Page 151 of The Eye of the Fifth
‘No…’ he wailed. ‘No, Kyra… it’s not. You don’t know… you don’t know…’
‘Then tell me, Os,’ she begged him earnestly. ‘Tell me.’
Oslan’s hands shook as he took them away from his face. And in those swimming brown eyes, Kyra saw the brother she had once known. The boy she’d grown up with.
He wrapped his arms around himself, the ridges of his spine sticking out against his fine tunic. Then he whispered, ‘It’s my fault.’
‘What is?’
‘It’s my fault they died.’
The air vanished from Kyra’s lungs. ‘No, Os. You had nothing to do with-’
‘I was there,’ Oslan went on. His body had frozen, as though he’d lost himself in a memory. ‘I’d been begging them for months to take me into the city. Mother always thought it was a good idea… she wanted us to have a life outside of the manor walls. I wanted to meet pretty girls, I wanted to eat street food, to taste ale for the first time. Win would never allow it but I persisted. I begged mother to take me, over and over. Then one day, she relented. She didn’t tell Win. Just for a couple of hours, she said, no more. Father came too. And that… that was when it all went to shit.
Kyra just stared at him, unable to think, unable to speak.
‘We were chased down an alleyway, somewhere near the slums. I don’t remember the exact place. Father told me to run, to hide, as a group of mercenaries bore down on them. I did as he told me, squeezing myself into a sewer drain. I don’t think the mercenaries knew I was there… they never looked for me. I stayed there, like a fucking coward, frozen whilst they… whilst they killed them.’ Kyra stifled a sob. ‘It seemed to last a lifetime… they fought back so hard. They left their bodies there. I crawled out from the sewer when I was sure they were gone and… and just sat with them. I don’t think I cried. I don’t remember much of what happened next at all. I don’t remember getting back to the manor. I don’t remember telling Win what happened. I do remember their faces, covered in blood. And I remember stinking of sick. I’d thrown up on myself at some point.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Kyra croaked. ‘Why didn’t you tell me, Os?’
Oslan’s cheeks were streaked with silver. ‘I wanted to. But Win told me not to tell you or Dovella that I had been there. I think she worried you would blame me for it. But then she revealed their deaths to you and the girls and I couldn’t bear the guilt. I tried so hard to just continue on in the manor, knowing that it wasmy faultthey were dead. I tried, Ky… I tried. But in the end, it became too much.
‘I… I wanted to end it all.’ He took a rasping breath. ‘That was my only intention when I left home. Iwantedthose mercenaries to find me. I wanted them to finish the job they’d started. But Lilion found me first. She took me in and before I knew it, I was bound to her. I didn’t care enough about my life to give a shit that I was a slave. Days stretched into months, months stretched into years. I numbed the pain with roots, so much so that I nearly lost my mind. But I didn’t care. It helped me forget.
‘I’d known you were at the Arc for some time, but I was too fucking dazed to do anything about it. And… I was too ashamed to face you. How could I look you in the eye, knowing what I’d done? Knowing that I’d completely ripped our family apart? And when Lilion made me fight you… I wanted you to kill me. It was all I deserved. It was my fault mother and father died… I couldn’t be the cause of your death too. But the roots… I barely remembered my own name. I… I kept losing myself. I didn’t even recognise you… and then suddenly I did… and then you were a stranger again.’ His voice caught, strangled by grief. ‘I’m so sorry, Kyra. I’m so sorry. Please… please forgive me.’
She knew he didn’t just want forgiveness for the fight.
Oslan sat on the bank of the river as silent, relentless tears streamed down his face. For a moment, there was a small part of Kyra, a part she loathed, thatdidblame him.
But as she stared at him a little longer, her own cheeks as wet as his, that blame gently dissipated. He’d been aboy. A teenage boy who just wanted a tiny taste of freedom.
And Goddess knew he’d paid for it every single day since.
Kyra sank down next to him and took his hand. ‘There’s nothing to forgive, Os. Nothing.’
For a while, they watched the river flow, neither letting go of the other’s hand. Everything was utterly fucked, inside out and upside down, and yet they had this. They had one another, after all these years.
Kyra felt sure that wherever they were, their parents were smiling to see their two eldest children together again.
‘What will you do now?’ Kyra asked sometime later. ‘Where will you go?’
His gaze was faraway, glazed almost, as he said, ‘I’ve been thinking about going to Taru. I’m not sure why… but a fresh start in a new place seems like a good idea.’
A slow smile spread on Kyra’s lips. Then, quite suddenly, she was laughing, tears springing in her eyes.
Oslan was alarmed. ‘What?’
‘Taru is theperfectplace. A friend of mine is there. Her name is Rosary Talbot. You’ll like her. Everybody does. She was family to me when I had none.’
The cruel irony was that shehadhad family at the Arc. Oslan had been there the entire time, hidden beneath in the brothels. Lilion had deliberately kept them apart.
For seven years.
Kyrahungeredfor Lilion’s blood, wanting nothing more than to splatter it all over the walls of the Arc.
One day, she promised herself. One day she would make the Lady of Shadows pay.
