While Lia rushed her way through her task, I read through my notebook and prepared the materials we would need for the day. Many of the timbers and planks of wood needed to be cut and shaped before they could be used, a process that occupied five workers for an entire day during the construction of the Corells’ house. Armed with a measuring stick and a piece of chalk, I marked out every necessary cut, then performed them all simultaneously with perfect, magical precision.
Between the inhuman efficiency afforded to us by our enhancements and our intricately laid out plans, we managed to finish the foundation of the house by the end of the first day. We both continued to work on our next assigned tasks as the sunlight faded, neither of us wanting to put an end to the momentum we had built. The clearing was entirely dark as we began to lay down the first story’s flooring, but our enhanced senses meant typical working hours were only a suggestion for us. When I finally decided to retire, the moon had risen above the treeline and cast a silver glow over our day’s work.
Although my hands were scraped and my muscles were sore, I felt nothing but satisfaction as I sat on the newly created floor and looked over what we had built. “Alright, I’m calling it quits for the night,” I said, patting the spot next to me.
“Not yet!” she insisted, scanning our surroundings. “We could at least get the exterior walls framed, and then—”
“Lia,” I interrupted, tapping the empty spot beside me more pointedly, “sit with me.” I watched her face fade from conflicted to resigned, and she sat down beside me with a loud thump. “There’s no need to rush. We just did more in one day than a group of fifty men; I think we deserve a rest.”
“I know,” she sighed, staring at the floor between her feet.
I put an arm around her shoulders and rested the side of my head on hers. “Something’s on your mind.” She nodded after a short pause but failed to elaborate any further. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“No. It’s silly,” she answered, absentmindedly fiddling with her hair.
“That shouldn’t stop you from talking about it,” I said, giving her a playful nudge. “I think about silly stuff all the time.”
She laughed and nuzzled her head against mine. After another pause, she sighed again. “Every time I feel like things are going well for us, something bad happens. It happened in Atsal, it happened with Val...and I keep feeling like it’s going to happen again. Life has been so great lately that I keep waiting for something to come along and change things.” She shook her head and kicked at a pebble on the floorboards. “I thought that maybe, if we finished the house as fast as possible, we could beat life to the punch this time.”
“That’s not silly, Lia. That’s exactly how life has been ever since I showed up.” I stared up at the moon and took a moment to reflect on the path my life had taken since arriving in Kaldan. “But it doesn’t mean life will always be that way. Now that we’re here in Lybesa, things can be different. Virram Yorrell can’t hurt us anymore, and if he tries to…” I trailed off as the corner of my mouth curled into a dark grin, “...he’ll regret it.”
The clearing fell quiet for a while, and I watched Lia chew on a question out of the corner of my eye. “Lux?” she asked eventually. “Why didn’t you kill him? After we fought the Trinity Guard, back in the throne room...you could’ve done it.”
“I won’t lie to you, Lia. I wanted nothing more in that moment than to crush his head against the back of that stupid, golden chair.” My hand clenched reflexively at the memory of punching Virram’s perfect nose and the gush of blood that covered his face as it broke beneath my gauntlet. “When a king is murdered, the only people who really suffer are his citizens. A slimy, underhanded king like Virram leaves behind a vacuum that’s always filled by someone just like him. I imagine that Gullen would’ve taken over if I had killed Virram; do you think anything would’ve changed?”
“No,” she answered with a sullen realization. “Gullen was in on the plot with the Strategist.”
“Exactly. Gullen and the other councilors only benefit from the king’s death. Virram doesn’t suffer at all, because he’s dead—a fate far too kind, in my opinion,” I added bitterly. “No, it’s always the civilians that suffer. They’d use his death to justify some new goal of theirs: a war, a new draft, heavy taxes, anything they can scheme up. Despite the catharsis his death would have given me, I couldn’t do that to all those innocent people.”
Lia wrapped her arm around my waist. “It sounds like you’ve seen that before.”
“Yeah, in Hedaat. I didn’t remember it until...recently. I’d rather not think about it too much.”
“Well, let’s not think about it, then,” she said, holding me tightly. “Virram will live a long, sad life while we start our happy one right here.”
“Now that is a punishment I can get behind,” I chuckled, thankful for her distraction. “I think the first step towards starting that life is getting some sleep, though.”
“I guess you’re right,” she admitted with a resigned sigh. She slid out from under my arm and walked over to our pile of supplies, returning a moment later with our well-worn sleeping rolls. We had originally intended to return to her parents’ house to sleep after
