WE BECOME THOUGHTLESS

twenty-six | apologies

Cole had too much to worry about – so much, that he couldn't stop to think about the present. He was too tangled up in the what if, in the possible scenarios. Sune storming into Alistair's cottage in the middle of the night with his dagger catching on pale moonlight, or a blaze of red fire as his hut was burnt down.

Too many possibilities and not enough of Cole to go around.

He spent the next few days visiting Alistair in his cottage, asking about how his wound was healing, or if he wanted to play another game of Knogar. A few days turned into a week and Alistair's leg still hadn't healed properly. Cole had resorted to placing another layer of sanaberries over the wound. They sunk into the toothy indents in the flesh like fresh gravel over a cracked path.

If Cole knew anything about sanaberries, he knew that Alistair's leg would be healed in the next few days. Then the mindrenderer would have to leave the village and travel back through the snow-laden forest and down old (possibly forgotten) paths until he found the Chrysosian army himself – all alone in the cold depths of Weles, trekking through unfamiliar territory with no guide.

This time Cole let himself worry. Alistair was his friend now, or however close to a friendship a Chrysosian mindrenderer and a Welish rebel could get, and he didn't like the thought of Alistair being out there by himself.

His mind was in knots by the time he sat himself down on the cottage floor and set up a game of Knogar. Pebbles in his hands, the sheet of fabric unrolled across the floor. He pinched a piece between his fingers and sucked his lip between his teeth.

Alistair cleared his throat. "You've been awfully quiet today." The other boy shifted from where he sat cross-legged. "What are you thinking about?"

Cole glanced up. "Nothing, eat your food."

"I have," Alistair rolled his eyes. "You've spent a whole five minutes getting this game ready, sitting there all quiet and broody. I know there's something on your mind."

"There's always something on my mind. You don't have to worry about it."

Thin eyebrows arched, Alistair smiled softly. He faced the fire, an indistinct silhouette through the haze of smoke, and Cole wanted to reach out to touch his shoulder just to reassure himself that he was really there. "Really? I would've thought you didn't think at all, given your poor problem-solving skills."

Cole scoffed and sorted the pebbles. "You don't know anything about my skills."

"I would like to, though."

He didn't say anything to that as he pushed Alistair's pebbles forward and placed his own in the empty spot between the roll of fabric and himself. If Cole didn't have his strong sense of self-respect and instead a greater amount of stupidity, he would've asked Alistair to place his fingers against his head and use his mindrendering to keep him from thinking so much. Because he was starting to get a headache.

The game was more withdrawn compared to the few they'd had over the last few days, which has been loud and cacophonous and angry in the best sort of way. Cole felt Alistair's prickly gaze follow him as he tossed his pebbles. He wished he knew what he was thinking, and for once he thought about just how wonderful it would be to own even an inkling of Alistair's dangerous ability. Wonderful and deadly. Wielding a weapon he had no hope of comprehending.

The more Alistair stared, the warmer Cole's chest became. The tighter it twisted into knots. The more his head ached. Nauseas, a faraway thought wondered whether he was sick with panic or something else entirely.

For the third time that night, Alistair won the game. "Beat that! Tell me, Cole, when does beginner's luck stop applying? Four, five games?"

Cole grumbled something under his breath and knocked his pebbles off the board. He was grouchily aware of how much of a sore loser he had suddenly become, but he had been playing Knogar for years – this was pure humiliation.

"And how many games have we played in the last six days?"

"Ten," he didn't like where this was going.

Alistair sent him a shit-eating grin, leaned back and tangled his fingers through his hair. "So, I suppose at this point I'm just better, right?"

"No."

"Oh, don't get like that." He pouted, his pebbles displayed like trophies. Gold and glimmering. "You'll be as good as me someday, if you practice. Far, far into the future, and when that time comes, you can challenge me to another game. Maybe then you'll have a chance, huh?"

Cole glared from across the board, the hard outlines of his face seeped in dark shadow, but it didn't hold – the idea that they might come together somewhere far in the future again, if by then they weren't both dead or something else entirely worse, made him smile. Alistair perched an elbow against the flat of his chair and lounged. Cole suspected that he could lounge on anything with this level of innate determination.

And then the smile was gone. When had he become so sappy? He was starting to sound like Orla, with all these dreary hopes and silver-linings. Niamh would've cuffed him on the back of his ear and said in that hard-edged voice of hers, "come back to reality, boy, you're drifting."

He was drifting, but this was something entirely out of his control, he realised sickly. A small paper boat carried along a strong current, mopped up by salt-white foam, slipping off the edge of some great cliff. He didn't know what would catch him as he fell, or what waited for him at the bottom.

"Ugh!" Alistair's silky voice broke through the cloud. "You're doing it again, you bastard. Just tell me what you're thinking, or I think I might burst from not knowing."

Cole lifted a brow. "So curious, are you?"

"Obviously."

"I told you before, I'm worried." He turned his head to inspect the fire, if only to avoid Alistair's prying eyes.

Alistair rolled his eyes. "I know that, but there's something else, isn't there? I spent two weeks practically alone with you and my only entertainment had been restricted to trying to figure out all your infuriating inner-workings. Which, might I add, are a lot harder to understand without," he lifted his gloved hands, "these."

Cole turned back, his eyes going from both of his hands to Alistair's face. He wasn't joking – his jaw was tight like drawn wire, brows hung low over his eyes, lips pinched together. It was disconcerting seeing Alistair so serious, and he knew, begrudgingly, that it meant he wouldn't just let the subject drop.

He inhaled. Exhaled. Picking at his brain for something to say – something that would make any sense at all, because everything that resided between his ears and inside his skull was becoming a mess of mind-matter.

"Okay." Cole picked each pebble up and placed them into one pile. "Okay. It's just – it's just so easy to like you, and it shouldn't be. Because now I have to think about if you're going to be okay out there on your own, or worry about my own people hurting you, or if I've made a huge mistake. But this wasn't my mistake to make, because I didn't want it, I didn't do anything. It was all you."

Distantly, as he watched Alistair's expression shift, he wondered whether all the "inner-workings" Alistair had been picking up on were all slotting themselves together like a thousand-piece puzzle. Or if he was just more confused.

"What do you mean, it was all me?"

And Cole didn't know how he could possibly answer that, not one bit, because he had no idea himself. He just knew that it was true, somehow. He just knew. "I would never be in this position if you weren't... you."

Alistair laughed humourlessly. "Ah, my charms are both a blessing and a curse."

In some part of his over-worked brain, Cole was aware that he was laughing with him. "I'm well acquainted with your charms."

"I guess I should apologise, then." Alistair looked away for the first time in a while, dipping his head. Blond hair shielded his face from view. Cole liked the way it hugged the nape of his neck and curled around the shell of his ear like a wisp of sunlight. "So I'm sorry."

Cole shook his head. "If you're apologising, I should too. So, sorry."

"I forgive you," Alistair grinned, slapping a hand over his chest in mock awe. "Once again, your eloquence shocks me. You would be an amazing poet."

"Shut up," he sorted the pebbles to give his hands something to do, two neat piles. "And I forgive you too."

They played another game.