EPILOGUE

The flames of the campfire kept her warm as she sat in the dirt. Vivian looked up at the stars and wondered what exactly they were. Needles of light piercing the darkness. The heavens remained as unfathomable as they ever had. She watched as sparks from her campfire flew up into the sky and dissipated.

“Vivian,” an accented voice said, not unkindly. He crouched down next to her.

“Constell,” she replied.

“Mate, we waited three days,” he said slowly. “Then, just to be safe, we waited three more. Even after that, we waited for another three.”

She gave no reply, just continued staring up into the night sky.

“We need to let him go.”

“I…I don’t want to. Maybe things are just messed up on the island since there’s so much savirelet. He might just need another day.”

“Vivian, no Natural has ever come back after three days. Let alone ten. It’s just not possible.”

Again, she said nothing.

“I finished gathering up a crew today from the nearby villages. Owen worked as a deckhand for a while after his escape years ago, so he knows a bit of how to sail. And, after a lot of questioning, Rin finally admitted to me he knows which currents to take for the swiftest and safest passage. Even the boat looks to still be floating, despite the damage Owen dealt to the crew of the thing. Ya know, he wanted to sink that tub until he saw your flames everywhere. Anyway, everything else is in order. We need to lay Lynn to rest.”

“How can I leave him behind?” she snapped at him. “We came together, we should leave together!”

“I’m sorry, Vivian, but he left without us. And ya made him a promise.”

A promise alongside so many unanswered questions. She wondered if Lynn had discovered any answers before he….

She let the thought wander off, incomplete.

“He must have thought ya knew enough to do this,” Constell said. “He trusted ya. More than anyone else. I think, maybe, more than even himself. When he thought you might be in trouble, he jumped off the cliffside of the mountain’s peak to get down to you. I thought he’d gone mad. Still don’t really understand it.”

“When do you want to leave?” she asked. But she knew the answer. She only asked to stall for precious seconds. Any moment, Lynn would pop his head up out of what remained of the trapdoor to her left. Then they’d all leave together.

“We just finished scavenging what we could from inside the library. Nothing else sticks us to this island. We leave now.”

“Except for him.”

“He’s not here. Hasn’t been for ten days. The only things we leave behind are graves and memories.”

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A silence grew between them. No birds chirped, no insects cried out. The only noise was the slight breeze whistling through the ruined city. She felt his loss then. He painted over it with a façade of cheeriness, but Constell’s pain seeped through the cracks. When he spoke of graves and memories, he left behind far more than she did. His mother, his friends, his life.

Footsteps broke that silence. Rin approached from the night. His eyes glanced at the trapdoor leading down to his secret garden of ash. Then he kept his eyes to Vivian’s feet as he spoke.

“I’d like to talk to you. In private, if possible.” His words were barely more than a whisper, but they competed for no other sound so they came out clear.

Constell sighed and rebuilt the wall of cheeriness. “I’ll be down at the ship. We’ll cast off once ya arrive.”

Rin looked ghastly in the flickering firelight. The past week hadn’t been kind to him. His already ghost-like features were accentuated. Now he never slept, never smiled, avoided food. He denied himself all measures of pleasure. And she understood.

“What did he say to you?” he whispered hoarsely.

“‘Tell him to live.’ Those were his last words.”

“Thank you.” He stayed silent for a minute. Both of them stared out into the dark, avoiding looking at one another. “I don’t deserve those words, especially from your lips, even parroting them.”

“Everyone deserves a chance for a friend’s love,” she said. But still, she wondered if any truth lay in the words.

“Do you think he’d want me to go with you?” Rin asked.

“Why ask me? He was your closest friend. You knew him better than anyone else.”

“It’s like staring at a painting with my nose pressed up to it. Closeness doesn’t always offer clarity.”

“I think he wanted you to choose your own life,” Vivian said finally. “He wanted you to stop standing still and move forward.”

“Says the girl sitting vigil in front of your friend’s tomb for ten days straight.”

Vivian knew it was meant to be a joke, but neither of them smiled.

“I don’t blame you,” Vivian said. “Now that I know a little of what you felt, I don’t blame you at all. If I could trade myself for him right now, I’d do it without a backwards glance. Lynn is worth more than me. Silvis is worth more than me. I don’t deserve life.”

“No,” Rin’s voice felt more solid than it had for over a week. “Vivian, you deserve life. If I could give you all the ones I contained, I wouldn’t hesitate for a moment. Nobody could replace you in this world. I made a mistake and I deeply regret it with all my heart. And that decision caused you more pain than you ever merited.”

Vivian tried to tell herself he spoke truly, but her heart disagreed too thoroughly. So instead she changed the subject.

“What was that collar they used on Silvis?” she asked.

Rin stumbled back, as if struck by her. “The collar?” He waited, as if trying to decipher what she meant. Then he spat his response, bitterly. “A disgusting thing, my cousins created it to kill my friend. They lined it with a corrupted savirelet. It forces a Mystic like you or him to expunge every bit of energy within you in a moment. With no time to exercise any measure of control.”

“Will we meet them?”

“I hope so.” Rin’s sense of self seemed to return to him through their conversation. He spoke with conviction and mad hatred. The quaver from his throat disappeared.

“Rin,” she said. “I forgive you. Let’s go down to the ship. Vengeance doesn’t enact itself.”

With those words cutting an end to their conversation, she reached a hand out for Rin to help her stand. They clasped hands, as if sealing a bargain.

As she walked away from the garden tomb’s entrance, she took one final look back.

She longed to see someone crawl up out of the trap door. She imagined Lynn dusting himself off and strolling over. In her mind’s eye, he didn’t hobble, but walked gracefully across the stone street with two legs until he stood before her and reached out a hand of flesh and blood for her to take. To her, Lynn appeared whole.

But the reality remained. She staggered as a shiver went through her body. She suddenly knew she would never get that dance she so brazenly once asked him for.

Still, Vivian took another step, steadier than the last, and moved forward.