Part Two

COREY FELT LIKE the previous day had been a dream. After a morning of teachers and Elda fussing around him, Corey realized any sense of peace was impossible. The glimpse he had yesterday was long gone.

When he was finally given permission to walk around the Tower for some exercise, Corey wasn’t sure whether he should go to the long staircase and the windowed room. If it really had been a dream, if that staircase and the room—and even Ward—were a figment of his imagination, Corey didn’t know what he would do. If every day was to be the same as this with no relief, Corey knew he would walk out naked into the tundra in the middle of Star Season just to escape the boredom.

He wanted to go back to the barn and the animals of the small town where he had grown up—back to his aunt and uncle smiling and praising him for the simplest things. Life had been easy then.

Still, if he spent his free time hanging around his bedroom, Elda would no doubt drag him out with her. That thought was motivation enough for him to get to his feet and start walking.

Within a few minutes, he came to the foot of the Tower, took a deep breath to brace himself, and then started climbing.

It wasn’t a dream, he told himself as the stairs wound to the top floor of the Tower. He didn’t fully believe it though until he stepped out into the room full of windows and saw the cold firepit and the enormous bed.

“You’re real,” Corey said softly, breathless from both the climb and surprise. “I thought I had dreamed this.”

Ward sat up slowly from where he was buried under his mound of blankets and pillows and a crooked smile twisted his lips.

“Sometimes I wish this were just a dream,” Ward replied. He studied Corey for a long moment before gesturing toward the bed. He pulled a blanket free as Corey sat and draped it over Corey’s back. “I want to wake up with my family around me, but I know they’re long dead. As each successive incarnation of my family dies, I get to see a new tree grow in the grove. Their bodies serve to add another layer of protection against Sin.”

“And you have to watch all of that happen, decade after decade, century after century,” Corey whispered. He hadn’t seen his aunt and uncle die. The cold had gotten to them all, and Corey had fallen unconscious, knowing his end was near. But he had heard them talking to him, telling him it was going to be okay, and then their voices had faded away. Waking in warmth surrounded by strangers who told him his family was dead had been horrible, but he couldn’t imagine what Ward endured.

“I’ve learned to survive with it,” Ward replied after a long moment of staring out the window toward the dark spot on the horizon. He turned back to look at Corey, a frown on his face. “Elda is overbearing and her attention smothering,” he continued, echoing Corey’s unpleasant thoughts about Elda out loud. “She can be a trial to endure, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, but I’ve found that her cheer provides a spot of levity in what would otherwise be a continuously depressive existence. Give her time, and you will come to appreciate her as much as I do.”

Corey bit back his immediate denial. Being around Elda and even John—who wasn’t as expressive but was always a heavy presence to be near—felt like he was in a small room where the walls were closing in around him. He needed to escape that, to escape them. Believing he might come to appreciate them felt impossible right now.

“Yes, some days I feel like that too,” Ward said with a soft chuckle. He must have read Corey’s emotions on his face, since Corey hadn’t bothered to conceal his automatic flinch. “Give it time, Corey.”

“I’m not sure I want to,” he replied, his voice just barely louder than a whisper. He was shamed of his wish to walk out into the tundra and let the cold have him like it should have when he had lost his aunt and uncle, but he knew Ward would understand the center of pain inside Corey where that wish had lodged.

Ward reached out to place one comforting hand on Corey’s shoulder.

“Living is sometimes the hardest thing we must endure. Corey, if you ever feel like this, if you ever feel like you can’t endure any longer, talk to me first. Day or night, I won’t mind.”

Because Ward knew exactly how Corey felt—he had been where Corey was right now, and he would go there again. Corey read that truth in Ward’s kind smile. He nodded in agreement and quiet understanding.

Corey relaxed back into the blankets and pillows and stared out into the sunlit brilliance of the snowscape outside. The silence was absolute. Only the sound of their breathing or the occasional shift of the blankets around them told him there was life in the cold room. Life, yes, but neither of them were actually living. Survival was food, water, and warmth, but just having those wasn’t enough for Corey to feel alive inside. He felt as if a rock were blocking his lungs, pressing on his chest, and darkening the world around him.

He didn’t know how to let those emotions fly free. Being around Elda only reinforced the strength of that pressure, but being around Ward made it feel light, as if all Corey had to do was open his mouth and the emotion would rush out and he would be free.

Corey didn’t dare. He clenched his jaw, teeth grinding until his face ached and that rock still pressed on him.

“It’s okay, you know,” Ward said softly, almost gently. “I want to hear it all; you don’t have to force yourself to stay quiet just because I’m here.”

Corey opened his mouth to voice a denial, but just that much release was enough. Instead of words, a sob escaped. The noise echoed around the glass of the room before escaping up the chimney. A second sob followed, and then a third, and then tears were pouring down Corey’s face faster than he could wipe them off his cheeks with his sleeve.

It wasn’t possible to know how long Corey cried, but each sob that escaped felt like ten pounds were lifted from his shoulders. When his crying began to ebb, Corey realized he was pressed against Ward’s very damp chest, and Ward’s arms were wrapped around him, one of his hands rubbing up and down Corey’s back.

It was so warm and so comfortable that Corey couldn’t muster the energy to move away. Instead, he opened his mouth again, and this time words fell out.

“My birth mother arrived in town in the middle of Star Season, when there wasn’t even the barest hint of light. She was eight and a half months pregnant too. No one believed she had survived traveling alone like that. Before anyone could ask her any questions, she went into labor and died as I was born. My aunt and uncle had always wanted a child, so they took me in as their own. They were kind, and I know they loved me, but I never quite fit into the town. I worked in the fields in Sun Season and in the barns in Star Season, just like most folks, but unlike them I never really had any friends. No one wanted to be near someone with mysterious origins like mine, and my eyes only reminded them of my past. Then I turned eighteen, and my aunt and uncle decided we needed to take a journey in the middle of Star Season.

“They died. I knew they had died because they stopped calling my name, stopped telling me to be strong in the cold tundra. I figured that was okay because I was dying too. When the cold finally took me away, I went gladly. Except, I woke up here, and everyone was so happy and excited for me.”

Ward hadn’t interrupted as the thoughts that had been swirling through Corey’s head for the last few weeks were released into the frigid air of the Tower room. He hadn’t stopped rubbing Corey’s back, and the damp spot on his shirt didn’t seem to bother him despite the fact that it must be starting to freeze.

“They all expected me to be happy, too, as if surviving was wondrous.” Corey let out a bit of hoarse laughter that was more mocking than happy in tone. “I wanted to be dead,” he added in a sharp whisper.

Silence filled the room after that last pronouncement. Corey didn’t dare look up at Ward, afraid of whatever expression might be on Ward’s face.

“It would be easier to be dead?” Ward made that statement sound like a question, but Corey didn’t think Ward wanted an answer. He was right as Ward continued speaking a moment later. “Sometimes, I can’t help wondering what it would be like to die, to be able to join the trees in the grove and to move on like my sister does every few decades. Then someone like Elda or John comes into my life, and I realize how much I would hurt the ones I left behind if I died. Elda is always smiling, always chipper like the light. Can you imagine her crying?”

Corey couldn’t. And yet, he could imagine how deeply hurt she would be to find him gone. That might be enough to shatter her perpetual layer of happiness.

“Doing that to her would be cruel,” Ward finished. “No matter how much I hurt inside, I know that doing something to transfer that pain to someone else is not the legacy I want to leave behind. So, I spend my life trying to figure out how to keep living.”

“How?” Corey had to ask. Did the hurt inside ever go away?

Ward hesitated before answering, as if he wasn’t entirely certain whether what he was about to say were true, but he said it anyway.

“You find whatever happiness you can. Sometimes it’s seeing a beautiful sunrise over the snow, sometimes it’s Elda’s scolding because the fire went out, and sometimes it’s anticipation because a new friend might come to visit. Why did you leave your room today?”

Why had Corey left his room? Ward had to know the answer to that since he was sitting right next to him. It wasn’t just to escape Elda or John, nor had he really been trying to find a space where he could be alone. All Corey had wanted was a companion who would let him hurt, and maybe help him heal.

“Injuries to the body are easy enough to heal. A few stitches, some light magic, a bit of rest, and you’re better,” Ward said softly, as if he didn’t want to interrupt Corey’s thoughts. “Injuries to the mind are more difficult, but dark magic is practiced at ferreting out the thoughts that can cause pain—which I assume John has been trying with you. Matters of the heart, however, only time can tell whether that will heal. There will always be a scar—I promise you that—but it is possible to move on and to live a happy life; although scar tissue is known to ache on occasion.”

“Is that why you hide up here in the Tower?” Corey asked. “There are too many scars in your heart?”

“Yes,” Ward forced out, his tone short and slightly breathy as if that admission had been pulled from somewhere tightly closed off. “But there also hasn’t been any reason for me to let the wounds heal properly. I sit and watch the graves of the ones who left these scars day after day…” he trailed off and Corey finally found the courage to look up at Ward.

There were tears on Ward’s cheeks, and his eyes were closed tightly enough to create wrinkles at the corners.

“You do it to honor their sacrifice,” Corey whispered. “And to honor your own sacrifice. You can’t follow them into death because without your watch Sin could escape.”

“He has tried before,” Ward admitted. “The last time he tried, he sent a terrible attack against the lands my sister watches over. It took her three generations and a lot of personal cost to stop it, all because I wasn’t vigilant enough.”

As Ward blindly stared out the window, Corey realized Ward blamed himself for causing his sister pain. It was as if he couldn’t bear to look at Corey because he believed he would see condemnation in Corey’s eyes.

Ward’s pain ripped through Corey’s chest, slicing through the gaping wounds of his own pain and making them feel almost inconsequential in comparison. No, that wasn’t correct; pain was pain, no matter what the cause.

Yes, losing the loving people who had raised and cared for him all his life was awful. Yes, the fact that he felt lost and overwhelmed every minute since he had woken in the Tower and that he hadn’t had the opportunity to figure out which way was up was definitely painful. Yet, all of that paled with one look at Ward’s face, the way Ward’s lips were pressed together as if he were desperately holding in a sob or the crease between his eyebrows that said he had already cried out all the tears he had.

For the first time since he had woken and realized he was alive while his parents were not, Corey felt like his heart was actually beating again. He couldn’t help reaching out to wrap one arm around Ward’s shoulders and pull Ward against his chest so the other arm could join the first in a hug. Ward was tense against Corey’s chest for a brief moment before he let out a shuddering breath and relaxed, limp, in Corey’s arms.