No One to Tell

Rohan lay down, but he couldn’t sleep. The newly revealed truth about his mother swirled around him. She’d been forced by the usurpers to help the pirates abduct Princess Nadia Taveer. She hadn’t been working for them by choice. It changed everything about that image, and Rohan was shaking with eagerness to explain it to Thisbe after feeling so bad about what his mother had done to hers. Beyond that, he’d kept the story of his parents close to his heart and hadn’t shared much about them with anyone before, because his memories were few and unsettling. For the first time, Rohan wanted to tell Thisbe everything but couldn’t. After tossing and turning for an hour, he got up and found some linen blotting paper in the living area of his magical apartment. He sat in a chair and began to write Thisbe a letter.

I have two memories of my childhood before I ended up in the catacombs. They are fuzzy, and they don’t make sense together. I’ve never felt comfortable telling anyone about them—you are well aware of this, I know. And I’m grateful you gave me the space I needed. But I want to talk about them now. If only you were here with me! I will write them to you instead, with the hope that someday I’ll be able to hand you this letter and watch you read it. That’s an image I’m going to affix in my mind to help me through these uncertain days.

The first memory is of my parents and me. I was about four years old. We were together in a house with several other people, but my father only had eyes for my mother. He looked at her like her eyes were a portal to a heavenly place. He stroked her cheek and whispered, “I love you, pria.”

That is where the word originates in my mind. The love between my parents. When I saw the way Sky spoke about Alex, it reminded me of that kind of love. The kind that lasts a lifetime and beyond. I guess you know it means so much to me to use that word for you.

The second memory is jarringly different and has caused me much consternation ever since. It happens not much later than the first. The memory is of my mother. She’s angry. Screaming. At me, I thought, and I was devastated. She kept yelling “Go! Go!” and pointing to some strangers in blue uniforms. “Get out!” She was hysterical, and I kept running back to her, apologizing for whatever it was I’d done. Begging her to stop screaming and let me stay. But she shoved me at the soldiers. They scooped me up and took me away. That was the last time I saw her.

Rohan paused to press his fingers into the inner corners of his eyelids. A wave of emotion washed over him. Then he continued writing.

Why would she do that? Why would she change like that? Had she turned into a different person so suddenly? I couldn’t make sense of anything. When I took the ancestor broth, which made the image appear of her helping the pirates capture your mother, something cold entered my heart. I’d held on to the thought that my mother was good once and had turned bad. But this image shattered that. Perhaps she’d been evil all along and had only had that one tender moment with my father before revealing her true self. It made me sick.

I tell you these memories because I found out more information today about that image. Maiven said that my mother didn’t willingly help the pirates capture your mother and chain her to the ship’s deck. Maiven knew her! My mother was friends with your mother. Reza and Asha have similar images of their parents doing the same thing, but they didn’t know what the images meant. Maiven told us that nearly all of the black-eyed children had been taken away by then—they were our parents, obviously—and were forced by the king and the other usurpers to kidnap their friend Nadia, your mother, and deliver her to the pirates. The usurpers threatened the lives of their parents if they didn’t obey.

I’m not sure why it’s so important for me to tell you this right now. I know you never blamed me or held ill feelings for me because of what we thought had happened. But I still felt strange about it. And I miss you. Writing this makes me feel nearer to you. It makes me want to share more with you—everything with you.

He stopped writing, his pen poised over the last phrase. Was it too much? Should he be telling her just how strongly he felt about her? He wasn’t sure he liked how vulnerable that made him feel. He also wasn’t sure she felt the same. He knew they had a special connection. He knew she liked him. But they were both very young, though based on their experiences, they’d been through more than most adults. Somehow that aged them in his mind. And the torture and death-defying feats they’d performed together were enough to cement them for life. Rohan felt like he could tell Thisbe anything.

Now that she was gone and he didn’t know where she was or if she was safe, he threw his fear of vulnerability out the window and decided to be reckless. He wasn’t going to hold back. What if he never saw her again? He continued writing, pouring his feelings into it.

I’m scared, Thisbe. I don’t know where you are or what you’re doing. Florence and Simber are convincing me to trust what Fifer wrote, but I’m so conflicted about it. I’m tempted to write you a send spell every day. I don’t want to put you in danger, but why aren’t you letting us know what’s happening? Are you trapped? Did the Revinir take your components away? Are you even… alive? I can’t dwell on that thought. I wish I had some answers. I wish you could reassure me that you’re okay—I think that would help me cope with this. Everyone here is being wonderful—that’s not the problem. But right now I feel stuck in a strange land, waiting in limbo for something terrible to happen. Not having a home to go to. And hoping my whole life isn’t about to get upended because something terrible has happened to you.

I can’t imagine my life without you in it. You’re gone… and I’m hollow.

Ever yours,

Rohan

Rohan put the pen down. He’d look at the letter again later; tweak a few things, maybe. Or rip it up and throw it away. He knew he’d needed to write it, but now that he’d gotten it all out, he wasn’t sure if he wanted Thisbe to read it. What kind of pressure would baring his soul put on her, especially if she didn’t feel the same way about him as he felt about her? Maybe he’d hold on to it. Read some of it to her later—the part about their mothers. And let the love part come naturally if it was meant to be. When he saw her again. That felt better.

He yawned and went back to bed. This time sleep came.