Page 171 of Spoils of war
By the end of the steps, a small vase sat, chipped at the rim, the paint peeling like old bark, crooked. And I couldn’t stop looking at it. It was just a vase. Just a stupid, broken thing that had no reason to entice me. Still I reached for it, my hand hovering in the air.
I closed my eyes.
Focused.
I tried to find that part of me again. The one that had slammed a man into a wall. The one that had slipped inside a woman’s chest and wrapped around her heart like a vice. That part of me should’ve been able to move a vase. But nothing happened, the vase stayed still. I tried to lift it off the ground, like I had the man. Then I tried setting it on fire, that didn’t work either. I’m not sure why not. Aran’s theory was that my power was somehow connected to my anger, my emotions. And all I felt was hopeless, like I had failed. My hand trembled in the air, and the shame crawled up my throat like bile.
I was useless.
All that power, and I couldn’t move a goddamn vase.
“Can’t sleep?”
I jerked at the voice. Will stood half in shadow, just beyond the doorway.
“I can't... unwind. My mind is just... I can’t stop thinking,” I mumbled.
“About Licia?”
“About everything," I said before I could stop myself. "The people still left in Vestance. Licia. Those girls. I just feel so—”
“Helpless?” he finished my sentence. “Yeah, I know the feeling.”
“They’re so broken they won't even leave.…” I cried. “I can’t even imagine what they’ve been through.”
”You do know, none of this is on you, right? The world was fucked up before we were in it, and it will still be fucked up when we die.Saving Kalani was a good, a heroic thing, but Kera, you need to understand that we, you, can't save everyone. Even if we’d want to.”
He was right. I didn’t like it, but he was. I couldn’t keep putting myself, and my friends in danger over and over again. I had to pick our battles wisely. Letting that guard come close enough to Will that he could put him at knife point, wasn’t wise.
We sat there in silence for a while, staring out at the people spinning under the moonlight, so unbothered by the evils of the world. The evils happening just a few streets away.
I wondered if they knew.
“Look at them,” I muttered, my voice bitter. “So happy. So carefree. They don’t look over their shoulders. They don’t fear living.”
"We could be like them,” Will said.
I turned to him. ”We can’t,” I said, almost laughing at the impossibility of it.
He met my eyes. “If you want to.”
As if it was that simple.
“No.” I hugged my knees tighter. “Well,I do. But it’s not... We’re going to Hel. To a place literally calledHel. And these people are dancing in the moonlight, drinking fine wine, and laughing. And we’re not...we’re not them.”
I think my stupid eyes welled up.Will watched me for a second longer than he should have. I’d known the man for most of my life, but I still never knew what he was thinking.
Then he stood up and held out his hand.
“Here.”
I blinked at him. ”What now?”
“Give me your hand," he said.
I hesitated. “What are you doing?”
He grinned, the corner of his mouth tilting up in that way that always, always made my heart ache a little.
