Born of Flames

Chapter 31 ~ An Outburst of Emotion

    Neeri had given up trying to sleep. It was obvious rest would not come for her until she'd at least checked on Arlon, but for the past half hour, she'd been arguing with herself over it. She didn't even know where he was. What if he wanted to be alone? Would he see her presence as an intrusion? Would it upset him further?

    But he was clearly struggling with what Rhidian had said, and the report Gaelen and Tarion gave which confirmed it. If she knew anything about Arlon, it was that he would suffer in silence and refuse to let anyone see the truth. This wasn't something that would benefit from that method.

    Neeri clasped her hands between her knees and gazed at the floor, debating. He wouldn't welcome her. She already knew that much, but she had to at least make sure he was all right. She was about to stand when the library door creaked open. Neeri glanced over her shoulder to see Arlon closing it once again.

    She rose with a relieved sigh. "I was about to come looking for you." Arlon's hand lingered on the doorknob, but his head lifted, his gaze meeting hers. There was an odd look in his eyes. A glimmer of emotion that she wasn't used to seeing.

    Neeri frowned, taking a step towards him. "Are you all right?"

    Arlon gave a dry scoff, his features growing dark. "Define all right. Yes, I'm unharmed. I'm physically well. But I've just learned that the one person left in my life may have been lying to me the whole time."

    "You don't really believe that, do you?" Neeri asked softly.

    Arlon stalked across the room and joined her, though he merely folded his arms together and leaned against a bookshelf instead of taking a seat. Neeri reclaimed her spot on the sofa and waited for him to answer.

    "I don't want to," Arlon sighed at last. "But how can I just ignore it when I've had doubts of my own in the past? And the report Gaelen and Tarion found only confirms that Rhidian was telling the truth."

    "You don't know it was Rehema there. It could have been some other female."

    Arlon turned away, a muscle in his jaw flickering with tension. "It wasn't. My parents made sure our home was not easy to find. We lived as far away from other people as possible."

    "They would've known if someone else was tracking us. They knew when Tarion began closing in. Rehema is the only person who could've seen our exact location and found us without my parents knowing."

    Neeri remained silent for several minutes, unsure of what to say. She couldn't refute Arlon's claims. She'd never met his parents, and he knew Rehema better than anyone. But how could he believe that she would just doom his parents to die if she'd been there? It couldn't have been her.

    That was the only thought she could voice aloud. "Why would she have left your parents to die?"

    Arlon shook his head and dark hair shrouded his eyes. "I don't know. She always told me that her vision showed her their deaths and that I was still alive. She said she arrived after they were already dead. But if she was there before Tarion killed them..."

    He shoved away from the bookshelf abruptly and began scrubbing at his face with a frustrated hiss. Neeri balked at the unexpected movement. It was as close to an outburst as she'd ever seen him get, aside from the time he and Tarion had been at each other's throats.

    He was always so calm and stoic, never letting anyone see what was going on behind his mask. Had Rhidian's claim unraveled him so completely?

    "You need to rest," she found herself saying. "Nothing makes sense now because you've been awake for days and a prisoner part of the time. You've been through a lot recently. You just need a moment to..."