23 – 3
I go a little mad, I should think, crouched there on the rutted, icy road. I scream sobbing self-loathing into my palms and – just a touch – lose my mind.
Floes of glacial hatred bob upon waters of haunted grief, jagged and stained by the wan reflection of the blood-red sky above. There is guilt in those sharp, dripping edges; shame, in a murky pallor above the blackened lake. Dark currents move deeply beneath the surface, spinning the once-obscuring ice in place like a child would its toy. Guilt, one is called. Rage names another.
The floes are melting. They dilute the currents, diffuse them, until the waters lie still and flat, like glass. The air is choked with – choking on – sorrow, sitting heavily atop that expansive bank of murky shame.
But what of regret? What of doubt? They're here. They must be. Those thoughts, the cycle that consumed my waking hours for days on end, must have come from somewhere, and that somewhere was this:
I wanted a distraction, so I found several. I fixated on them, obsessed over them. I castigated myself for my treatment of Clarke, Milo, and his family. I lamented having taken advantage of Jeremiah's grief. I let myself wallow in the muddy recriminations of not even trying to find another solution for those four Windrunners. I kept myself here: at the surface, bobbing among the floes, because I didn't want to dive those depths. I didn't want to learn what was at the bottom.
I have, now.
I know, now.
It's a truth. Realizing it is what shattered me.
I am damned. It's not because revenge helped me, though that is true; nor is it because murder came as my first and only recourse, though that is also true. I am damned because I sought revenge and did murder not for Juliana's death, but for what her death did to me. I am damned because I ended five lives and harmed five more for my own sake, in my own name, and lied to everyone – everyone – about why.
Yet, a small hope; a spot of warmth in the frigid, placid waters: is my damnation lessened for myself being one of the deceived?
No. Why would it be?
A great horse heaves a great, gusty sigh. An old, stubborn donkey brays wheezily. Snow crunches, ice cracks, beneath their stomping hooves. My tears cease, eyes gummed and aching, and my sobs quiet, throat raw and chest sore. Harlan is close; knelt in the snow and talking, a slow and steady stream of coarse, calming words.
“It's okay,” he says, though it isn't.
“You're alright,” he says, though I'm not.
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“I'm sorry,” he says, though he shouldn't.
“I'm so sorry, Zira,” he says again, in defiance.
Stubborn old man. I push my face deeper into my palms. Grind my gummy eyes into dry, calloused heels until sickly green spots swim behind my closed lids. His knees pop as he shifts, a quiet groan accompanying, and I tense in anticipation of an unwelcome touch. It's far, far less than I deserve; and maybe the pain of it will be enough to distract me from the horrific awe of realization.
Or it won't, and I will have to live with both.
I wait, and I wait, and it doesn't come. He doesn't touch me. He doesn't lay so much as a finger on me. He just kneels, breathes, and waits.
This is his fault. He did this to me. He made me know, and I should blame him for it. I should hate him for it; for what he did to me, for what he took from me. I should blame him. It's his fault.
But I don't. Neither blame nor hatred falls from me to him. He took nothing. He did nothing.
Winter breathes across my nape, sends a crawling chill down my spine. The quiet that follows is not oppressive or companionable. It's the silence of a girl meeting her truest, basest self for the very first time.
Zira, daughter of Alia, daughter of the Lost, is a bad person.
- - -
Was I always? I find myself wondering, distantly, as I trudge through ruts iced-over at Peanut's side. Harlan stumps along nearby. He hasn't said a word since I let him pull me to my feet, since I scrubbed the gum from my eyes and swiped the snot-spit from my mouth. Maybe he feels responsible, or guilty. Maybe he's afraid. He'd said he was, before. I haven't asked, he hasn't offered, so on we go: down to Valdenwood, grown large in front of us.
I don't think so. I remember being angry at my parents, at my brothers. I remember saying and thinking that I hated them, but I couldn't have. I hadn't been taught how to hate yet, hadn't been shown the power and poison of it yet, so how could I have hated them?
But what of the other parts of myself: the selfishness, the cruelty, the cold-hearted killing? Had they been with me, even then? I look back at the child I was, the coltish girl of before, and search for them in her.
Selfishness, I find right away. I'd always wanted the choicest sweets, the thickest blankets, or the thickest pillows, even at the expense of my brothers. I hadn't cared that my having meant their having not. I'd been proud of it, in fact. Gloated about it, took joy from their jealous tears.
It was cruel of me, and not the only cruelty I did. I gave them nightmares with tales of ghosts and wicked spirits, flung clods of earth and dried-out mule dung when I felt they deserved it, and pinched, slapped, spit, and bit as the occasion called for. I said, and sometimes screamed, hurtful things for the sake of hurting them.
Maybe I was, then. The only solace is that I can find no trace of the killing, of the red-handed life-taking, in the girl I once was. Is it because it wasn't there, or because I lacked opportunities to display it?
The iced-over ruts smooth away, and frozen earth turns to frost-covered cobblestone. Snowbank and shoreline give way to streetlamps and storefronts. People walk about in red-cheeked cheer, passing greeting and gossip between them as they pass each other by. The reconstruction's all but done, I learn in a half-minute's time, and all that's left to do is scrub smoke-stains from window glass. I learn that Edith has been caught a-courting with the lampblack boy, and that her grandmother – the redoubtable Agness Drumm – has fallen ill with a worrisome chest congestion she can't seem to fully shake.
I learn that Clarke could heal that in an instant if she were here, if that no-good Royah girl hadn't turned her head and run off with her. It'd be more offensive, this last gossip, if it weren't true.
“So,” Harlan says, “What's next for yah?”
I'd said something, before. What was it? I'd wanted to help rebuild, if there was rebuilding to be done. I remember that, but was it because it's the right thing to do or because I want to feel good about myself? I don't know how to begin approaching that, so I stick to what's safer, “A bath,” I say, “and a hot meal.”
He smiles, whiskers twitching. His eyes are a little fond and a little sad. He's going to bring it up, I realize, and up it comes. “Agnes 'n them'll be happy t'see yah.” Or maybe not. Then, “Listen,” Ah, here it is. “About back there...whatever it is,” he says, “s'not as bad as y'think. Get that food in yah, get cleaned up, an' sleep on it. Get a clear head. It'll do yah a world o' good. Alright?”
Oh, Harlan. No, it won't. It sounds fantastic, but it won't. I nod. He nods back, claps my shoulder, and turns away. He leads his old, stubborn donkey into the streets of Valdenwood and, before I lose sight of him completely, I call, “Thank you, Harlan!”
The last I see of him, stooped and stubborn, is him waving without turning back.