How wrong I was.
Chapter 38
Allie
“Vylkor’s still grumbling about how he could’ve protected the city just fine without you,” Dax said instead of a good morning as he barged into my room less than two minutes after I’d arrived.
I rolled my eyes. Even a smidgeon of power could go to someone’s head.
“I have better things to do than worry about his pride.” I opened the balcony windows and shook off the stubborn snowflakes still clinging to my coat.
“Morning stroll?” Dax asked as he sat down.
“If by morning stroll you mean freezing my bits off on the fortress’ roof, sure.”
Every morning since I’d returned, without fail.
“The lookouts are doing their job remarkably well,” Dax said. “I checked.”
“They change guard in the morning."
Which meant shifting about and less attention on the horizon.
I wasn’t taking any chances.
I’d stood there for an hour and saw no glimmer or flaming arrow in the curiously clear sky. It seemed the crater had finally quieted now that the warriors were gone and I was back in the city.
“And all of them are still too green.” I sighed as I plopped down in the seat next to him.
“They’re only a few years younger than us,” he protested.
“Experience and mistakes don’t care about age.” I nodded at the pile of parchments. “Ready?”
Dax took out his quill, looking as enthused as if he was walking into an open flame. “If not me, then who?”
I understood, all too well.
Dax’s presence helped the tedious task, but I still would have rather been anywhere else than reading more endless numbers tied to people I’d cared about and watched die.
I should have been marching toward the battlefield right now.
Or doingsomething.
Thousands of people were risking their lives in the war, while I couldn’t so much as launch a single arrow against the Serpents.
I tried to fight the dark thoughts, but sitting here, in my warm room, with my belly full, I felt like the coward Silas tried to make me out to be.
Yes, I would watch over this crater that kept me trapped, but the city and its civilians very much did not need my help.
I told myself I should be glad I didn’t have to intervene. But after a lifetime of always being the one people came to for help, it was destabilising to live in a world where nobody bothered to.
Solkar’s Reach, even with half its population gone, ran as efficient as ever. Everyone went about their precise day and the only true difference was more eyes on the sky, in case the rim scouts sounded the alarm and more twigs and ribbons placed in windows to ward off evil.
It should’ve been a blessing that nothing had truly changed, but a part of me–another one I kept hidden, and would never let loose–couldn’t understand how everyone just went on.
Ryker’s absence had sucked the life out of the crater.
Everything felt hollow and grey.
