A House Divided

Chapter 25

"You agree with them." Lach stared at Cianne, his face a mask of outraged disbelief. "You think they should send me away."

"Lach," she said, hoping to placate him, to halt the storm that was brewing.

"No! I can't believe this, Cianne. I can't believe that you of all people agree with them. How could you do this to me?"

She couldn't take it any longer. Though she liked to think she did a good job of hiding it, the strain was starting to wear on her. She could only worry about so many things at once, and at present she had Lach to worry about, she had whatever was going on in the House, her father's involvement, Kila's safety now that she had dragged him into it, and her heart, her traitorous, treacherous heart.

Just once, just once in her life she wished she could be open about everything, wished she could stop pretending, stop concealing, stop obscuring, and live an honest life.

"Lach, I can't help you," she said.

Opening his mouth, he turned to let loose, but she slashed her hand through the air, stopping him.

"It's not that I don't want to help you, it's that I can't help you. I've tried, Lach. Cearus's divine love, I have tried! You have no idea how desperately I wish I could fix this for you. You have no idea how hard it is for me to watch what this is doing to you and to know that I'm powerless to stop it."

"Don't I?" he asked, his voice quiet. His shoulders slumped and he closed his eyes, collapsing in on himself. "When you hurt, Cianne, it's like I hurt too. I thought I understood what pain was, when I had to watch you go through your mother's death. I thought I knew. And by Cearus, if this doesn't feel like the worst betrayal of all, but I had no idea.

"This... This is killing me. Night and day, all I can think about is his face. Sometimes I hate him, want to scream at him, want to tell him I'll never forgive him for doing this to himself, to me, to the House. Then others I can't accept that he did do this, know in my bones that he couldn't have. But what if that's what I want to believe? I've never feared the sea, but I fear this. I fear it'll rise up over my head and swallow me whole."

"That's what I'm afraid of too," she whispered.

"That's not even the worst part of it, not for me. The worst part of it is knowing that if it does happen, I'll have left you the way my father left me."

Why? Why now of all times did he have to choose to bare his heart to her again? She couldn't tell him what he wanted to hear, but how could she be expected to say the thing she knew would be the final blow, the one that would break him at last? How could she be expected to destroy him when he was at his most vulnerable?

"You're stronger than that, Lach. You're not going to let it swallow you, which is why you have to go," she said, pushing his unspoken confession aside. She hated herself for doing it, had to turn away from the pain in his eyes, but what other choice did she have? She was in an impossible situation and doing her best to claw her way out of it. "If you stay here, you'll keep doing this to yourself. Your mind will keep running in these circles, and then you'll be so trapped you may never find your way out again. You'll never forgive yourself if you betray yourself and the House that way. Return to the sea, Lach. It's where you're meant to be. It's where Cearus wants you to be. It's where your father would want you to be."

His face twisted in torment, he tilted his head back and covered his eyes with the heels of his hands. A silent scream parted his lips, and he didn't breathe for so long that Cianne was terrified. When he breathed again at last, the sound was painful, as if he were drawing in shards of glass along with life-giving air.