Page 108 of Fearless

Even in the dull light, her vibrance exudes from the space.

And I tremble in the presence of it.

My knees hit the cobblestone, and I welcome the shock of pain.

It’s as if I’d expected her to be sitting there, waiting for me to return from a day of thieving. As if she would phase through our fort and come bounding toward me in search of a sticky bun. As if I didn’t hold Adena’s dying body in my lap or see her blood gushing between my fingers with every glance at my incapable hands.

A tear slips down my cheek, splattering the ground with a drop of my anguish.

She was waiting for me to come home.

Muffled footsteps sound behind me.

But she never made it home.

My stare remains distant, even as a deep voice rings out behind me.

“This alley is taken. You’ll have to find another place to—”

I turn to let my teary gaze fall on this stranger.

His brown eyes widen with a recognition I don’t share. Strands of black hair fall around strong cheekbones while the rest is pulled back with a loose strap. I blink at the lonely silver streak threading among such darkness, as though a lock of my own hair lives on his head.

“It’s you,” he breathes.

The scar slicing his lips curls with the words. I tense. “And who are you?”

“After all this time, you’re finally back to visit her,” he mutters.

Understanding dawns, so blindingly clear I have to blink. “You’re the boy. The one Adena was seeing during the Trials.”

He sinks to the cobblestone beside me, and in the morning light, I can just make out the dark splotches under his eyes. It’s more than a lack of sleep around his gaze; it is a smattering of bruises. “She talked about you all the time. And then she died for simply knowing you.”

His words are a blunt knife to my chest. “I know.” I choke on the emotion in my throat. “It should have been me. Not her.”

Those brown eyes bore into mine. “She was coming to see you, longbefore being summoned as your seamstress. We had it all planned.”

“I don’t understand.” My back hits the grimy wall. “How did you two…?”

“Hera was my cousin,” the man says dully. “When I discovered how close you and Adena were, I knew she would help me get into the castle, just to see you.”

“Then Hera died in the first Trial,” I recall numbly at the memory of Braxton driving a blade through her invisible chest.

“And Dena in the last.”

I feel the moment my heart shatters, feel the shards of it pierce my lungs until I’m gasping for air.

Dena.

She was my A. But she was his Dena.

“I’m so sorry,” I choke out. “I’m so, so sorry. About Hera. About…” A tear slips down my cheek. “About Dena. I couldn’t save her. Why didn’t I save her?”

Something shifts behind his dark stare. Perhaps it’s pity or another entirely demeaning emotion. But I watch it begin to smother that stony expression, erode the anger etched into the corners of his eyes. I doubt this is the monster he expected to face. Instead, a crumpled, crying girl is falling apart before him.

“This is all my fault.” I turn my blurry gaze back to the Fort, every bright color a mockery without her here. “She redecorated for me. To surprise me when I got back from the Trials.” Tears are falling in front of this stranger, but I can’t seem to find the will to care. “But it was her who never made it back. And it’s all my fault. This is all my fault—”

“I couldn’t save her either.” The stranger sounds choked. It takes that thought for me to realize how much more he is than that. This man is one of the last pieces of Adena. “I… I couldn’t do anything but watch her die.”

---