🔥 The Path of Fire (Path of Light and Fire Book #1)(Completed) 🔥

Chapter 33: To Her Memory

"Who are you, again?" Sabin asked. A man with sky-blue hair like Leena's had dragged him out of his room and down to the bar of Dice's Inn. Sabin didn't fight, but he didn't want to be here either. The bronze-skinned man sat beside Sabin on the cracked leather barstool, smiling as though they were close friends and Sabin should know him.

"You wound me," Blue Hair said. His voice, however, did not sound as though he took offense. "I am Sebastian Gabriel Elterrico del Selina: Terrick to my friends and family."

The way Terrick rolled his r's made Sabin remember his poor absorption of Hruh-ya. "And I know you how?"

"Other than the fact I just saved your life, you are a close friend to my sister Angel."

Sabin scratched his head. "Angel?"

"Yes." Terrick waved over the bartender. "A bottle of guaro and two glasses my friend." He turned back to Sabin. "Where was I? Yes, my sister: Angelina Gabriela Lucia del Selina."

"Angelina," Sabin said. He rubbed his chin and looked at the man. Between the skin tone and the hair, he could only mean one person, but Sabin did not want to assume. "You mean Leena?"

"Is that what she goes by now?" Terrick asked. He slapped Sabin on the back a little too friendly for his taste. "Always with the foul language? Has a knack for relieving men and women of their possessions?"

The bartender, a Yuan man with thick muscles and a bushy beard slid a bottle and two small glasses in front of Terrick. Terrick slid some shortlings across the bar and saluted the man, before returning his attention to Sabin.

Sabin nodded. "That's her."

Terrick pulled out the stopper and poured two glasses of the clear liquid, and then pushed one in front of Sabin.

"I don't drink," Sabin said. All he wanted was to return upstairs and crawl into bed. "I don't even know why I'm here."

"Everyone drinks, my friend," Terrick said. He drank the small glass quickly, throwing his head back in the process. "Especially after such a loss, it is good for the spirits."

Sabin stared at his glass for a moment.

If a drink will shut this guy up, why not?

He tossed back the glass like Terrick and it seared his throat. He coughed and sprayed the drink remnants over the bar.

Terrick patted his back. "Strong stuff, yes?" He took his glass and poured the two of them another. "We will drink to Kianna's memory."

Hearing Kianna's name made Sabin want to shut down; to curl into a ball and forget the world around him. He closed his eyes, where he could still see her and hear her voice.

"Sabin?"

Sabin's eyes popped.

Terrick's face hardened and he held up his glass. "We're drinking to her memory, right?"

Numb, Sabin nodded and had another go at the drink.

*******

"You know, I fought her at first," Sabin said. He slurred through his words. For some reason he couldn't place he felt like talking, like telling his new friend everything that weighed on his heart. "I tried to hold onto feelings for someone else. Somewhere in my heart, when I left Toro I knew I would never see Kaita again. I tried to hold onto her memory because it gave me something to fight for. She's probably Partnered and happy by now. I very much hope that for her."

Terrick nodded and took another shot. Then he shook the final contents of the bottle into Sabin's glass. "I'm sure such a woman would have no trouble finding a suitor."

Sabin drank the last of the guaro. "Kianna stood in the way of all of that you know, it was the last thing I thought I needed, a distraction to the goal of saving the world."

Terrick waved over the bartender again. "Another bottle, barkeep. Yes, I know this feeling quite well. I thought Angel lost to me for years, but when I received word she was with you and alive, it opened a place within me that I thought dead long ago."

"I just wanted to be a knight, to do good deeds and help others. And that mission ended up costing me everything. You know what I've learned? The world can burn if it costs you those you hold most dear."

Terrick pulled out the stopper of the new bottle and began pouring more of that truth serum he called guaro. "I don't think you have taken the right lesson. It was not the mission my friend, it was your brother and brothers can be bastards, present company excluded."

"It wasn't Yulan's fault." Sabin drained the contents of his glass.

Why is the room spinning?

He steadied himself on the bar. "As much as I want to blame him and I really do, it was mine. I made the wrong choice and she died protecting me."

Terrick held his glass and Sabin wondered why he stopped. Sabin finally looked Terrick in the eyes to ask and was surprised by the man's next words.

"Do you think she would be happy with how you've repaid her sacrifice?"

"What gives you the right!" He grabbed Terrick by his collar after a couple of attempts.

Terrick did not fight him. He simply looked into his eyes.

Kianna's words in Sikati echoed in his mind.

"Promise me this. No matter what happens to me, you will continue to fight. You will fulfill your destiny. You won't let my death paralyze you."

He let him go. "You are right. I should not ruin her memory by giving up."

Terrick rubbed his back as he cried. And for the rest of the night, he quietly listened as Sabin told him about the love of his life.