Chapter 143 Chapter 143: So Long, Petra

Chapter 143 Chapter 143: So Long, Petra
Senna’s POV

Petra was wrong. The sectors were perfectly happy to govern themselves. Over the next few months, we watched everything change. The sectors reorganized. They called themselves different names. They were no longer sectors. They were independent, fully functioning villages and towns.

The capital changed the most. The nobles kept their palaces, but they were poor now. A lot of them found jobs in the nearby sectors. Some of them left, unable to accept their fate.

Junie thrived. She and Thistle had become close friends. So much so, that Mira took Thistle in. They were inseparable.

Kalev and I settled into a routine. But I found myself craving the forest. I often crawled out of bed very early in the morning and went up into the mountains, with my bow and arrow. I liked to watch the sunrise. I liked the silence of the forest.

It was when I was alone in the woods that I missed Verity the most. I’d barely known her. I only had her for a few short months, but she had forever changed me. I didn’t cry anymore. But I felt a deep longing, a hole in my heart that I knew would never really go away.

Orrin was a wreck. That’s what Kalev told me. He didn’t talk. He barely got up. He just spent his days hunched over, his paws on his hands. Kalev was really worried about him.

We talked about leaving, but it felt like more of a pipe dream. Where would we go? Neither of us had ever been anywhere else? It was a bit scary to think about it.

The months went by. We stayed. We worked, Kalev in a bar as a bartender, and me as a waitress. It was good, honest work. We both enjoyed it. And as the months went by, our old life started to feel like something so different, it was hard to believe it had ever happened.

One early morning, I came home with three squirrels. Kalev rolled his eyes at me playfully. He wasn’t too fond of squirrel. But I was. And I enjoyed shooting them with my bow.

“Stew?” he asked, digging for the pot.

“Sure,” I smiled.

I had to admit, Kalev had learned how to make a pretty good squirrel stew. We both had the day off, and no plans. Junie was going to stop by later to play cards. Korrigan and Isolde, were coming over for dinner. They lived in Spewster, the old Sector 4. They were perfectly happy. Kalev and I had talked about going for a long walk in the forest after dinner. It was going to be a lazy day, just like all the other lazy days.

But suddenly, there was a knock on the door. Glancing at each other, we wondered who would be at our house this early. Kalev went and answered it.

To our shock, it was Petra.

She stood in the doorway. She was thin, with dark circles under her eyes. For all intents and purposes, she didn’t look well.

“Mother,” Kalev said. He and his mother had barely spoken since the rebellion. He had no use for her, he told me. He didn’t want anything to do with her. The last we heard, she was still living at the capital. She was working in Stars, the old Sector 1, as a laundry attendant.

The thought of Petra washing someone else’s clothes was almost comical. But I was oddly proud of her for working.

“May I come in?” she asked. Kalev stepped aside and motioned for her to come in. She was wearing a simple brown dress. Her hair was pulled back tightly into a low bun. She looked like she’d aged a decade in the past few months. Funny, huh? How working a real job could do that to you?

“Would you like some coffee?” I asked her. “I was just about to put on a fresh pot.”

She shook her head. “I’m not staying long,” she said. She turned to face us.

“I’ve come to tell you that I’m leaving,” she said. She lifted her chin.

“Leaving?” Kalev asked. “Where are you going?”

“To the human world,” she replied. “Me and some of the other nobles have discussed it at length. We don’t belong here anymore. This whole…” she waved her hand over the kitchen… “thing. It isn’t for us.”

“What makes you think things will be better in the human world?” Kalev asked.

The human world was a pretty foreign concept to us. We knew it existed, somewhere far away. We could access it through several different portal points. Very few of us had ever actually gone there. We didn’t really know much about it.

Wolves did leave, though, from time to time. There were stories of wolves living with the humans. The humans didn’t know they were wolves, of course. The whole thing didn’t sound appealing to me.
“We want to start over,” she said. “There’s way to make wealth there. From what we’ve heard. You can…I don’t know. Build wealth. We’re willing to try our luck.”

“Oh,” Kalev said. Because what else could he say. It sounded ridiculous to me. But if that’s what Petra and the other nobles wanted, then so be it. Who was I to judge.

“So I guess I’ve come to say good-bye,” she told us. Then stiffly, she leaned in and kissed Kalev on the cheek. “I doubt you’ll ever see me again. I don’t plan on coming back.”

“Right,” Kalev said. “Good bye then.”

The whole exchange was painfully awkward. She turned to leave, but before she did, she paused, her hand on the doorknob.

“This whole thing,” she said, “this thing you’ve built. The self-governing sectors. It’s working.”

Kalev allowed himself a smile.

“Until it isn’t.” His smile fell. “That’s why I’m going,” she said. “Because I don’t want to be here when this all falls apart.”

She left without another word.

“Good riddance then,” Kalev said after she’d left. I put on a pot of coffee and went through the motion of making breakfast. But my mind was elsewhere.

If Petra could leave, why couldn’t we? I had no intentions of going to the human world. That place sounded awful. But were we happy here? Truly happy?

Or was there something else out there for us?