Shadow War: Book 3 of the Shadows Rising Trilogy (WIP Rough Draft)

32. Words Left Unsaid

ARRAMY

[Addended From the Personal Correspondence of Brenorra Warring]

35th of Uirra

Brenorra

Today I stumbled upon the ship that took you to the colonies.

She looked like any other rustbucket, and I was going to keep a low profile and slide on by beyond her horizon, but something about how she sat in the water seemed off. She was too light to be bringing a load south from NimK, and she was on the wrong heading to have come from the mainland.

I can't really find the words to tell you what it did to me, seeing a sylvo of you as a line item in the manifest. It was at once a sweet relief and a new form of torture, as much proof that you survived as if was proof that I'm too late. You are well and truly beyond my reach, now.

The captain was relieved to tell me the hashmark next to your name meant you were alive when he made delivery of goods. I wasn't surprised – you're one of the strongest people I've ever met.

But then I made him show me where they kept you.

It might as well have been a metal coffin.

It reeked of death.

All I could think was that you had to breathe that air.

The chains you wore were heavy.

There was the outline of a dead body stained into the floor. That corpse could have been you, dying alone, in pain.

There was dried blood on the wall. That blood could have been your blood.

So I stripped the captain and his crew, chained them up in the same shackles they put you in, and then one by one, I executed them.

I left a message for the Coventry that wouldn't be missed, and then I set the freighter on a northward course and fired up her engines. She should cross into Coventry waters in a few days.

I told myself they would never face a judge if I let them go. They would only come back and keep right on working for the Coventry. They needed to be stopped. I was the only justice you and all the other people in those bins would ever see.

Then once they were dead, I thought their deaths should be useful.

But that is a scant comfort. I can feel myself slipping, Bren. I'm teetering on the edge of a bottomless abyss. There are things I've done that I don't deserve to get away from, things the High Council pardoned me for so they could keep using me. I know what sort of monster I'll have to become to bring the Coventry down, and it will be as easy as putting on an old coat. And that? That is what frightens me. I'm more terrified of what I'll become without you than I am of all the fighting ahead of me.

I've never wanted anyone to think well of me, before. It never mattered. Things needed to be done, so I did them. What other people thought about it didn't make any difference. Now, I'm still going to do what needs to be done, but I find myself hesitating. The man I was wouldn't have hesitated. There is only one difference between then and now, and that is you.  

What have you done to me?   

Rathe

~~~

4th of Thyris

Brenorra

I'm not sure why I keep writing to you. You're never going to read these unless I'm dead. That's my agreement with Kyro. He's to keep my pipe collection and my maps, and the rest of it is to go to you. As of this moment, I am worth approximately one pair of boots, a pair of sailor's mittens, about seventy lyr and change, and perhaps my Captain's uniform if it isn't ruined. Maybe my socks. Congratulations.