In the distance, Andi could hear the faint string music of a sumdrel floating in the wind from a nearby village. Revalia was already beginning, the start of a wild, carefree night.
Andi scanned the clearing, eyes finally settling on a figure who sat alone on a large rock by the water. She practically slumped to the ground with relief.
From here, he looked peaceful, as if he hadn’t a care in all the world.
He sat with his head bowed, his skin aglow from the flowers and a steady beam of moonlight that lit the water nearby. He was drawing something in the wet mud on the bank of the stream, his hands moving effortlessly as if the stick were a paintbrush, the mud a fresh canvas. Andi approached slowly, hoping for a glimpse of his art. But she didn’t get to see what it was before he turned at the sound of her footsteps. His face was unreadable.
“Andi,” he said softly. “How did you find me?”
She took another step forward, approaching him slowly. Half of her wanted him to keep spouting painful words, tearing at the scabs on her heart until they ripped open, and the truth of the past bled out.
The other half was relieved that he now seemed so much calmer in her presence.
“A Sentinel saw you leave,” she said. “Thought I’d check in to see if you were alright.” She paused, waiting for a response he didn’t give. “We need to head back to Rhymore.”
She started to turn, but he stopped her.
“No, wait.” His voice sounded pained, but then he swallowed and nodded. “I...need a few more minutes. It’s been a while since I’ve seen the outside.”
In all the years they’d known each other, this was perhaps the only time they’d ever been alone. Andi was acutely aware of that as she slowly walked forward and settled down next to him, a full arm’s length away.
They sat in silence. The stream burbled cheerfully. Every few seconds, Andi heard the telltale swish of a tail flicking out of the water.
She remembered, with a sad smile, the times she’d tried to catch fish with her bare hands on Uulveca. How hopeless she’d felt, ten times larger and stronger than any animal beneath the surface, yet still incapable of catching one to feed herself with.
If Dex hadn’t given her a meal, she might not be alive today.
Valen shifted beside her, his clothing rustling, and she got a whiff of his scent. Not fresh paint, like she remembered, but not the rotten smell he’d had on Lunamere, either.
It was fresh and cool, like the air around them, like the strangely comfortable silence they shared.
Who was going to speak first? She couldn’t imagine it would be her, because what would she say?
I’m sorry I killed your sister.
She noticed in her peripheral vision that Valen was drawing in the mud again. Peering over, she finally got a good look at what he was sketching. It was a woman, a crown atop her head and hair swaying in the phantom wind.
“Who is she?” Andi asked.
“No one.”
His voice was bored as he said it. And yet his eyes, so much more haunted than the eyes Andi remembered, did not look away from the image in the mud.
The silence swept over them again. Andi tried to find a middle ground between the two of them. A safe topic to discuss. She knew he must hate her, but found herself desperately wanting to mend this bridge between them—and hoping he wouldn’t try to jab that stick in her heart.
“I remember your paintings,” she offered. “Your mother used to hang them up all over the estate. My favorite was the one you painted of the waterfall falling off the gravarocks.” She could still picture the unique hues of green, blue and yellow he’d used. The gravarocks were Arcardius’s most unique feature—large mounds of earth floating in thin air, as if they’d been magicked to stay aloft. Valen had managed to capture their beauty in a whole new way, making them even more captivating than they already were. “You were always so talented with art.”
“When I was locked up, I almost forgot what colors looked like,” he said, lazily brushing the stick back and forth against the mud. “Did you know that black is more than just a single shade?”
He turned and raised a brow at her, his eyes full of a meaning that Andi couldn’t interpret.
She shrugged. “It all looks the same to me.”
Valen leaned back onto his elbows, peering up at the night sky. “There’s a million colors up there. A million shades all mixed together. When you look at the world in more than just black-and-white, you begin to notice them.” He sighed and shook his head. “In Lunamere...I lost even that ability.”
She didn’t know what to say, worried she might set him off if she dug too deep.
“I hated you for a very long time,” he said.
There it was.
That pang of guilt again in her gut, and with it, the sick satisfaction that she was finally getting what she deserved. She’d heard these words from General Cortas and his wife, but never from Valen.
After the accident, he’d never shown himself to her again.
“You took away the most beautiful thing in my life,” Valen whispered. “Kalee was the only person in my life who was true.” He swallowed hard, as if he had bits of broken glass in his throat. “I know that we have a bad past, Androma. There are things you did, choices you made, that I’m not sure I can ever forgive you for.”
“I don’t expect you to,” she said.
He closed his eyes and breathed deep. “But I can never forgive myself, either, for being a part of those choices.”
Andi kept her face calm, her body motionless, too afraid to reveal the shock she felt racing through her at his words. Her earlier accusation must have struck him deeply for Valen to say such things.
She wanted to look into his eyes, to see her own pain mirrored there. Instead, she stared up at the starlit sky, waiting for him to continue.
Valen shifted beside her again. “I could have stopped you that night. I should have stopped you. But instead, I stood there frozen, watching the two of you walk up that staircase without me. I blamed you, for the longest time, for killing her.”
Another stab of pain in Andi’s heart.
Stupid, foolish, feeling thing. She wanted to tear it from her chest.
“In Lunamere, I had nothing to keep me company but my pain and my thoughts. I had lots of time to think about that night, and everything leading up to it. Time to realize that we were raised in a society where perfection is the only option. But that doesn’t mean it’s always possible. We all made bad choices that night, not just you. She got on that transport herself. And I chose to stay behind.”
Andi wanted to speak, but she feared it would shatter this strange, heart-wrenching moment they had somehow found themselves in.
“What I’m trying to say is, I’ve held on to my hatred of you for too long. And while I can’t ever truly forget what you did...I know that you didn’t do it alone. We all had a hand in that night.” His shoulders bowed as he said the next words. “Even Kalee.”