Page 148 of These Divided Shores
Ben froze. In his peripheral vision, he saw Jakes, disheveled and covered in blood and sweat and dirt, like everyone else here.
“You shouldn’t speak Argridian here,” Ben whispered inthe Grace Lorayan dialect.
Jakes smiled, but the expression didn’t reach his eyes. “My Grace Lorayan isn’t very good,” he said. “But I’ll get better. Here.” He reached for the bowl and the last dose of Bright Mint.
Ben hesitated. The only reason Jakes wasn’t bound in the dungeon was because he, like the other defensors in this courtroom, had surrendered.
Lu had asked Ben to pardon him. To let him stay on Grace Loray, when the time came to leave, instead of sending him back to Argrid to face trial for all he’d done.
Weight upon weight strangled Ben’s heart, things that had happened and things that hadn’t and things to come.
Ben handed him the mortar. Jakes took it, their eyes staying locked until Ben turned, walked out away from the pew, and left to help other wounded.
Dreams sucked Vex into a void.
He saw his father in moments he’d long forgotten, offhanded conversations from unimportant days that filled him with longing for simpler times. He saw Nayeli and Edda in discussion at the bow of theRapid Meanderwhile Lu sat atop the map table in the pilothouse, her smile so painless it flurried his chest like a hurricane. He saw Ben in front of the arched cathedral entrance, his face tipped to a cerulean sky, his hands out, open and welcoming.
Vex saw everyone he loved in a dozen situations—buthis mind stuck again and again on a conversation he’d had with his father.
It had happened long ago, after Rodrigu’s allies had left following a discussion of how best to kill Elazar. The evening was late, Rodrigu’s study warm and dim. Paxben had shifted on his velour chair and eyed his father.
“Papa,”Paxben had said, his voice brittle,“are you afraid?”
“Of what?”
“Of dying.”
Rodrigu had shoved up from his chair and curved around the table. Paxben leaned out to him before Rodrigu even opened his arms, his father taking him in a bent-over, twisted embrace.
“Every moment,”Rodrigu said, voice rumbling in his chest and deep into Paxben, who buried his face in the plush cotton of his father’s shirt.“But I think of you, and our country, and I know that no matter what happens, this is the right thing to do.”
Paxben couldn’t imagine being so certain about anything. He just wanted his father to be safe. He wanted them to be like they were now, together and happy.
Maybe that was what Rodrigu meant. Paxben expected belief like his father’s to be an overwhelming feeling of righteousness. He had heard his uncle speak of belief at Church services, an invigorating wave, an all-consuming conviction.
But maybe it was softer than that sometimes. Maybe it was this, warmth in his heart, determination digging like roots into his soul. Maybe belief was strong no matter itsform, vivacious sometimes, gentle and sweet others.
Maybe Paxben could be just as strong in his beliefs as his father, too.
“Papa.”Vex’s memory folded over on itself.“Are you afraid of dying?”
Sometimes Rodrigu answered. Sometimes he laughed. Sometimes he acted as though Paxben hadn’t spoken at all.
Which was the memory? What had Rodrigu said when Paxben asked him that question?
“Papa, are you afraid of dying?”
Paxben was so tired. An ache he couldn’t locate made his body throb and everything was cloaked in scarlet, a film of rose over his eyesight that dizzied him.
“Areyouafraid of dying, Pax?” Rodrigu asked him.
“No.”
“Liar.”
Something cooled his forehead. A wash of relief fell through him. He faded into a respite of nothingness until his mind surged, his heartbeat racing.
“Papa, are you afraid of dying?”
