Page 104 of Children of Fallen Gods

Chapter Thirty-Three

Max

Icould have shown Tisaanah the impersonal beauty in the Farlione estate. I could have showed her the artifacts, the artwork, the precious valuables, all the things my parents used to present to guests on tours of the house. But those were not the stories that were burning in my lungs, desperate to be released. And those were not the things I needed her beside me for the strength to face.

Instead, we wandered through the living quarters. It was utterly silent here. Zeryth and his leadership had taken over every wing of the house but this one — the place where we had lived our innermost lives, now carefully closed off to visitors. Perhaps even my miserable aunt had boundaries as to what she would allow him to use. When we walked through those doors, I felt like I’d walked into the past.

Tisaanah and I went upstairs, to the bedrooms. Neither of us spoke, but Tisaanah’s hand was tight around mine. I was grateful for it.

The first door I opened was to Kira’s room, and when we stepped inside, I went suddenly still.

The room was a frozen, dust-coated monument to the girl that had lived here, untouched for nearly a decade. Her insect books were scattered on the ground. Her hairbrush sat on the bureau, strands of black hair buried in its bristles. There was an indentation on her bedspread, as if someone had carelessly leapt from it in too much of a hurry — because she was always in too much of a hurry.

I couldn’t speak.

I hadn’t expected this, for everything to remain so preserved. Was it intentional? Had Brayan instructed that everything stay exactly the way it had been, when they died?

Or had the world just moved on without them, and no one thought to look back?

“Are you alright?” Tisaanah murmured.

That was a complicated question.

I nodded, even though I wasn’t sure that was in fact the correct answer. I stepped back, closing the door gently behind me.

I went to Variaslus’s room next, and as soon as I opened the door, the scent of dust and old charcoal greeted me. Three easels stood throughout the room. Two were blank. One housed a half-finished sketch, one that I immediately recognized as depicting Shailia reading a book, charcoal still waiting on the tray as if the artist had stepped out and never returned.

Then, we went to Marisca’s room — all immaculately neat, long-dead flowers still petrified in their perfect arrangements — and Shailia’s, which was decorated with everything and anything that once sparkled and now hung dully in the darkness.

Walking through the rooms was like stepping into a grim, greyscale version of my memory. And yet, there was an odd comfort in it, too. In allowing myself to see the marks they had left on the world. Tisaanah asked little, innocuous questions —“When did he start drawing?”or“Why did she like these books so much?”— and while at first, my answers were stilted, soon I slipped more easily into the past. For so long, my grief had overshadowed their lives, an insurmountable wall between the present and any happiness that had once lived in the past. For the first time in a long, long time, I found myself peering over it.

Atraclius’s room was last. I opened the door, and stopped short.

I was expecting his to look the way the others’ did, preserved in the past. I was ready to see a room that was messy, an unmade bed, trinkets scattered across the floor. Instead, it was immaculate. It took me a moment to realize why.

Because Atraclius had died here.

The room had been cleaned and purged of all that made it his, because it needed to be, when his body was taken away.

My eyes drifted down. Burn marks peeked out from beneath the carpet.

I suddenly felt ill. I stepped backwards, closing the door too quickly. I glanced at Tisaanah, and I saw her wince, her fingers going to her temple. I wondered if Reshaye was whispering to her, awakened by the memory of what had happened here.

This had been a mistake.

I was halfway down the hall before I even realized I was moving, then down the grand staircase. I didn’t stop until I flung open a door and felt the rush of cold mountain air against my face.

I let out two shaky breaths and opened my eyes.

I hadn’t even paid attention to where I was walking, moving solely on instinct. I stood on the balcony. Before me was a breathtaking view of the mountains, the forts illuminated like distant candles, the snowcapped peaks glowing beneath the moonlight.

I felt warmth surround me. Tisaanah leaned against my shoulder. Her touch was a grounding presence, tethering me back to the earth.

“Their lives were worth so much more than the way they ended, Max,” she murmured, softly. “Don’t let their deaths take that away from you. It is the most precious thing you have.”

A lump rose in my throat.

Ascended above, I wished it was that easy. But their deaths had taken so much. From their memories, from their lives. From me.

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