—From the journal of Kailin Strom
Codric's expression when he returned to the table and the heaviness with which he lowered himself to the chair didn't bode well for what he must have already deciphered, and my stomach tied itself into knots.
He laid the two pages one on top of the other, put his notepad in front of him, and started writing.
Shovia and I traded a look, because this was atypical of Codric. Usually, he had a comment or a clever quip as he started the work. Today, he looked as if he were transcribing a eulogy.
Morek came out of the kitchen wiping his hands on a dish towel and dropped into his chair. "What did I miss? Did you start without me?"
"He hasn't started yet." Shovia pulled her booted feet off the empty chair and sat up straight.
Codric worked the first lines in silence, his pen moving, the cipher unspooling behind his eyes. It took him longer than usual, and when he was done, he put his pen down with the same kind of heaviness as when he'd sat down.
"I don't have good news for you in this letter, but before I start, I want to assure you that all hope is not lost yet. So don't despair until I'm done reading."
Shovia crossed her arms over her chest. "With that kind of preamble, I don't really want to hear the rest."
I clung to the part about hope. Whatever disaster he was about to tell us about, he'd told us that we shouldn't despair ahead of time, and I was grateful to him for his consideration.
"'Arlen suffered a serious setback. Father came to judge if he's fit to be heir, and regrettably, a window chose that most inopportune time to fall out of its frame, and the glass shattered on the floor. We were all startled, but Arlen took it really badly. It brought him back to the incident that had sent him spiraling in the first place, and right in front of our parents. Everything we'd accomplished so far was undone in a moment. Father was sympathetic, but firm. He wanted to end our bargain right then and there, but I convinced him to give us another chance. He did, but not because he believed it could be done. He did it because I practically begged.'"
We were all dead quiet, and Morek had even stopped fidgeting.
"'I held him after,'" Codric kept reading. "'He didn't know I was there. He was somewhere else mentally, and I couldn't reach him. He's a little better now, and I will keep trying until the last hour I am given. But it does not look good. I have two weeks, and I hope for a miracle.'"
"The poor man." Shovia shook her head. "And Alar, trying to do the impossible to save his brother."
"I bet he's not telling us the half of it." Morek frowned. "If Alar says it doesn't look good, it probably looks a lot worse than that."
He was right. Alar had written that not all hope was lost, but I didn't know who he'd been trying to convince, himself or us.
Codric read a few more lines, Alar asking us to pray for Arlen, and telling us that he missed us and couldn't wait to be back. Then he lifted his head and turned to look at me. "The rest is for Kailin alone, and Alar wants me to read it to you in private."
I shifted, feeling uncomfortable. Alar had written some lines for me alone before, but he'd never requested privacy for that. Besides, Codric could have just handed me the page where he'd written the translation, which would have made the whole thing much less awkward, so I didn't really know what to expect.
Was it so bad that Alar wanted Codric to be there for me in case I fell apart?
The others went still, waiting for Codric to explain. Shovia and Morek were probably wondering the same thing that I was.
"I'm sorry." Codric looked at Shovia and then at Morek. "Those are Alar's instructions, and I have to follow them."
Shovia's eyebrows went up, and after a beat, the worry on her face gave way to a wry amusement. Knowing her, she was reaching for the most scandalous explanation and was going to say something inappropriate that would make me blush.
"The audacity of the guy. He expects you to murmur his sweet nothings to his girl in private?" She shook her head. "It's kind of kinky, but I didn't know that either of you were into stuff like that." She stood and hooked Morek up out of his chair by the elbow. "Come on. Let's take a walk out in the corridor and let them embarrass each other in private."
She was smiling when she said it, certain that she was leaving me to something sweet and sexy. She paused at the door and looked at me over her shoulder. "You can tell me the good bits later," she said, and then she was gone, and Morek with her.
It was just Codric, the letter, and me, and Codric didn't look amused.
He looked at the two pages, and then at me, and folded them.
"Not here," he said quietly. "Come on."
That undid the last of my composure, because Codric being so secretive that he didn't want to read whatever Alar had written to me out here in the living room, despite Shovia and Morek leaving, couldn't mean anything good.
I led him down the short hall to my room, the one I used to share with Alar, but now shared only with sketches of him on the walls, and I shut the door behind us.
"Please, sit down, Kailin," he said.
