18 – 3
Amberdusk is as we left it: a town at rest in a rounded cradle of low, rolling hills; an oasis of clear sky in a desert of canopied woods; a sprawl of winding, cobblestone roads and tall, narrow buildings. A merry breeze skips down the lanes, setting shop signs to swaying and cheerfully annoying the bustle of townsfolk, out in numbers on this beautiful, late-autumn's afternoon. They pay their attentions to the tasks that need doing and how best to do them, not to the pair of itching, scratching girls making their way towards the town square.
It's more round than anything, though. Not a corner to be found. Sat in place of pride is a building shorter and broader than those around it, though with no less an alpine peak to its roof. Even this early in the day there is the sound of conversation and clinking glass from inside; and the painted sign above the door, nailed flat to the frame, proclaims the place Morrow's.
We're here.
I see him. Through the window-glass he's merely a shadow of his true self, a long, long shadow. There's nothing of his broad shoulders or his pot belly, his bald head or his thick beard, or his thunderhead frown over a pair of deep, dark eyes. He shared those final qualities with his sister. He would still, if not for me.
I'm not ready.
Clarke is steady at my side, my hand in hers. In her presence, a silent echo of a long-held promise: I'm here. I'm with you. It should be enough to make me brave, to make me able to cross the threshold, and look him in the eye when I tell him. It should be. It has been.
Soft concern pulls me by the hand away from the window-glass, leading me to eyes of brilliant blue and a spill of ink-dark hair. She searches my face, sees what I feel with ease, and her brow furrows, “You know, you don't have to –”
“How do I tell him?” It's a plea for an answer she doesn't have, given in a crushed whisper, “He's...” happy, I don't say, “He...” thinks she's alive, I don't say. “How am I supposed to – to take that from him?”
Her thumbs travel the back of my hand in soothing swipes. I cling to those touches, to her, “It doesn't have to be you,” she offers it, knowing what I'll say, “You can...I don't know, it just – it doesn't have to be you.”
Back to the window-glass, to the long, long shadow of the man behind the bar, “Yes, it does.”
“No, Zira,” back to her, to the furrow of her brow, “it doesn't. This isn't...it wasn't your fault.”
Her words touch a place in my heart, a wound so well-hidden that even I didn't know it was there; and now anger is hissing between my teeth, burning bright behind my eyes, “Fine, then! Fine! Why tell him at all? Why say anything when Merigold will do it for us?!”
She squeezes my hand hard, nails digging into my palm. Her frown deepens, her eyes harden, and her voice gains a tinge of cold, “I don't mean that and you know it. If you want to tell him, tell him; if you don't, then don't.” The cold fades, her expression softens, just a little, “You don't have to.”
“I don't want to,” it slips from me like a confession, plaintive and desperate. The anger's gone, “but...he should know. He should. I'd want to.”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Wouldn't I, and do I even have the right to tell him? Shouldn't it be someone he knows, someone he trusts, or is it my reluctance that makes me think so?
“So would I,” Clarke's voice is as soft as her touch, her hand on my arm.
Conversation and clinking glass. A long, long shadow of a man behind his bar. He's happy. He thinks his sister's still alive.
Eyes on the ground, I ask, “Would you tell him?”
She ducks her head to look me in the eye, “Do you want me to?”
Yes. No. I don't know.
“Zira?”
She'd do it. She doesn't want to any more than I, but she would. I have to close my eyes against it, else I'd start crying and never stop. I have to clear my throat to speak, to shake my head and say, “No, I...will you come with me?”
Her answer, given without hesitation, “Of course.”
- - -
I don't know how, but he knows that something is wrong the moment his eyes fall on us. He figures it out by the time we reach the bar. The change it inflicts on his monstrous and instant, taking what was before a whole person and making of them a worn, haggard echo of himself. Dark eyes that once threatened from beneath a thunderhead brow now sink deep into bruised caverns, the oncoming storm blown away. All of life's color leaches from his skin, leaving him as sickly and pallid as the sun over Sockeye Bend. He looks down at us and sighs, a sound so fragile that it hurts to hear.
We did this.
I did this.
I'm not finished, either. This is a cruelty so potent that even the bramble-beast would flinch from it. I'm sick to my stomach with it, and I've not so much as said his name. Did Merigold know this would happen, that the ripples of what she did would spread this far?
I mean to say something, anything, but cannot manage to before he interrupts, “Not here,” in a voice as bereft as the rest of him. He leans on his bar as he goes to the far end, where a latched gate awaits him, and fumbles at it with shaking fingers. They slip, once and again; and he gives a frustrated cry before stepping back to put his boot-heel through it.
Wood splinters, metal groans, and the tavern goes silent. Everyone, sober and drunk, looks at him in wide-eyed shock. He flushes red, growls, “We're closed, everyone out.”
No one moves.
“Get the fuck out!” he screams. Fear burns bright down my spine, rushes lightning through my blood. He punches the wall, shaking shelves of bottled liquor. I flinch away from him with my whole body. It remembers well the pain of a man's raised fist.
Chairs scrape and topple as the patrons flee. Jostled tables spill clay mugs to shatter and spill on the ground. Clarke, brave, brave Clarke puts herself between me and the rest of the room. She herds me back against the bar and digs her nails into my wrist, spilling frost from her piece of ice in an unspoken warning: stay back. Stay well back.
Sober or not, they're no fools. They give my magi the berth she demands, and soon there are only three people in a room that once held dozens. Their confused questions drift back to us as they leave.
What was that? What happened? Did those girls do something? I've never seen him like that!
Then those, too, are gone. Only then do I feel safe enough to move from behind Clarke. She holds her magic in hand and turns eyes as cold as the star it came from onto him. His fist is in the dent he put in his wall, his head bowed, his body sagging. His ragged breathing fills the quiet before he mutters, “Won't need that.”
“Won't I?” Clarke's shoulders are back, her chin up, her nails dug deep. I cling back, just as tightly. The fear recedes, dragging its heels. I can't take my eyes off his hand, split-knuckled and stuck with splinters.
He peeks an eye over his shoulder, bright with tears and shame, “No.” He turns and slumps against the wall. When he slides down it, splaying his legs in front of him, it's like watching a mountain fall. “M'sorry,” his voice thick, his throat working, “Didn't mean to...” scare you, he doesn't say.
“But you did,” Clarke won't let up. Part of me doesn't want her to, another aches at the sight of him.
“I know,” he scrubs his face, smearing tears over his cheeks and into his beard. The three of us exist in this moment for what feels like hours. It can't have been more than a minute. “How'd it happen,” he asks suddenly, “how'd she...?” die, he doesn't say.
Clarke looks to me. I take a deep, shuddering breath. The fear's not gone, but it's far enough that I can let go of her hand and get closer, “Protecting us,” my voice doesn't waver, “She – there's a lot to tell, but she...she died protecting us.”
He laughs, does Jeremiah Morrow, tilting his head back and smiling at the ceiling. In that sound is love and pain and the kind of knowing that only family can have, “Sounds like her.”
I start to cry, my heart keening, bleeding, and broken, “It does.”
He takes a deep, shuddering breath. Clarke lets her magic fade. “Tell me everything,” he says, “I wanna know.”