A solitary light shone from where she sat.
“Hythe, Caspos, Lycea, Sephec. Anasot. Severed.”
She rested her head on her knees tucked up against her chest, staring at the bright portrait of Eslah. Her long, golden hair with red streaks. Her short stature. Her commanding pose. The throne of books upon which she sat while she looked to the side, to where Anasot’s portrait used to be.
“I should have known it was you who’d stop me,” she continued to whisper, watching her breaths become puffs of air in the cold infirmary.
When her eyelids felt heavy, she closed her eyes. Hoping for flowers, of all things. Soft, pink ones.
She breathed in. Breathed out. Listened to the stillness outside. The door creaking open. Soft, ghostly steps crossing the threshold.
“Whoever you’re looking for isn’t home,” she spoke first to Eslah.
“This can’t be healed.”
“I know. I’ve tried more than a thousand times.”
“…I’m sorry.”
She continued to focus on breathing in and out, until their light steps left, and a door closed.
Slowly, she opened her eyes again, staring at the floor beside her. Her class robe, half-day-old splatters of blood still on it. Her harness. Her battle tomes. The nightstand beside the bed. A stack of tomes sitting on top of it. Some hers, some Theo’s. Jars and packets of untouched medicine. Several empty vials of potions to keep her awake. A single glass of water that might as well have been empty.
And then she finally shifted her eyes to the bed, where her classmate lay. Bandages running across the entire right side of their head. A light infirmary blanket covering everything from the neck down. Their coat draped on top, meticulously cleaned of all the blood. Alive. Inhale. Exhale. Alive.
This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“Can you tell me about your sister, one day?”
Silence.
“And you. I’d like to hear about you, one day. You never told me much about yourself. Your family, where you grew up, if you had any friends. What your favorite food is, what you’d like to do when this is all over. Your favorite book, your favorite spell, your favorite place in the world. We could make it a trip. I’ll ask Theo to come along. We can travel all around Chloris, collecting random spells and having fun together. We could go to the beach again. I could introduce you to my mother—I think you two would get along. And then we could go visit up north. I’ve been wondering what the Wind Stream has been hiding, all this time. Maybe I’ll even let you duel me.”
Silence.
“One day, you’ll find out what I did. You’ll find out why I did it. And I’m sure it’ll be hard to accept at first, but I want you to know that it’s not your fault. Don’t blame yourself for what happened. Don’t hurt yourself over something you can’t control. Don’t hurt yourself over something that’s happened. Over someone who’s gone. You don’t deserve to shoulder their burdens, too. You don’t deserve to be hurt. You don’t deserve to die. You aren’t worthless. You are loved.”
Silence.
“I love you, Faris. I’ll love you until the end of my days. I’ll love you when you forget a few words to an easy spell, I’ll love you when you get a bad mark on a test, I’ll love you when you don’t think you’ve made the right choice, I’ll love you when you make the right one, even if it’s the tenth time around. I’ll love you when you’re annoyed, when you’re happy, when you want to be left alone, when you don’t apologize even though you look like you want to. When you grow old, when you can’t remember much anymore, when you eventually forget about our times together. When you eventually forget about me. How I look. How I sound. How I feel. I’ll still love you. Especially when you don’t love yourself.”
Silence.
“Can you promise me one thing, though?”
Silence.
“Take care of Theo for me, okay? It won’t be easy, and I’m sure it’ll take him a while to come around…but I think, maybe…there is a part of him that feels the same way that you do.”
A door. Angry voices. Loud and heavy steps.
She stood up and bent over his sleeping body, tears streaming down her face as she clutched his sheets. “Thank you. Thank you for everything, Faris von’el Faluntide. Thank you for being an excellent student, for being my friend, for being in my life. For teaching me what it felt like to be cared for, to be loved, to be appreciated, to be seen. To be an equal instead of a monster. To be human. Thank you for everything. I will never forget you. Never.”
“Get that girl away from him.”
A push, a shove. Hitting the nightstand. The books and the glass of water, knocking over and crashing onto the floor with her.
“Take him away.”
Shuffling. Footsteps.
An empty bed.
Loud sobs echoed throughout the infirmary, battling the silence that would never end.
