Alara Unbroken - Doug Beyer [113]
But now look at it, she thought. It was in ruin. She could see the balefires from her window, pouring smoke composed of the dead into the air. She could see the dead imprinted on her memory, those friends she had sent to their deaths, and the thousands in Asha’s Army who had perished trying to fend off the undead hordes. The world was irrevocably changed. Her home, her family, her Bant, was no more.
“Come in, Knight Mardis,” she said.
Mardis stepped just inside the threshold of her quarters. He seemed almost shy. They hadn’t spoken since the battle with Malfegor, which he had barely survived.
“Thank you for coming,” she said.
“Of course, Knight-Captain. I trust you’re well?”
That was a strange question.
“I am …well, thank you.” She always lied clumsily. “And you? How is your family?”
“Quite well, thank you for asking.”
He delivered his lies much better, she thought. She knew his family had lost much in the war, as everyone had. Everyone who had real families—unlike her, the orphan from beyond the sky. She felt like the stranger again, as she had felt when she first fell into Bant.
“I wanted to ask you here to tell you … to give you … something,” she stammered.
“That’s nice of you,” he said.
He was so polite and gracious. That made it harder. She almost wished he would yell at her, so that she could deliver the blow more easily.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Oh. I, uh—” What was she going to give him? She didn’t actually know. It struck her that she had no memento of Bant. There was no plaque, no ring, no ornately-framed painting to commemorate that she had ever been there. When she had arrived she had owned nothing, and she never came to possess anything of consequence while living there, no token of her connection.
She truly was an orphan, she thought. So she deserved to feel like one. Who calls a place a home, and then fails to defend it as her own?
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I guess I don’t really have anything to give you.”
Mardis pressed his lips firmly together. His words came out clipped. “You’re leaving Valeron.”
Elspeth swallowed. “I … Yes. I’m leaving … Valeron.”
“But why?”
“It’s important that I leave.” I can’t stay, she thought. I can’t stay and see what war has done to Bant.
“But where will you go?” asked Mardis. “The whole world’s like this. Surely you’re not moving to one of the other shards?”
“I’m not sure yet.” No, she was leaving Alara altogether, which her friend couldn’t understand. But she could see that he understood how serious she was.
“But you can’t leave,” said Mardis, finally displaying true emotion. “You’re of the Sigiled caste. You’d be deserting your post. You’d be violating your oath as a knight.”
“I know.”
“But that means you could never come back.”
“I know.”
Mardis looked stung. That was the face, she thought. That was the face she had predicted he would make, that somehow she had hoped he would make. That was the true gift she could give him—to make him hate her, to sever their friendship under brutal circumstances, so that she could never be missed. She had called him there to betray him, so that he would have good reason to move on, to live his own life, and forget her.
“I’ll remember you,” he said.
“Thank you,” she said.
But no, you won’t, Mardis, she thought. After I go, I’ll fade from your memory, and you’ll fill your life with your loved ones again. There’ll be nothing left of me, nothing to show that I was ever on bant. It is what I am. It is my life, always trying to find native soil, but never leaving footprints. But I’ll remember you, Mardis. I’ll remember Bant forever. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.
They almost embraced, but instead shook hands awkwardly. He looked like he was about to say something more, but instead he turned and walked out. The door shut gently.
Elspeth turned back to the window. Outside, an acolyte wheeled a cart over to one of the funeral pyres, and tipped someone’s son or daughter onto it.
She closed the shutters on the window,