It’s darker in here, the branches crowding out what light might be filtering over from the house, but I have no trouble seeing the small clearing of thick grass in the center of this grove, then the figure curled tightly within it. Red is sitting with his legs crossed, his torso freshly wrapped with bandages underneath a coat, and his face is tilted up at the sky.
When I look up, I understand what he’s looking at. The branches have blocked out enough light so that the stars in here are more visible, and from this vantage point, it looks like the rest of the world hasfaded away to leave only this circle of leaves overhead, enveloping for us this piece of pristine sky.
Red doesn’t turn at my entrance, but in the dimness, I see him shift slightly so that I can come to sit beside him.
I needed to go somewhere to clear my head, he tells me, his face still pointed upward. I can see a hint of his lashes framed against the night.Found this place. Have you ever eaten pomegranates?
I shake my head.Once.
I heard the Early Ones have a story about them, you know. Pomegranates.
That they do not, in fact, lodge in your teeth?
He smiles slightly at me.That they were once used to tempt a girl trapped in a place called the Underworld, where the dead are.
I make a face and wonder if he can sense it through our link.What a thing to tempt someone with.
At that, Red glances away from the sky to meet my eyes for a moment. His lips curve into a smile.I’ll take them if you don’t want them, he answers.
I join his side. We stay very still, and I let myself think about the nearness of him, the warmth emanating from his body, the brush of his arm against mine. He has been broken down and rebuilt, just as I had, had survived indescribable trauma, but it has not destroyed who he is. He is still the boy I’ve come to know, at once brave and mischievous and naïve, taking the world in.
I wonder if sitting in a grove of them connects us a bit to that Underworld, he finally says.
To the dead?
He nods slightly. I feel, rather than see, his movement in the shift of his body.We might not succeed in getting to Constantine, he says.Maybe we will fail, and Constantine’s armies will rally around us, slaughter us all before we can take him down.
I hear the question in his voice, and answer,But?
But what if we win?He turns to look at me now.What if we do reach the Premier and end his life? What will happen to the Federation then? What will happen to the rest of the lands—Mara, Basea, every territory conquered and brutalized?
I know what he’s afraid to say. If we do succeed in killing the Premier, if we end his regime, how will this world splinter? Will we really be able to return to where we once lived and see it rebuilt for us? What are we returning to, exactly?
I don’t know, I admit.Maybe nothing. Maybe something else will replace the Premier and everything will keep on going as it has.
Red nods slightly. Then he wipes a hand subtly across his cheek. When I look closer, I realize that he’s wiping tears away.
Maybe he is dwelling on the pain of his own past, just as I had.
I wait as he releases his sorrow. The currents of his grief wash against my heart, again and again, and I have no way of reaching out and stopping it. I don’t have a right to. Instead, I listen and feel his pain mix with mine.
After a while, Red leans closer to me.He’s afraid of you, he tells me.He’s afraid of us both. He’s afraid of everything he has ever destroyed, of all the harm in the world coming back onto him. His time is ending, Talin. I promise.
I nod, and within the grief hollowing my heart, I can feel the burning of a flame. To my surprise, something about that flame brings a lump to my throat.
Red, I say to him now.I’m sorry.
He blinks at me.Sorry for what?
I thought I understood everything you went through as a Skyhunter. I didn’t.
He quiets for a moment, and then takes my hand.You are the reason I live, he tells me.And as long as I have this life, I will dedicate it to you. I will be at your side in any battle, whether out there at the palace gates or here, in this grove, in your heart. You saved me. I owe everything to you, Talin. Remember that.
His words flood me with warmth. Without him and the others, my mother might never have made it out of the prison district. Never survived the horrors Constantine inflicted on her. But here she is, after all she has suffered, still able to feed that flame. Still ready to head out and fight.
None of us could have made it this far without each other. And yet, here we are.
In the darkness, my gaze finds his.Maybe, I say, haltingly,maybe someday, after we get out of here, that is, if we survive…
