There’s a moment where I’m almost tempted to ask her what made her decide, but the exciting prospect of helping her uncover her past, and subsequently learning more about her myself, is too much to ignore.
“It’s simple. I make a tea and you drink from it.” I glance at the fireplace, the dry logs and kindling stacked inside beneath a charred iron pot. “We can’t make tea without boiled water though, and we can’t boil water without a fire—”
“Then make a fire,” she says with a flick of her wrist, flinging herself back onto the bed.
“I—I don’t know how.” The only fire I can muster is the one burning in my cheeks.
Sinisa props herself up on her elbows. “Don’t they teach princes anything?”
With another guilty grin, I shake my head. It’s true that growing up as royalty means I have limited life experiences in some ways—okay, many ways. It’s true that I was never taught how to cook a meal, how to make anything useful like clothes or weapons, and I was certainly never shown how to build a fire.
I don’t bother telling her all of the things I was taught though: how to manage the royal bank, how to speak to foreign dignitaries in all of the main languages of the lands, how to dance the four kingdoms’, um, dances. I don’t tell her any of this because none of it will really help us right now anyway. The fact of the matter is that I was never meant to leave the palace unless accompanied by the royal guard, my servants, and my handmaiden…
Hayliel…
It’s the first time I’ve thought about her all day, and I’m not sure why that particular thought brings with it so much heartache. It’s probably for the best that she won’t be accompanying me around the realm as my handmaiden, forced to wait on my every whim while I socialize, fraternize, and selectinize a queen to rule by my side.
I never wanted that life and I certainly never wanted to drag Hayliel around for it all.
If anything, I just wanted…wanted…I know I shouldn’t even think it, but I guess I’m not a future king anymore, and I’m certainly no longer the Prince of Oakfall, so what does it really matter if I dare think what I truly feel?
All I wanted was, well, her. To be with Hayliel.
And I guess that’s why it hurts, because even though we could’ve never been together, at least we would’ve been together, as friends. And now, I’m not sure I’ll even ever see her again.
With a growl, Sinisa swings her legs back over the side of the bed and charges by me to rearrange the logs in the former fire’s ashes. And honestly, I’m grateful for the wake she creates, the one that jostles me from my own mind; I can get lost in there for hours if I’m not careful.
I take a seat at the edge of the bed and watch, trying to learn anything that might actually prove useful now that I’m going to live the rest of my days as a commoner. Before I can see much though, sparks have already caught the kindling.
As warmth fills the room, I start to settle back against the pillow when I remember the spider and I bolt up straight instead and practically hop back to the table. The pouch of memory leaves shifts, reminding me that I can make myself useful while Sinisa gets the flames going.
There is one mug in the center of the circular table. I blow into it, a cloud of dust pluming back into my face. When I start coughing, Sinisa looks back at me, snorts the briefest of laughs, and turns back to the fire. It’s odd to me how human she can seem in some moments. Strange, yes. But that could be said about anyone who comes from a different land with different customs.
I can’t help but wonder what she was like before she was a Reaper.
“How long have you been…uh…Reaping?”
Using an iron rod she finds nearby, Sinisa pokes the embers around, her eyes trained on the task before her. “Three years, I think.”
My eyes pop wide. I’m glad she’s not looking at me because I have no control over my face. “That…can’t be. You’re not even that old now. What were you, like…like—”
“Thirteen.”
My stomach plummets. I know how people become Reapers. Take a life and Veltuur claims you as their servant. I guess I just always imagined them as hardened criminals, people with a lifelong darkness that one day plummeted when they finally snapped and killed someone. I mean, sure, I have also heard that sometimes Reapers are created out of accident. All it takes is one slight misstep onto a bug you didn’t see on the path, or like that spider in the corner of the room. If it crawled onto the bed in the middle of the night while I was sleeping and I rolled on top of it and squished it, I’d be suffocated in a cloud of ash and then disappear until one day I came back as a Reaper.
So, at thirteen years old, I can only imagine that her fate was accidental. It had to be. Maybe she swatted a bee or something.
I almost ask her again how she became a Reaper, but considering she’s already told me she doesn’t remember, I manage to bite my tongue and wait for the memory tea to tell us the rest.
Not wanting to waste another second, I take the pot outside to the spigot and fill it with water.
By the time I
