The arrow hits the very bottom of the target, and a flicker of pride curves my lips.
“Not bad, Sparrow.” Meredy’s eyes seem to shine brighter than usual as she takes the bow back and assumes the archer’s stance. “With some practice, you might be as good as Fir...” She falters, blinking hard. “Firiel.” As though saying the name took her by surprise, she sinks slowly to her knees and sets her bow aside.
Her shoulders quake. She bites down on her trembling lower lip. And a sob escapes her, a desperate sound like an animal caught in a trap.
I half sit, half fall down beside her. I don’t know what I expected to be hidden under Meredy’s stiff smile and porcelain skin. Certainly not pain deep enough to destroy her from theinside, though perhaps I should have seen it all along. She’s lost even more than I have.
Meredy’s crying gets louder, drowning out the small night noises of birds and deer and the wind in the trees. It’s the kind of cry that shakes her from head to toe, making her fingers curl and her whole body seem to shrink inward like she wants to disappear.
But I don’t want her to. I wrap my arms around her, pulling her against me and holding her until her angry cries become soft, hiccupping sobs.
“I don’t know how you do it,” she murmurs.
“What?”
“Before I met you, it wasn’t hard to be heartless.”
I stroke her wine-red hair. It’s not quite as silky as I’d imagined, but it’s thick and smells faintly of vanilla and cedar chips and something I can’t name, something that might just be Meredy, and I love the way it tangles around my fingers like it doesn’t want to let me go.
“Odessa?” Meredy draws back, gazing blearily at me. Her face is splotchy and damp, her lower lip raw where she must have bitten it.
And yet, somehow, she looks more beautiful than ever.
“Odessa...” She puts a hand on my arm, and I realize I’m still holding her.
We break apart. I hastily turn my head, hoping the night air will cool my burning face.
I don’t even turn back when Meredy says, “You didn’t have to do that. I just—” She pauses, taking a deep breath. “I want to tell you what happened. I want to be strong like you and live with thememory instead of pretending it doesn’t exist. We share Evander, and now I want to share Firiel with someone, too.”
“All right,” I whisper, tucking my hands in my lap.
“Firiel loved to explore the wilds, maybe more than Lysander and I did. She never trained as a mage, but she had greener eyes than mine. I used to tell her she’d make an excellent beast master.” Fresh tears splash down Meredy’s cheeks as she talks. “A few weeks ago, we went to visit her family’s manor in southern Lorness. She asked me to wake up early with her one morning. Said she had something special to show me.”
She pauses and sniffs, dabbing her nose with her shirtsleeve. I meet her eyes to show I’m listening, and she continues in a hoarse voice, “It was so foggy that morning, I could barely see the ground right in front of me. I told her we could go see whatever it was some other time, that it wasn’t worth either of us tripping and breaking our necks, but she insisted.”
Meredy lays a hand on her bow, her tears still falling steadily. “It was a fox’s den full of newborn kits. I only saw them for a moment, because we heard men and horses and tried to run, but Firiel...”
I nod, eyeing the bow in her hands as gooseflesh spreads over my arms, dreading the words to come.
“There were hunters,” Meredy says, swallowing a sob. “They must’ve seen us take off and thought we were deer. I don’t know. Firiel was standing beside me one moment, cooing at the foxes, and the next, she was on the ground with an arrow through her.” Meredy swallows hard again. “The men were really sorry, not that it mattered. I should’ve killed them on the spot, but I was too much of a coward to even do that. I watched her family prepareher for burial, dyed my hair, and then fled Lorness. I didn’t want to be the person she loved anymore. The person who failed to save her.”
“What could you possibly have done? No one is as quick as an arrow!” I wipe the tears from Meredy’s cheeks with my thumbs as fast as I can. They’re rough as bark against her dewy skin. “If there was a chance you could’ve saved her, you would have. Besides, there’s no point being angry with yourself for something you can’t change.”
“Have you forgiven yourself for what happened to Evander?” Meredy dabs her eyes on her already-damp sleeve. “Or did you just get addicted to a potion so you wouldn’t have to carry the guilt around?”
I open my mouth, but it takes a moment to find words. “That’s not fair.”
“Sure it is.” Meredy frowns at me, and her tears finally stop. “You seem to think it’s easy for me to forgive myself for not taking that arrow instead of Firiel, but you can’t forgive yourself for not letting Evander go into that ravine first?”
I gasp. “How did you know—?”
“You talked a lot in your sleep during those first few days of potion withdrawal.” Meredy scoots closer, extending a hand. “If you want me to eventryto forgive myself, you have to do the same. Deal?”
I take her hand, but the simple shake turns into something more. I’m not sure who twines their fingers through the other’s first, or how much time passes before both her hands are joined with mine, only that every slight movement makes my heart jump.
“Do you ever get the feeling,” she whispers, her hands suddenly trembling in mine, “that if you make one wrong move, one stupid choice, the whole world will come crashing down around you?”
“All the time.” I shiver in a strong gust of wind, which frees a scrap of old parchment from Meredy’s cloak. I watch it flutter to the ground. “What’s this?”
