Page 18 of The Garnet Daughter
“Lightning?”
He hums in agreement. “Struck the tower and box. Everything is fried.”
I sit upright in my chair, our only hope of getting back to Cosima an ashy mess on the table. I unwrap the linen just enough to place the salve underneath without taking it off and chancing flaring another wave of pain. But it works almost instantly, cold and soothing. It’s a temporary relief until it heals, but the wound is deep and will take weeks.
“If I get this working, we will be able to send a distress signal.” He pauses and watches me adjust my bandage.
“Wait, a signal? Not a message?”
“Repairing it enough to send a message is unlikely with what we have to work with. As soon as whatever horrors are done roaming around at night, we can go give it a try together.”
“If the rain has stopped.” I place the lid back on the salve. There is plenty left, enough to last me a while, thank First Mother.
He smiles at me, and I know it is genuine because it is August and he somehow always finds a way to be positive and figure things out . . . but this time is different. I caused us to be stranded here because I ran from the fatal mistake I made. It’sfrustrating to settle into a natural rhythm, to tease each other like we do when our circumstances are not normal at all.
“August, can I ask you something? Why are you not . . . angry with me?” I ask before I realize I am voicing my frustration.
“What do you mean?” He looks more puzzled by my question than he does fixing the mess of wires in the receiver.
“For what happened in the temple.”
“I saw how hard you tried. I’m sorry it didn’t work, but no, I am not angry.” He still sounds confused by my growing irritation.
“I got someone . . . Thea was killed.”
His nod is sullen. He lifts his hand to touch mine but then remembers the soot that covers it and retreats. “Calliape, I have no knowledge of rituals or spells, but many missions fail. Some do not survive them.”
I force my mouth shut after gaping at his words. They would be cold coming from anyone else. “Why are you speaking like that?”
“Like what?”
“Numb. We are stuck here because of me. Thea didn’t survive my doing.”
He shakes his head as if that will prove my innocence. “What was asked of you was?—”
“No. It wasn’t too much.”
“Callia,” he says softer. “I am not angry with you for trying. I do not understand how or why it didn’t work, but I am not the only one who thought you could do it.”
His kindness is not helping. I don’t deserve ease from the ache that I felt since the moment I realized the spell had gone wrong. I have to sit with the pain of knowing Ferren is mourning a friend that perished because I failed. I let everyone down, and instead of staying and facing what I’ve done, helping them fight the enemy I could not keep away, I cowered back to Frith.
August is caught in the snare of it all and he doesn’t deserve any of it. He is good and kind. I should never have asked him to take me with them. I should have stayed up here on this mountain just like Selene and my mother intended. I’ve done considerable damage and could cause more. I want to help fight the war, but I am not fit to be around the ones I love, not when my attempts cost so much.
“I think . . .” I swallow hard, the words claw up my throat before they have been fully thought through. “When the rescue ship comes, I think perhaps you should return without me.”
He stares at me for a long time, with eyes so light green they look like gemstones. “No.”
His answer is so simple, but the situation is anything but that.
“I may not be welcomed back after what I did.”
“You didn’t kill anyone, Calliape. What happened to that priestess was an accident. I saw what climbed out the ground after the tremor split the temple in half. For all we know that . . . thing killed her.”
He doesn’t know.
August isn’t aware I am to blame because he has no idea I tried to wake First Mother. That the old god didn’t crawl out of a tremor crack, I beckoned it forth. Freed it from somewhere. Of course he thinks it was truly an unfortunate accident, because he knows little of First Mother, of gifts and old gods. Yet if I confessed to him my true intentions, it would give him no doubt I am responsible. Not that I attempted a spell and was unsuccessful. I failed and in my panic and ego-filled desire for purpose, I believed I had found the reason for being called away to Cosima. Why the voice had called out to me. To wake First Mother and save Cosima by any means.
Now, I am not sure there was any voice at all, other than the echo of my selfishness bouncing off the trees and twisting the feeling of not belonging here.
