Chapter 19

I found him by the lake where we had first practiced my magic. Had that only been a few weeks ago? It felt like a lifetime. So much had happened between then and now. So much elation and joy. So much terror and fear. So much grief.

He no longer resembled the Starke I’d come to know. His grief was raw and visceral; he didn’t try to hide it. He didn’t try to play the tough guy. I admired that about him. He was hurting and he wasn’t afraid to show it. All I wanted to do was go to him and pull him in my arms. Offer my comfort. But I didn’t really know how he would react. I didn’t think I could handle rejection right now.

He sat with his back against the tree with the split from my giant icicle, his knees pulled up and his hands hanging loosely in between. He stared at the evening sky with its remnants of smoke from the pyres still curling into the air. His face was blank and dull, not at all like I was used to seeing. No sign of the teasing or laughter that usually accompanied him. It scared me. I knew he heard me approach, but he didn’t even bother to turn his head to see who was disturbing his silence. He didn’t care.

“Mind if I join you?” I called out softly. A slight shrug his only answer. It was good enough.

I plopped down under the tree beside him, itching to touch him. I held back. He didn’t say a word to me, letting the silence drag out. I blew on my fingers trying to warm them up and glanced sideways at him.

“Just thought you’d want to know, Bish and Kara are taking real good care of your people. All injuries are treated, and they’re being fed. Bish thinks everyone should be fit enough to hit the road in the morning. We also have guards posted and a rotation set up for the night. Kara is warding the abbey, but she may need help to have it endure through the night, if you can pitch in since I don’t know how.”

I received a stiff nod, but no real answer. I blew on my hands again, rubbing them together.

“Man, it’s really cold. We definitely aren’t dressed for this. You should come back to the abbey with me. Bish has a huge fire going in the nice, warm, kitchen and a hot pot of soup—"

“I’ve seen enough of fires today to last me a lifetime,” he answered in an emotionless voice.

Crap. Not the smartest thing to say after we had just disposed of all the dead. I mean, the bodies. His people. Man, I was a moron. I swear every time I opened my mouth my foot automatically inserted.

“Yeah. I’m sorry. I get it. That was stupid of me. I just wanted to keep you updated. I’ll stop talking now.” My words tapered off as I leaned back against the tree as well and joined him in staring at the darkening sky. We remained silent for a bit more. Mostly because I truly didn’t know what to say. I understood how he felt. I really did. But putting that understanding into words was not my forte. I sucked at this sort of thing. And besides, what could I say that would help? Nothing really. Not like he needed a pep talk from me. Nothing I could say would ease his grief any. So I just sat with him in freezing silence, letting the wind rustle over us, and hoping my presence was enough to comfort him.

“I don’t remember meeting Shay for the first time.”

We’d been quiet for so long I nearly jumped from my skin when he spoke. I clamped my lips tight and let him speak, knowing instinctively that’s what he needed.

“I’ve been sitting here trying to remember. I was only young when she came to work for us, but I should remember meeting her. I don’t. In my mind’s eye she has always been there. Always in the background. Always there with a kind word or an encouraging smile. Always there to sneak me sweets or scold me when I was up to no good.” He chuckled softly to himself at the memory. It healed my heart some to hear it.

“I’m assuming you got scolded a lot?”

“You could say that.” He smiled into the evening sky. “There was this one time Deanna and I stole a basket from the kitchen hoping it would have a few sweets in it. We ran off to our special spot in the woods, so eager to find out what we had. Only when we opened it up it was filled to the brim with all the pastries for my father’s dinner party that evening. He was having an important meeting of the clans and Shay had spent the entire morning baking all these different pastries to represent each clan. We knew as soon as we saw them, we were in trouble. Especially since we had pretty much ruined them all through our travels into the woods. But instead of taking them back and fessing up, our little brains told us to get rid of the evidence. Eat them all. If there was no evidence then they couldn’t blame us, right?”

“Oh dear,” I laughed. “I bet that didn’t end well.”

“That’s putting it mildly. By the time we went back home, our bellies were distended enough to explode, and we were so sick. I remember Asha bursting in through the kitchen in a tizzy, demanding to know what Shay was serving for after dinner sweets. Shay knew exactly what we had done, but instead of ratting us out and let us take the blame, she told Asha she had apple tarts in the oven and not to worry. That it was all under control. Needless to say, we spent the next two hours peeling a barrel of apples, making dough, and washing dishes as punishment, all the while her lecturing us on the sins of thievery and gluttony.” He stared off into the distance. “No matter what memory I dredge up from my childhood, whether happy or tragic, Shay is always there.”

“You’re lucky,” I added quietly. “Having loving memories are not the case for everyone. Those are good memories to have.”

“They are. But I don’t deserve them. Not when I’ve robbed every single one of those children back at the abbey of their good memories.” His voice was filled with all the pain he was holding inside.

“It’s not your fault, Starke,” I whispered.

“Yeah, see, that’s where we disagree.” He sat up straighter and turned his back to me. “I was their prince. Their leader. I was the one who dragged them all here in the name of freedom. I was the one who left them to fend for themselves while I went off gallivanting around the worlds looking for elementals. I should have stayed right here. I should have protected them. I caused this.”

I moved forward on my butt so I could look him in the face.

“You listen to me, Starke Ungar Ryhill, none of what happened here was your fault. And don’t you dare try and pin any of the blame on yourself. I know you’re feeling responsible, but—”

“Don’t you see what this is, Jette?” He turned his tortured eyes on me. “I am responsible. Asha targeted this village on purpose. I was a fool to believe we were doing a good enough job to hide from her. I had myself convinced she would never find us. The truth is, she didn’t even bother to find us. She didn’t care. We weren’t part of her agenda. As long as I stayed out of her way, she couldn’t even waste the time of day on me. The black sheep son who was of no use to her. But as soon as I started interfering with her plans, she took notice. As soon as I started gathering the elementals and escaping her tower, the dynamics changed. She didn’t like that, and she wanted to make me pay. She wanted me to know that she wasn’t going to stand by idly and watch me ruin her plans. She wanted to bring me down a peg or two, and boy did she succeed. If I hadn’t gotten involved, if I hadn’t built myself up in my head to be Endova’s savior, then all those people would still be alive. Shay would still be alive. My own willful pride caused this tragedy.”

He scrubbed a weary hand over his face, like he was trying to rub away his grief.

“It did no such thing. You can’t think that way,” I stared into his sad eyes. “You let that guilt go right now, you hear me? Because if you don’t, it will eat you up and spit you out. That blame and guilt belongs to Asha. It’s her burden to bear, not yours. And trust me, if anyone knows about carrying a world of guilt on their shoulders, it’s me.”

“Jette,”

“No.” I gripped his warm hands in my freezing ice chunks. “For the last time, you are not responsible. The only thing you are guilty of is caring for your people too much. For caring for the other worlds too much. Shay knew that about you. That’s why she loved you. She knew if anyone could stop Asha and help unite the worlds, it would be you. It’s okay to feel the pain and sadness and anger you’re going through right now. Losing people close to you, those feelings are only normal. Today was terrible. And I’m not gonna lie, tomorrow and the next day and the next day will probably be much worse. We have a long road ahead of us, and we’ll probably run every gauntlet of emotion on that journey, but we can’t give up. Those were Shay’s exact last words to you. Don’t give up. And I aim to do exactly what Shay asked of you. I refuse to let you give up.”

He pulled his fingers from mine like he couldn’t handle my touch right now.

“Jette, it is not up to you. How can we continue if Asha is going to take retribution on those we love? This time it was my village. Next it may be your grandmother’s. Are you willing to pay that price? Are you willing to sacrifice Kara, and Athena, and Bishop? The children?”

“Of course I’m not, but we have to take that chance,” I shot back, surprising both of us. “And they would agree. I’d rather risk it all for them to live free then allow Asha to enslave and hurt anyone else we love. This is out of our hands now, Starke. We can’t give up. The prism won’t allow us to. This is not some simple land grab. This is control of the multiverse. If Asha wins…I can’t even imagine what the worlds will become, but I do know none of us will ever live in peace again. We’re in way over our heads, dude, and there’s no going back. Just because you’re hurting and you feel like packing in the towel, you can’t. You gotta do the opposite. You gotta give it all you got. So that’s what we are going to do. And we’re going to do it together.”

He studied me for a long moment. “Do you really mean that?”

“Uh, which part?” I asked in confusion. “I mean, I just said a lot.”

“The part about us being in this together. The Jette I first met didn’t want anything to do with saving the multiverse. Hell. She didn’t even believe any of this, let alone want to help.”

“Fair enough,” I nodded. “Funny how that Jette kind of disappeared, huh? But of course I mean it. As much as we may not like it, we seem to be Endova’s only stupid hope. And not just Endova. We owe it to Bixby and Amy. We promised to help. We owe it to Zoe and Madds’ people. We owe it to the people of my world, as stupid and ignorant they may be to all of this. Trust me, I’d love to be able to pass off my Bounty picker-upper ability to someone else, but since I can’t, I need to accept it and work with it. Same as you. No matter what life throws at us, we keep going.”

Starke fell silent for a bit, analyzing my words.

“You stand by what you say?”

“One hundred percent.”

A ghost of a smile hinted at his lips as he ran his fingers through his hair, leaving it standing on end like some sexy porcupine. “The lecturing Jette is a new addition. I kind of like her. Shay would have too.” He fell silent once more, considering his next words. “Let me see if I got this straight. Basically, you’re telling me I have to pull myself up by my bootstraps. Stay the course. Keep my nose to the grindstone. Stick to my guns.”

I narrowed my eyes at him and his terrible attempt at adages. “Seriously? How many sayings did you learn from those books?”

“A lot,” he replied.

“Sweet baby Jesus,” I muttered. “It’s going to be a long road ahead for us.”

He laughed softly and my heart swelled. It felt so good to hear him laugh. Without warning he reached out and rested his arm around my shoulders, pulling me closer and nestling me in the crook of his arm. I didn’t mind at all. Besides the fact that I was damn freezing, being this close to him filled me with so many overwhelming emotions, I didn’t even know where to begin. The memory of that sizzling kiss we shared, popped immediately into my head. I tamped it down.

Not the time, Jette.

We sat huddled for a moment, simply enjoying each other’s comforting presence and the fact that we were no longer alone. He flipped my palm over so he could intertwine our fingers.

“Thank you,” he whispered against the top of my head.

I peeked up at him from his warm armpit.

“For what?”

“For being there when I needed you. And I needed you badly.” He smiled down at me and my breath hitched at his admission. “Thank you for everything. The company. The encouragement. The listening. Even the pep talk. You’re actually good at it. I love listening to you talk.”

I snorted. “That’s a first. I never had anyone ever tell me that. Usually I get, ‘shut your piehole, Jette. You’re annoying and you’re scaring the children’.”

I felt him shrug.

“That is a legitimate statement. You can be scary and annoying.”

“Geez Louise, why don’t you tell me what you really think?” I muttered, even though my lips tilted in a smile.

“I would, but now is not that time.” My heart stammered at his words. What exactly did that mean?

“Meh, I didn’t do that much,” I breathed, trying to get my jackhammering heart back under control. “All I did was try to ease your guilt trip and talk a little bit of sense into you. Any idiot could have done that, really.”

“Maybe so, but you have done more than you realize. You do not know your worth, Jette.” He knocked on my knee with our clasped hands. “You made me realize we are in this together. That what we do, we do together for those we love. That we are in this collectively as allies and friends.”

Friends? Not sure if that was the word I wanted to hear right now. But knowing he appreciated me was far more empowering.

I reached up and wrapped my arms around his neck in an awkward embrace.

“Totally, dude. I got your back.”

He accepted the hug willingly, resting his chin against the top of my head.

“And I yours, Jette. Now and always.”