[[OLD]] A Handful of Daffodils (Forgotten Series, #7)

Chapter Sixty-Eight

My back was on fire.

It burned and ached so badly that it nearly created a whine inside my head. I could barely move without that fire racing down my arms and legs and reaching around my torso. I liked the pain. I had been aware of every single lash. It had been hard for the last few but I had done it. I had stood up there and knew there was no way I was going to let myself pass out before my lashes were done, before my punishment was carried out.

And I hadn't.

I took each and every lash and I knew I deserved even more but I didn't know if I would have been physically able to handle that much more, not with the silver. They had finished and that was the only time I had let my knees buckle and then the healers had quickly healed me up, getting the bleeding to stop before they had helped me get out of my bloody pants and cleaned up. They had been quick and efficient but distant. I didn't blame them for that. What I had allowed to happen was horrible and if I had been in their position I would have been more cruel.

But I had been cleaned up and taken home. I hadn't been able to watch the end of Regan's punishment but I knew he was dead now. He had been right close while I had been gotten off my post. The healers had muttered about having to go back and make sure he had died. I could only assume they had after they left me at home.

But that was where it left me. I couldn't lay down anymore. I had gotten to my feet, baring my teeth at the racing, fiery pain but I had gotten vertical. Now I was wandering the empty house aimlessly. It was so quiet, much like it had been after Menza and Maeve had been gone the first time but this time the quiet was nearly unbearable with the knowledge of what happened, what had been done, and the fact it was all my fault, made the quiet almost sinister.

It was all my fault. It was.

The only thing I had to soothe me was the fact that Maeve was safe with Menza and both of them were going to go where it was safe. Maeve I knew would be protected regardless but my concern for Menza was that much more. She was pregnant and there was so many things that could go wrong with a pregnancy in general but with the added fact that if Stenton found out, she would die, made the worry that much worse.

I wanted to know how she was, if she was healthy, if the pregnancy was doing any harm to her. I could barely think through the worry and the fear that she was going to die, that the pregnancy was going to kill her in some way. Chrissie had a wonderful pregnancy but she still died in the end. Menza already had complications with whatever curse Mene threw on top of her.

I swallowed hard, trying hard to push the thoughts away. There was nothing I could do about it, no one I could ask about how she was doing. I had let her go and I had to live with the fact there would be utter radio silence about her and everything to do with her. It terrified me that I couldn't be there for her but I wasn't good for her. She turned so timid while I was around and she needed to be better, even if it meant without me.

I blinked rapidly, looking around the nursery. There was furniture there, everything was pretty much how it should be, even though a few things were gone from them packing Maeve up. Everything was still in place, it was perfectly put together, much like Chrissie had left it. It felt like a tomb. The realization was hard to come to but the quiet and the stillness, the lack of the room feeling lived in, made it feel like a tomb. Like a living monument to the female I had lost. There wasn't a mess, everything was kept perfect. The stuffies on the dresser had never been played with or loved, only kept as a reminder to Chrissie, my sunshine.

I could still see her arranging them on the dresser but the image wasn't as vivid, as if it had been fading. It had been ten months and the memories were growing dull. I hated that but I also knew that she was never coming back, that I couldn't keep moving on how I was. Something had to give. I slowly walked across the floor, trying hard not to move too much as the wounds on my back flared with renewed pain underneath the bandages.