A long breath pours out of my lips, and I chuck the pile of meadow grass I was collecting in my hand. I knew this conversation would come the moment Mrs. Armend took her last breath.
“This…the type of grief you’re feeling isn’t the same as Laney’s,” I say quietly. “You’re sad that they’re gone, but you’re truly mourning what you hoped to have with them one day. They were so proud of you on the Veiling Day and since then, you’ve been planning your reunion. The day you’d starshoot to Oddian and show them who you’ve become. You were looking forward to seeing that look in their eyes again.”
He lets out a grunt laced in pain and his fingers flex into fists multiple times.
“They were proud of you, Lambrit.”
“Yeah,” he huffs an unamused laugh. “One day of pride doesn’t erase the other thirty years of embarrassed smiles they gave people when I spoke about things they didn’t understand. Orthe quiet apologies they’d give because I wouldn’t speak in a crowded room. It doesn’t change the fact my mom would tell me to pray and ask the gods to fix my quirks so I could fit in better.”
His eyes narrow in a familiar anger, and my heart cracks open.
“No, it doesn’t change or erase that, but they were proud of—”
“Stop saying that just to make me feel better, Thayla. I don’t want meaningless words.”
My mouth shuts with the snap in his tone.
He releases a deep breath. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay, I understand. But they aren’t meaningless. Your mom…” I trail off and close my eyes.
I should’ve told him last night. It didn’t feel right just spitting out his mother’s dying words there in front of everyone like they meant nothing. Like they were a moment to go over on a checklist.
“She what?” he asks.
I blink away the visual of her in my mind and turn my body until I’m facing him fully. His brows draw down as he studies my face.
“I—we—were there, Lambrit. I held her in her last moments.”
The anger written in the wrinkles of his forehead cracks as I tell him what truly happened. What she said. What I said. His mouth opens and closes repeatedly as indecision on what to say back to me wars within him.
Finally, he closes his eyes and breathes.
I don’t say anything. I let him take his time.
“She had such high hopes for this place. Not even just for me, but in general. She thought there was no wrong in the gods.”
“A lot of people think that. You don’t really know any better until you get here.”
“It’s so incredibly dangerous, and I’m so—” His jaw tightens as he shakes his head. “How could they do this, Thay? How could Mellcom and Jeremiah…”
I don’t have an answer for him. My mind is still struggling to wrap around this. I’ve put them on a pretty low pedestal for a while now, but even this, joining the side of the Abandon, attacking our home region, stealing innocent people, kidnapping…hurting Laney.
They went lower than I ever imagined they could go.
I shove them from my thoughts.
I can’t focus on them right now.
“I came out here to talk to you alone because I’ve made my decision about a couple of things, but I need your help.”
The switch from borderline anger to calm in him is so worrisome. I’ve never seen him like this, but at the same time, I’ve never seen him experience any kind of loss. All I can do, all I know to do, is support him.
“Anything you need, you got it.”
“You say that,” he whispers. His eyes bore into me and unease curls in my belly. “Do you remember when Mr. Wagner was accidentally killed by those oxids?”
I grimace. That was horrific.
