move away from his side. “It’ll only take a moment.”
Ren shot me a quizzical look, but I shook my head. I had no choice but to leave the bedroom with my sister, Baba’s words to Ren muffled by the rainstorm outside.
I leaned against a pillar, eyeing the shut door with apprehension. Lilan paced along the corridor, pausing every so often to face me. But whatever she wanted to say never managed to leave her lips, and I didn’t have the will to draw it out. I wouldn’t know what to tell her anyway. How could I comfort my sister when our suffering was my fault?
Not ten minutes had passed before I heard a chair crashing to the floor. I exchanged a frightened look with Lilan, and we both lunged forward at the same time to fling open the door of Baba’s room.
I tried to comprehend what I was seeing.
Lying sideways across the floor was the stool I’d occupied just minutes ago. Ren leaned over my father, who now lay horizontally on the bed as if he’d been sitting on the edge before he fainted. Ren clutched him by the shoulders, trying to shake him awake.
I stumbled toward the bed. “What happened?”
Ren stared at me, eyes wide. I vaguely noted the talisman missing from his forehead.
“I—I don’t know,” he stammered, glancing between meand my father’s still form. “He told me he needed my help, so I said yes. Then he took my hands and started talking about you, your sister, and your mother—just unrelated ramblings. I didn’t realize what he was doing until—until…”
His words faltered, and he buried his fingers in his hair, muttering a low curse. I instinctively reached for his arm.
“Jie.” Lilan’s voice jerked my attention away from Ren. She was holding Baba’s wrist, the blood drained from her face. “Baba isn’t breathing. He has no pulse.”
I focused on a crack in the wall behind Lilan’s head.
He has no pulse.
He isn’t breathing.
The words whirled wildly through my mind, gradually shoving themselves into rows that made more sense. And yet the order brought little comfort, the truth far from sensical.
I looked at my father’s unmoving chest, then lifted my eyes to Ren, whose cheeks were flushed with anxiety. Guilt.
Life.
Understanding flooded from my brain to my heart, where it froze into spikes. I stared at the fifty-four mala beads around Ren’s neck, certain how they’d feel against my skin.
