Promise of Dusk (Endings #1)

Chapter 21

Daylight comes and with every step, that chasm between me and the rest of them grows wider.

The pain from my injured ankle is searing penance with every pace forward.

Fionn had said it. From the beginning. That I could not be allowed to leave once I became a part of the group. I knew that and agreed, but they should understand this need. They have to know that I would never give them up. If this were a group of their people, they would have dropped everything to go save them.

I trail at the back of the pack. The rest of them are giving me space. I cannot tell which of them agree with Fionn. Most, probably. It doesn’t matter really, because even if they thought I should be able to go, none of them spoke up.

Armund sneaks glances at me from his place near Konan and Fionn, but is ultimately too much of a coward to come talk to my wall of anger.

Aine, who seems to be too sensitive to the tension to play her usual games, keeps sneaking concerned glances back at me.

I avoid her eyes.

She may be the one person I’m not angry with, but she is also the one person who might make me break. To see compassion in her eyes, to see the good in this group. The good that extends to one another, but not to me—it’s too much. So I watch the ground, and feel her eyes run over me instead.

It’s been days on the road. Days of silence.

They speak, they play. Almost every single one of them tries to talk to me at one point or another. They seem to have forgiven my transgression, citing that they understand why I tried to run, and they don’t hold it against me. Great for them.

But I don’t forgive them.

So I fill my water-skin. I think about them, those who made it out of the fire. I eat berries. I bite my nails until they bleed. I sit on the outskirts of the fire at night, on my own bedroll, far, far away from Fionn. I wonder where they all went, if they’re scared. I don’t practice wielding or reaching. My ankle was so swollen from re-rolling it that I fashioned a brace for it. It’s getting better now.

And so the days pass by, and I stay deep in a dark room in my mind, staring out the windows at people who think I’m a wild animal, in need of chains.

Elva has taken up Alyx duty. She walks beside me, a silent sentry.

Sweat drips down the side of my face. My hair is lightening from the roots down, just like it used to in the summer when I would work in the fields under endless sunshine. It is more dramatic this time, almost a white-blonde, and I wonder if it is from stress.

We make it to the western coast, the city of Farus is only a few days walk away. The blisters on my feet remember every step, every league across Suri, and I wonder if any step will ever hold any answers. What city could I travel to, trail could I follow, that will tell me why? Why can I do these things? Where am I headed? What am I still walking for?

I don’t have answers, and I suspect I never will.

“This is getting ridiculous. It’s foolish to stop training,” Elva’s voice breaks through my thoughts.

It isn’t.

“You could at least continue to practice.” If I did not know any better, I would say there was a flicker of irritation on her face, in her voice.

I can’t.

“We could have let you go. It’s not as if you knew where we were going specifically. The Crown already knows we exist somewhere. You wouldn’t be able to tell them anything very useful. Some of us realize this. We agree with you,” she says.

The scathing look I shoot her says: Then why did you stop me?

“I allowed Fionn to lead. I saw who he was, his motives, his character, and I chose to follow him. He may not always do what I would, but I had made my choice many years ago. This is honor and duty. It is the choice I made. Just as you have made a choice to come with us, knowing he would not allow you to leave.”

I have nothing to say to that.

Konan chuckles darkly at something said ahead, drawing my attention. All of his laughs sound dark.

Fionn shoves him with all of his strength, sending Konan stumbling sideways, but still chuckling.

Elva looks me over with her expressionless face before turning back to the front. “Fionn was teaching you poorly anyways, too distracted by your form and availability.” A tiny smirk pulls at the corner of her mouth. “And while you’re obviously attractive, I’m typically not into the moody, sullen women. So we shouldn’t have a problem there.”

I trip over a pebble, and almost go careening to the ground.

Not into moody, sullen women. But she’s into some women? I’ve heard of such things, but they aren’t widely accepted in Suri. Something about nature and it being an affront to the order of things. However, I’ve never thought nature would really care that much what our romantic dalliances are like.

Elva doesn’t seem to care about what she just revealed to me, for she just moves on. I stumble to keep up with her brisk pace.

“If you train with me, we will make sure you see your people again. We will find them. Or you will find them. It’s not over. It’s not over until you decide to give up on them.”

Have I given up on them? No. But I didn’t know where to go from here. If I tried to run, they would drag me back.

But perhaps not anymore.

Her words give me a spark of hope, and my mind starts running again.

Breathe in, pull yourself in, breathe out, extend.

My essence moves with the breath, just as Elva showed me. I can feel it reaching and unfurling. Caressing the energy that lives in the ether. It tangles with the air, tingling sparks of energy, like when your hand falls asleep, and it feels like hundreds of tiny pinpricks. As I breathe in, I pull myself back, though I can still feel the prickles of consciousness in my surroundings, the bright lights of souls eating their meals in peace. I’m used to their presence and can easily ignore them. I count the souls that stand watch over my exercises.

One, two, three.

One is welcome, the other two males, not so much.

Armund and Fionn watch me from the campsite.

Elva supervises my breaths with an assessing gaze.

“Next time, I need you to push it on your exhale. See if you can move the wind. Create space between the points of energy. If you need to move with your breath, do so.” With Elva’s terse command, she demonstrates, pulling in a deep breath all the way down to her belly, hands holding the breath in for a moment. On her exhale, her hands move with her breath, outward in an airy motion. A cloud of dust and wind blows from where she stands, all the way to the creek down the hill, where Deri is teaching Aine how to fish.

Elva makes it look effortless.

I concentrate on each point of energy. Feel them wanting to stick to my essence, wanting to be absorbed by it. I push it but it sticks. Like thorns to fabric.

I scowl in frustration and try again. More sticking this time.

“Good,” Elva says.

I furrow my brow in question. “I did it?”

She nods.

“But I wasn’t really pushing it. It was…sticking to me,” I sigh. Elva is easy to be honest with, and she expects nothing less.

She cocks her head. “It’s not the way my power works but, perhaps...”

“Her wielding could be different,” says Fionn, lurking several paces away.

I cannot look at him.

I go back to my breaths and extensions .

In the silence I can feel his attention along my profile. My extension stutters and fails.

He interprets my silence as challenge and moves to loom over me.

Elva interjects, “Alyxara doesn’t have anything to say to you. Nor does she need your input. Go be a domineering prick somewhere else.”

“I think I prefer to be a domineering prick right here. Come take a walk with me,” he commands me.

We don’t even know what you are. Much less what you’re capable of.

Breathe in-

He’s crouched at my level now, breathing in my space.

“When, oh when, will I hear your voice speaking to me again?” he asks. I can hear the smile in his voice.

He thinks I’m funny.

Funny, petty little toy.

Breathe out, exten—

“Leave her alone, Fionn. I won’t ask nicely again,” Elva says, her voice more threatening than I have ever heard it.

The tension pries my eyes open. Fionn is considering her, crouched at my seated level. Considering whose power is greater. I know who my coin is on—a woman of shadows who walks between the stars.

But I won’t drive a wedge between them. They had a dynamic before I came along. Before I created sides and pulled it apart.

“It’s fine,” I say to Elva as I stand, the three of us so close we practically share breath. Armund watches us all from the sidelines, having taken to watching my lessons the last few days. “I’ll hear what horse-shit orders he has.”

Fionn’s brows flick up in surprise at my venom but Elva smirks slightly, still looking unsure .

I leave the circle before Fionn, leading us into the woods around the clearing.

His tread is utterly silent, but I feel him. I always feel him. I push a branch out of my way, letting it snap back in his face. A memory resurfaces of him doing the same. I think he catches it though. Shame.

“Looks like you picked out the most powerful guard dog. I would applaud you, but it’s kind of a pain in my ass.” His tone is trying to be casual, but irritation seeps through. “Look. I’m sorry if you feel like I’m domineering. If you feel I was being unfair the other day. I don’t intend to be high-handed, but I cannot allow you to go traipsing off to save people that are probably already dead. I’m sorry if that reality hurts, I wish I could save you from that, but it’s the truth. Those humans stood no chance.” He dodges another one of my branches. His voice finally turns slightly rushed, earnest. “I’m sorry Alyx, I really am. I never meant for this to happen. I never meant to hurt you. I never meant to control you. But I have to. You don’t know what it’s like. To feel like everything rests on my shoulders. To have lost so much and feel like I’m about to lose more. You just don’t understand—” He jerks me to a stop.

I thrash, forcing him to either hurt me or release me. He releases for once.

As we stand and finally look at one another, I let him see my anger, not my hurt. The hurt that is alive and writhing in my chest. It’s like he’s digging at an open wound, scraping dead flesh with a blade.

It all comes out in a trembling mess of words, quiet but fierce.

“You know nothing. Nothing .” A gasping breath. “Nothing of my life, of my loss. I know. I know, Fionn. You do not.” I point my finger at him .

None of it is coming out right.

There are no words left in me. They are lost to the wind. Lost in some endless sea of grief.

His brow furrows, eyes shining in genuine confusion but compassion. Hands up, surrendering if only for now. “Okay. Okay. I don’t know. But you also never said.”

Incommunicable anguish stands between us. It always has.

He comes forward, closer and closer, as if approaching a feral animal.

He’s not wrong, I didn’t say. I never say it. I can’t.

It lurks in the corner of every happy moment. It taints brightness and makes everything feel like an inevitable ending. And if I say it, they’ll know it.

Somehow it makes all of this feel like my fault. Because how could he know the depths of this need? How could he have known that I understand his need to protect me, as it is the same as mine to save the people I grew up with? But the fact that I understand doesn’t change that I need to do this. That he is forcing me to give up on people I’m not ready to give up on yet.

He’s all the way in front of me now, invading my space as he so likes to do. He looks to be bracing himself for battle.

“Look, I just want you to try to understand where I’m coming from. To know that it’s my job to make sure nobody else gets hurt. To make sure that you don’t get hurt. And then to have you so selfishly throw all caution to the wind. I was angry, Alyx. So impossibly, inescapably angry at you. First, for saying everything I had been wanting to hear, and then for tossing it straight out the window. But I’m ready to move forward, and I hope you can too.”

How do I suddenly feel like the worst sort of person?

“Can we start this over? Go back to the beginning? Because I feel like we keep fucking this up, and I don’t want that. I don’t want to hurt you. I want us. I want to touch you and feel like I have a right to. I want you to talk to me and want to. I want you, even when you’re acting droll.” His mouth turns up, unable to help but tease me.

Can we start over? Can I pretend that he could love me? Can I live in a dream and ignore everything else? Can I live with myself, knowing all that I abandon, just for a chance at this ? Can I pretend that I don’t see the end before it even starts, if only for a little while?

Not to mention the mates issue. I’m pretty sure one of us would know by now if I were his and he were mine.

But even so, I crave him. I want to curl up in his arms every night and just stay there. It’s so cold being so alone.

I don’t have the strength to say no. I don’t have the strength to explain that our end is inevitable. One day, when I do something terrible and ruin it all. One day when my moroseness isn’t something he feels like joking about anymore. One day when we go to Raith and he’s reminded of all of the women who smile and laugh easy.

Despite the thought of the agony that will follow, I nod my head.

“Yeah?” His face lights up, like a child given a new toy. “No more running?”

I nod again.

His hands come up to frame my face, thumbs moving over my cheeks. They are so warm, so comforting. His eyes are my favorite color right now, like honey in the sunlight, sweet and warm.

I feel like a coward. Accepting some bit of good while those that need me are possibly suffering.

“You can trust me,” He says, softly.

It’s too bright; the future he promises, his eyes. I turn my head to the side and lay my head on his broad chest. Feeling his muscles bunch as he wraps his arms around me.

He still isn’t going to come with me to find my people. He still won’t let me leave.

Maybe Elva was right the other night. The people who made it out will have to be made of iron and grit, and I just have to pray to whatever god that we meet again one day. The thought is a blade to the gut, but maybe the only way forward for me.

Maybe I just have to make the best of this. Train. Go along with their plans of running and searching. Become the most powerful version of myself. Ensure that next time, nobody could stop me. Not even him.