AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Morrow drops to his knees, hand on the back of my neck as he presses his forehead to mine. "She's going to be okay. It'll take more than this to kill her. She's too fucking stubborn to die."
Tulip stands behind him, her nose red, her face and neck splotchy from crying, and a few blood vessels have burst in her eyes. "She's all I have," she says softly. "When I stumbled upon her in the forest I didn't know why I ended up there. It was clear she didn't want me. But I couldn't go. I couldn't leave her. I knew I had to be by her side. I knew she was important, even then." A sob chokes her words, and it takes her a moment to breathe through it. "You know I lost my brother too, Mace."
When I lock my eyes more firmly on her, giving her my full attention, she continues. "I watched him die in the Race. Twig was the other half of my soul. Those nightmares I always have are about his death, Mace. I think I hide it well, but fuck, it is hard sometimes. This is not something you or I will ever get over, don't you see?"
Her words are a punch in my chest. The reality that things will never be okay cracks the delusion I had built up withinmyself.
"Right now, you are a box that is full of grief. Every time you move, the grief hits the wall of your box, and it threatens to crumple you. That grief will never get smaller, but you will grow around it. It will hit your walls less and less the more you grow, but when it hits, it's the same fucking grief, and it will still feel this way."
Tulip kneels down in front of me, tentatively reaching a hand out to lay it on Viola's shoulder.
"But that's okay, Mace. That's how it's supposed to be. If you didn't feel this grief, if you didn't hurt so desperately, you wouldn't remember how deeply you loved him. Everyone grieves differently. Viola shuts down and buries it under layers and layers. I write about it. When a nightmare wakes me up, I write down what I'm feeling. There is no wrong way to grieve. But you cannot stop others from grieving, either. And right now, not only are you making it so our friends do not know if Viola is okay, but you are not allowing anyone else to grieve Zeph."
Her words are a slap to my face and my grip on Viola loosens. "I don't think you're doing it on purpose," Tulip hurries to say, noticing my reaction. "But Cirrha, Taegan, and Plume are distraught, and none of them have been able to pay their respects to Zeph."
"I want Viola to make the decision to let him go," I say quietly, looking at their clasped hands. "So much has been taken from her. I didn't want to be the one who took her high priest from her. He gave his life for me. The least I can do is let her hold onto him,if only for a moment longer."
"Dropping his hand now or later does not change the truth of what happened here today," Morrow says softly. "Today, Viola lost her high priest, but you lost your brother, Mace. This is not only about her."
"If I let it be about me, I may never recover."
"I know how that feels," Tulip tells me quietly. "Believe me, there have been times I didn't think I could go on without Twig. But do not waste the life Zeph granted you."
"It was supposed to be me," I whisper. "I was supposed to die here today."
"Who's to say? We do not know the inner workings of the realm. Maybe he was always supposed to give his life for yours. We cannot possibly know what was meant to happen, Mace. All we can do is live the lives we were given to the best of our abilities." Tulip reaches out, wrapping her arms under Viola, placing her hands next to mine under her knees and on her back. "Let me take her so you can say goodbye to your brother one last time."
"I can't do this," I cry out. "Don't you get it? I cannot say goodbye to him! We have been at odds for years, and I just got him back!"
"And you loved him throughout it! He loved you in spite of all of it. He loved you, Mace. And it fucking sucks that he is gone, but you cannot go with him. You cannot reject this gift he gave you." Tulip hoists Viola from my arms, and mine are too stiff and weak to keep her.
Tulip stands, and Zeph's arm raises as Viola does.
But Viola's grip doesn't tighten as she moves, and his fingers slip through.
His arm falls in slow motion, released from her grip, and lands on my legs.
I held hope in that hand that if I let her continue to hold it, maybe she could pull him back again.
But that hope crashes with it.
"How could you?" I whisper to the vessel that once contained my brother. "How could you do this? How could you give yourself up for me?" Tears of anger, fear, and despair leak down my face, and a keening wail leaves my throat as I lean forward and rest my forehead on his chest.
"How could you leave me? I wanted so much more time with you!"
As I cry, I feel the tension drift out of my body until all I am is a loose figure leaning on my brother's body, soaking it with my tears.
I don't know how long I stay like that. I don't move until a pair of hands land on my arms and heft me up.
"Come, my love," Viola says, her voice shredded and her hands shaking. I turn and see her pained expression, her face tired with grief and exertion, and notice Tulip directly behind her, holding her up by the hips.
"I couldn't convince her to stay and rest more," Tulip says with a chagrined expression. "She insisted on coming to get you, even though she can barely stand on her own."
"It's not goingto be okay," I say to Viola. "It's never going to be okay."
"It will be," she assures me. "It will never be as it was before, but we will be okay."
"What did it feel like for you, him dying?" My question is quiet but it has been bothering me this whole time.
