Page 96 of A Grave Not Made For Mourning
Until I spot Calista far ahead of me. I run to her, grabbing her shoulders and pulling her toward me.
Calista stares up at me with horror, retreating before she recognizes me.
She shakes her head, confused. “Wendy—”
“We need to talk.”
Calista releases a deep exhale, falling back into herself. Then, she looks past me.
“Now,” I demand.
Calista smiles, rolling her eyes as she laughs. “All right.”
She finds no humor in it. None at all.
She’s scared and putting on a facade. Her laugh is a distraction. She’s smart enough to know that laughing won’t stop me from feeling her terror. Yet she does it anyway.
I pull her through the halls to the first uninhabited place I see—a classroom. We sit against a window, the sun shining on our backs.
My—their—emotions scream at me from just beyond the threshold. Everything, everywhere, all at once, no matter what, always. I feel every foot step, every breath. Every tug of a sleeve, every shifted shirt.
All of it, all at once—all that is theirs becoming mine.
There is no escaping it. There is hardly relief. At least there’s relief at all.
There wasn’t before Azaire.
On top of everything from afar, Calista is scared, too. Was it her fear that pierced through me, and not Desdemona’s? I can’t tell anything apart anymore.
The world is blurry, but it must be my eyes.
“Wendy?” Calista’s words echo through the vast room.
I see the world for the first time since I sat. The classroom is dim, the only light from the sun through the curtains. Rows of escalating seats extend before us.
“What is it?” she asks.
Shaking my head, I prepare to tell her, a mirror to what we did a year ago. She came to me because I was the only escape route, the only person she could confide in without fearing what would happen if I broke that trust.
Like then, she is the only person who won’t share what I say now.
“You can’t tell anyone.” I speak fast. “Especially Lucian.”
This can’t get back to Azaire. Not if what I felt means anything.
Not if the prophecy is true.
Calista folds her arms over her chest. Defensively, she says, “I don’t tell Lucian anything.”
I don’t care for her resistance. I need to say something, tell someone.
“There was a prophecy.” I watch as her features turn in shock. It’s the reaction I expected. She’ll do anything now to hear the truth. “Before I tell you more, you have to give me your word.”
“What is the prophecy?” she demands, disguised as a question.
“This is important.”
She doesn’t want to give me her word, for obvious reasons. Once she does, there is no taking it back. Offering a favor, or their word, for a Royal is far different than a regular citizen. They are forced to uphold it, against their will.
