Page 93 of Quest for her Knights
“Then what did you mean?” I press my lips together, unsure how to answer without upsetting him. “You don’t think I’d understand that you’re struggling with your feelings for Elora and your duty as head of the royal guard?”
“That was part of my struggle, yes,” I admit.
“Was? So that’s not stopping you from being with her now?”
“No.”
“Then what is?”
I stay silent and he sighs. “Ranger, if you can’t talk to me, who can you talk to?”
“Exactly.”
“I don’t think you’re being very fair to yourself right now.” I glance at him out of the corner of my eye, but he just looks ahead with frustration.
I sigh, realizing I owe him the truth. The truth I’ve never admitted out loud before. “It’s my fault,” I tell him.
“What is?”
“That she died.”
“Who?” he asks, frowning at me in confusion.
I glance at him as I answer, “Our mother.”
His eyes widen in surprise. “Ranger… What are you talking about? She died giving birth to me.”
“I should have done more to help, I should have been there.”
“You were six, what could you have possibly done?”
“I don’t know. I’m sure I could have been better behaved or been more helpful around the home.”
“Here you’ve been blaming yourself for mom’s death for thirty-three years, while I’ve been thinking that you blamed me for it.”
My mouth drops open, and I stare at him in horror. “Blameyou?!”
“Yeah. I mean, you are a great big brother to me, you helped me out a lot growing up but you were always a little distant.Especially when we got older and you stopped hanging out with me. I figured it was too painful for you to see me anymore.”
“Fuck, Arrow. I’ve messed everything up.” My hands tighten around the reins as I think about everything he just said.
He’s always been a hard worker, like he had something extra to prove. And even though he did everything with a joking attitude, I knew he was trying to impress me.
“I felt guilty,” I tell him. “I saw you trying to get my attention, but I felt guilty about Mom’s death. Seeing you was hard, not because I blamed you, but because you reminded me that I had failed her... and you... and our fathers.”
“You see now that isn’t true, right?”
I stay silent, trying to see it from his point of view. It’s difficult.
“Seriously, Ranger. Do you really believe that if you had behaved better, Mom wouldn’t have died during childbirth?”
“When you say it like that, it sounds dumb.”
“It is dumb.”
I glare at him, and he laughs.
“Sorry, but that might be what a six-year-old would think. You’re thirty-nine now. You need to wise up.”
