she turned around.
He had his head down, but being so tall, she could still see his face. It looked torn, searching even. His brow was furrowed, and most of the light had gone from his eyes. He had his lips pursed together, as if he were trying to prevent himself from speaking, but when he met her gaze he wasn’t able to stop himself.
“Why are you so angry with me?” he asked in a breath.
His question took her so off guard she took a turn hiding her face. He looks so miserable, she thought guiltily.
“I know that’s probably a stupid question with all that’s going on. It’s just… I’ve heard about you for so long. I mean, you were even a topic of discussion in the Guard before all of this. You leaving the way you did. Most Healers who run just disappear without a trace, hoping everyone will forget them or assume the worst had happened to them in a Scar. But you, you stick a note to the message board.” He paused.
She was glad to see the light had returned to his eyes. He seemed so full of life. She wondered how he could exude such excitement. When she reached her energy out to his, she felt only darkness and death. Yet he was standing before her, eyes gleaming brighter than a child’s on Christmas morning. How could he do that? How could he be all darkness and a bright beacon of light at the same time? “Your note is the reason I left the Hovel. You saved my life,” he said.
Her throat tightened, and she almost choked on her tongue. “How is that possible?” she asked through a cough.
“I woke up early the morning you ran. No one else was up, but I was usually the first person wandering the halls. The nightmares were so strong back then…” He raised his hand to his head and began to rub his temple as if to massage out whatever bad memory had worked its way into his mind.
He opened his eyes after a moment and smiled apologetically before continuing. “I was looking for Cole. He was in the Guard with me, and I always felt saner when he was around. He wasn’t in his normal hideouts, so I went to grab breakfast early. I was in the dining hall before all of the shouting and hysterics. When I showed up, there was only one person standing in front of the message board. Cole.”
The ground seemed to shift below her feet, and she thought she might fall.
“We never cared about what happened around there. So, I didn’t understand why he stood there, still as a statue, mesmerized by a lone piece of paper. But when I got to him, I understood. The words on them affected me like nothing ever had, and there were so few of them, just five small words. ‘I’m leaving because I can.’ I left two weeks later. You inspired me.”
The way he said her words, annunciating everything precisely, made it clear the scrawled-out sentence was of the utmost importance to him. She didn’t want to shoot the wind out of his sails, but she had to.
“I’m sorry to tell you this, but that isn’t what I wanted to say,” she said honestly.
Amanda was glad for a moment when he looked so surprised, and then she reminded herself he was a good person. Not like Frey. He wasn’t her enemy. They just looked so like one another.
“What do you mean, ‘that isn’t what you wanted to say’? You started a movement with those words, Amanda. You’re the face of freedom and bravery to so many Healers,” he said almost hysterically.
“Bravery? Heck, I was too much of a coward even to finish my own sentence. I was going to say, ‘I’m leaving because I can’t take this anymore,’ Or something along those lines. It’s been awhile,” she said with a shrug.
His eyes drilled into her. “You inspired me and started an underground rebel movement with an unfinished sentence?” he asked.
“Well, this is the first I’m hearing about an underground movement, but yeah, I guess I did.”
She was worried he might be angry, sad, or disappointed in her, but that wasn’t even close to his reaction. He chuckled.
Then his chuckle turned into a deep belly laugh. Laughing? How could he be laughing when she’d just told him that his inspiration in life was meaningless?
“Are you okay?”
He wiped a tear from his eye and shook his head. “Wow, you are even more amazing than I guessed!” he said, patting her shoulder.
“I see you’re a fan of sarcasm,” she said through her teeth.
“No, no.” He coughed, clearing his throat, and straightened. “I’m being perfectly sincere. You’re probably the only person in the history of the world who could ever positively affect an entire people with a sentence fragment.”
He laughed, and she joined him. It felt amazing to laugh with him. She’d been tight as piano wire for so long her body had started to ache.
“Sorry if I wasn’t nice to you. I’m sort of new to having enemies. Well, real I-want-to-kill-you type enemies. I’ve had the I-think-you‘re-scum types for a while, and you kind of remind me of one of them, and not just because you’re both on the Guard. From what you told me, you’re a far better person than I am. I guess I just can’t trust my instincts anymore, probably getting too paranoid,” she said apologetically.
The relaxed atmosphere she’d been enjoying disappeared, as did the Armaan she knew. A blank-faced monster stood before her. His light seemed to have drained from him, and he grew darker by the second.
“Armaan?” she said, touching his unmoving shoulder.
“Armaan, I’m sorry if I said anything to upset you. I didn’t mean to. I’m no good with words.”
Darkness rolled from him and began to blot out the little sun light they had left.
“Stop this, Armaan, you’re freaking me out!” she said.
Ignoring the hammering of her fear-driven heart, she moved closer to him. Amanda wasn’t frightened of him, just the darkness that had been instilled in him. Putting her hands out on either side of him, she rubbed his arms, trying to get him out of whatever state he’d fallen into.
“Armaan?” she said, seeing the light come back into his eyes.
He shook her hands off him gently and took a few steps away from her. She moved forward, but he stopped her.
“Please, just stay there for a second,” he begged, putting his head between his knees.
She wanted to console him somehow but didn’t know what to say to someone struggling through such inner turmoil. How did a person stay good and true to themselves with so much darkness thrust upon them? Who would Cole be had he not gotten out? The thought sent a cold shiver down her spine.
“I’m sorry if I set you off. Are you okay?” she asked.
He straightened and took a deep breath. “Yeah, I’m real sorry you had to see that. I get that way sometimes when people mention my brother,” he whispered.
“What do you mean?” she asked, perplexed. “I don’t even know who—”
“I wouldn’t stop trusting your judgment if I were you.” He looked up and met her gaze with dark eyes. “You took one look at me and saw him.”
“Saw my brother, saw your enemy.”
“Saw Frey.” He choked over his brother’s name, like it made him sick to say it.
She wanted to scream. How could Shiphra send the brother of the person whose face she saw when picturing the enemy? If she thought she might have trusted him less after such a revelation, she was wrong. She couldn‘t bring herself to look at him any differently. He looked so ashamed. Why should he feel ashamed for the thing that his brother was. It wasn’t his fault, and it wasn’t even Frey’s.
“It isn’t your fault you’re related to him,” she almost shouted. “Worry about the things you can control, like getting us safely to New Hovel.”
She turned to move forward, but he held her back.
“You don’t care that he’s my brother?” he asked in a rush.
“Well, Shiphra doesn’t seem to care, so why should I?” she said as lightly as she could manage, trying to assure him it didn’t matter at all. “And it isn’t his fault he’s the way he is, it’s the—” She was going to tell him that his brother wouldn’t be like this had the Ancients not made him that way, but he interrupted her.
“No, it is his fault. There’s a choice in everything. Even when you’re forced into something you never
