Chapter Thirty-Six

Reshar sits in the doorway and scans the hallway like a guard dog. Everything aches, but my limbs lift creakily at my command. My right shoulder does not rotate well, but it does not feel as shattered as it did before. Even the cuts from Arisa’s mark on my palm have closed. The symbol is scarred in places and broken by smooth patches of skin in others. My left hand no longer needs bandages. I catch my reflection in the mirror. I am purple where my skin is exposed, and one dark eye puffs over, half closed, but I hardly care. Nothing I do matters anymore. I have failed: My mother is dead. I cut off my thoughts, because if I think of my mother I will fall apart completely.

“Thank you.” My voice sounds dull and flat. Reshar never liked me, and I never liked him, but I am glad I am not alone. “Why did you heal me?” I ask. The exertion takes my breath away. Maybe my bones are in order, but I am not.

“I take great pleasure in being the stone in Arisa’s slippers. Besides, what is there to be gained from murdering some helpless little girl?” His lips curl.

Still with the insults. Perhaps Reshar is all vinegar instead of sunshine, but he is not my enemy.

I shrug, and the pain makes me decide to lay still for all eternity. Though the worst of my injuries are healed, I am still bruised everywhere. I start to drift to sleep, but my mother’s face waits for me there, so I roll over and let the pain keep me from feeling anything else at all.

The Seeker leans back. Even his eyebrows have gone gray now. It is another sacrifice for my unworthy soul. Another sacrifice I did not demand, but I have no control over other people’s terrible decisions.

“Arisa’s worries are absurd. Perhaps I’m the right age, but that doesn’t mean anything at all,” I say. My tongue feels loose, and I suspect the bitter herbal tea he made me drink is the culprit.

“Arisa is not one to show restraint, but neither have I known her to be afraid of anyone. Yet, I have seen her look at you with fear.” He ponders this quietly behind lidded eyes.

I expected Reshar to be the most skeptical of all, so his pause worries me. “You couldn’t find anything in my memories. You said it yourself—my visions don’t prove anything,” I say.

“That only means I could not access the right ones.” He closes his eyes as if to rid himself of me.

I regret having opened my mouth, but I can’t seem to close it.

“You don’t fear the marks?” I ask.

“Why should I?” He taps his fingers against his sides. “They say your soul belongs to Omu. You belong here.”

Those words again. I shiver at the thought of empty rooms and broken doors. Home is warm arms, laughter, and the open sky. Home is my mother and my sister. I fight the sudden storm of emotions and bid my heart to quiet, but I don’t manage it. My mother is dead, and I may never see my sister again. She doesn’t even know…

“Why did you ask me for a bribe at the start of the Sundo?” I ask instead. I should be trying to win him over and not parading his foibles around, but curiosity has the better of me.

“I knew you could never pay it. I was trying to save your life, child. This competition is a waste of our youth. There are ways to pick a ruler that do not involve suffering.”

And to think, I did not take him for anything more than traditional to the bone. Perhaps there’s more of his mother in him than it seems.

“Do you still wish I had never come?” I ask.

He is silent a while. “It doesn’t matter. We will both be lucky if we survive tomorrow. No one will enter while I am here. Go to sleep,” he commands with his usual gruffness, then looks away, thoughts elsewhere.

…

It might be a dream. I am not sure. I open my eyes and find Teloh sitting on a stool beside my cot, while Reshar leans against the wall, snoring softly. As always, Teloh fills the room, and I cannot look away.

“Narra, I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you and your mother.” His face contorts in ways I do not like.

“Stop.” I cannot bear to delve too deeply into feeling and focus instead on the lines of his face half bathed in moonlight. His skin is as smooth as polished wood, his mouth expressive. His eyes always stare too deeply, as if they are locked onto the truth at the core of me, and my ghosts stir.

“Who asked you to protect us?” I ask, and I reach out to touch his face, despite knowing what he is…no…because I know what he is and that it doesn’t matter. He closes his eyes when I trace the line of his jaw and feel the stubble of his cheeks.

“And why did you help my family escape Tigang if you hate Astar? Don’t lie to me.”

“I took a chance on you, Narra Jal. Sometimes change is like a waiting fire, and it needs just a single spark to catch.” He fights to keep his hands still at his sides. “I thought that a life beyond these walls would leave you humbled, but you are just the same. You still hate yourself.”

It sounds not like admonition but regret.

“You gambled on the wrong child,” I whisper. “I have no memories; I have no talent, nor facility in magic. I can’t even sing. I am afraid all the time.” I take a breath, finally. “And I ruin everything and everyone. My mother is dead because of me…”

All the loathing comes spitting out of my mouth with familiar venom, and tears come with it. I lose my fight with myself, and my mother is all that I see.

I recall her smile the first time I picked up a tumpong flute, how my mother clapped at my first wobbly tune. I hear her voice driving our oxen down dusty roads and lulling me to sleep when she could not sit beside me. I smell the jasmine scent of her soap clinging to her skin. I feel her gently combing out the knots in my hair with her soft hands. Memories flood back, and I drown in them. Memories are all that I will ever have of her.

I don’t know how long I sob, but Teloh does not leave my side. He keeps his hands upon mine until my breath evens out and I can think clearly again. My heart feels empty, and my body, just a husk of meat.

His shoulders fall, and his expression softens, as much as the angles of his face could allow softness. “It would not be called courage if you were not afraid. Remembering always breaks you. That is the only true curse.” He looks up from under his long lashes, and his eyes hold a different sort of dare. “But you do not know yourself, because you don’t want to. Perhaps your life was too cozy until now. Perhaps you needed more than a short jaunt with humanity.”

I balk at this because nothing about my life feels like it has been easy. Friendless, always the cursed girl, shunned and hidden away. Beaten for no reason but my marks and blamed for every misfortune. And Astar? In some stories, she is a hero, but in others she seems more the villian. I don’t know what to make of her.

But it seems he knows me better than I know myself. “No one is born good or evil, Narra. We did not choose our natures, but we can choose what we do. Only you get to decide who you are or who you will be. You are more than anyone says.” He stands and turns from me. “And so am I.”

I find no other words. I lie still in my cot and breathe in the bleach-scented air. I do not know when I close them, only that when they are open again, my tunic is wet with tears and the dream of Teloh is gone.