Total pages in book: 209
Estimated words: 196141 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 981(@200wpm)___ 785(@250wpm)___ 654(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 196141 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 981(@200wpm)___ 785(@250wpm)___ 654(@300wpm)
Kyle can’t help feeling moved by the use of his true voice.
Another thing he’s never known before. Not once in all the years he was with Tristan, never once has he known the sound of it, let it touch his ears, let it touch his heart.
When was the last time Tristan even spoke?
It could have been decades ago. A century.
“Do … Do not … forgive me,” says Tristan. The difficulty of his speech seems to draw Kyle all the more to his words. Tristan, still leaning against the foot of the statue of a monster, holding his chest, lips hanging between his words, bloodied in one corner. “If it … If it is easier for you, then hate me as well. I … I deserve it. But please know … know deep in your heart, somewhere in your big, beautiful heart … know that I …” Tristan fights through tears, clenches his teeth, sucks in a breath. “I would have allowed myself to turn to ash in the sun that one morning … if it would have made right all the wrongs I have done to you.”
Kyle swallows, staring back at him, wordless.
It’s impossible to be angry anymore. All Kyle feels is a dull stinging in his chest. Despite all his fight to resist it, all he can see before him is the old Tristan. The one he believed to his core loved him. The one he believed would bend worlds in half to make him happy.
That’s what makes it even more excruciating to say goodbye.
Kyle turns away again. Takes a few more steps. Stops again.
Squeezes his fists as tightly as his teeth, until his skull hurts, until he feels nothing, refuses to let go one more tear.
“He’s likely in the infirmary. With my friend Raya.”
Kyle doesn’t turn back around. “Where’s that?” he asks, his voice crackled and weary.
“To the left … the first flight of stairs past a fountain with green glowing light … though I can’t say whether it’ll look the same … or be there at all. Markadian’s power is fading. It’s as if we’re watching his very life fading around us. I don’t think … I don’t think he’ll survive the night.”
Kyle lowers his head. “He set a lion on my brother. To kill him in front of me. To hurt me. Markadian deserves to die.”
“Do you think I deserve to die?”
Kyle doesn’t answer that. To the left, flight of stairs, green glowing fountain. That’s all Kyle will focus on. Finding Kaleb. Getting out of here.
“Do I deserve to die, Kyle?”
“I have to find my family.” Somehow, those words seem to carry more meaning than he intends. He can’t bear staying in this room any longer. “I have to go.”
“Do you want me to stay away from you forever?” Tristan is on his feet. Kyle hears. “I understand if you need time. Lots of time. To hate me. I can’t promise that I … that I won’t keep away from you, Kyle. That I won’t look out for you. That … That I won’t stop loving—”
“I’m leaving.”
“You and I were together for longer than you were mortal. Our time in that cabin … it encompasses more of your life than anything else does. Kyle …” Footsteps. Then silence. “Do you want me to die?”
Kyle closes his eyes.
A hand touches his back.
Then slides around to the front, arms embracing him.
Tristan pressing to his back, holding him closely, his body shaking from tears. Then he grows still, breathing deeply, and nothing is said at all.
Until Kyle, beyond all reason, answers: “No.”
Tristan grows still, too.
Within Tristan, the Reach finds a dark field of endless grass, and overhead, a single light flicks on. Whether it’s moonlight, sunlight, or a literal bulb from a lamp, that little bit of light is enough to illuminate his entire emotional landscape, to breathe life into the shadowy, unsettling terrain.
Then Kyle slips from Tristan’s grip too quickly, disappears around the corner, to the left as instructed, gone.
36.
Good Riddance.
—∙—
Kyle feels Tristan remain right where he is, left in the art gallery with the paintings and the monsters, as he heads down the hall. When he comes upon a fountain, not green in color, not glowing, he makes for the stairs. With every step taken, he presses further down the emotions that Tristan peeled apart inside of him. He doesn’t want to think about never seeing him again. He also doesn’t want to think of seeing him again. Every thought concerning Tristan hurts, even the good ones.
So distracted, Kyle belatedly realizes his brother is nearby when his Reach senses something around the corner. Picking up the pace, Kyle passes through an archway into what appears to be an abandoned clinic with several rooms. Under a pair of buzzing fluorescent lights, he follows his Reach around another corner, arrives at an area lined with cots and carts of medical supplies. A small crowd of mortals surround a bed in the corner, murmuring agitatedly to each other, one of the guys bossy and spitting orders, an impatient woman glancing over her shoulder and saying, “We have to get outta here,” over and over.