“Before yesterday, there was never a single day that I was apart from my sister.” She stops, gathering herself. One of the noble girls behind me starts weeping softly.
“We always knew, though, that being Bonded meant that we’d likely one day be parted. It’s not unusual for Bonded to die young, whether in the Trials or at the front. We used to argue about it when we were little—which one of us would go first, and how.”
Venna smiles lightly, looking over at her mother and father.
“I always predicted Izabel would go out in a blaze of glory, doing something courageous and foolhardy. I think if she were able to talk to us now, she’d say she was thrilled to have gone out partying.”
I glance over at her parents. Her father manages a watery chuckle. Her mother just shakes her head, eyes glazed.
Venna’s tone turns somber. “When we’re faced with it every day, when we know so many who have passed on defending our country, death starts to seem commonplace. But my sister’s life is not an abstraction, not a statistic. Every day, I’ll look in the mirror and wonder how this face would have aged on Izabel. Every day, I’ll wake up with half my heart gone forever.”
Venna stares ahead, and I see the moment she locks eyes with Tomison. The two of them stand motionless, just looking at each other. Time slows down as their grief reaches out in ripples, sending small painful threads through everything and everyone, like millions of cracks in a pane of shattered glass.
Finally, Venna looks down, gripping the parchment in front of her blankly as if she’s forgotten what she was doing.
My heart clenches. I hunch my shoulders at the ache of it.
If I’d taken that drink instead, Izabel would still be alive. If I’d never stepped into their lives, Izabel and Venna would still be together. Tomison and Izabel would still have a future together.
The hurt is a vise, constricting my chest, and I struggle to draw breath.
“Get it together, girl,” Anassa chides.“Fair or not, you must become a place for others to rest their heartbreak. You cannot lose yourself to it, too.”
I let out a harsh breath, the warmth of it misting in the cool air around me. Suck in another one. Over and over.Breathe, until Anassa’s advice takes root.
Venna recovers and looks around at all the faces gathered. “I know thatIzabel would hate for us to wallow. She’d have some kind of plan for how to help everyone around her recover and keep marching on, making jokes the whole time. It would be obnoxious, and she’d probably overdo it, but in the end we’d all be better for it.”
Her voice wavers, then gains strength again.
“So that’s what we have to do, for Izabel. Keep going. And know that she’d be proud.”
Venna steps down from the platform, and her father moves forward, taking a torch up from where it’s been waiting and lighting the pyre. The flames move fast, climbing high until Izabel’s face is obstructed.
Anassa moves behind me, then the wolves circle around us—the wolves of every Bonded present. They form a ring and, one by one, begin to howl, starting with Venna’s wolf, Skaia. The sound is wild and haunting.
Venna’s face is a stoic mask as she stares at the fire.
We wait as the flames burn on, howls fading to silence, until all we can hear is the crackle of the logs. Finally, the peak of the inferno passes.
Izabel and Asteio are reduced to ash.
Groups of mourners begin to stir. I stand unmoving as the mourners collect themselves, paying quiet regards to the Brooks family as they leave.
Stark puts a hand on my shoulder. “It’s time to depart, my queen.” It’s always “my queen” when he’s trying to protect me, I’ve noticed.
I shudder, and a resounding emptiness fills me. It’s so final, leaving her here. I know it’s irrational, but I don’t want the funeral to end. By clinging to the ceremony, it’s as if we’re still keeping some part of her with us.
Swallowing hard, I step down from the platform, moving toward the path back to the city. Anassa follows somberly behind, sensing that I need to walk this time.
The tears that I can no longer hold back cloud my vision.
I don’t see Tomison coming until he’s standing right in front of me.
Stopping short, I blink at him. “Tomison, I—”
“You did this to her,” he interrupts, voice breaking. His face is gaunt; it’s clear he hasn’t slept. It’s a look I know intimately.
His words are a welcome dagger in my chest—finally, someone has said out loud what I know to be true.
