Forged in Frost

Wilted

Evelyn's world tilts out of alignment as past collides with present.

"What?" she whispers.

"I was once a bandit in that clan. The boss usually sent me out because I was a good fighter. That night, the village they ordered us to raze was yours."

Evelyn shakes her head, feeling herself laugh despite the shock and horror overwhelming her. "You're... lying. It... You would've been too young—"

"I was eighteen," he says. "I joined right after my mother died, when I was sixteen. I was... very upset by her death. I spent those two years not stopping to think about what I was doing."

Evelyn realizes she's shutting her eyes, but only when Caius touches her arm. Her eyelids fly open, and she flinches back, nearly falling over her crutch.

"You must remember," he says, softly. "It was your house I stopped in."

Evelyn has blocked that night out for so long, it's hard to recall it. All she remembers is the darkness, cut with flashes of glaring fire. Heat and the stench of smoke wafting in the windows. Clutching her sister's arm so tightly she left imprints with her fingernails. The firelight glistening in her mother's golden hair.

But when she envisions that night in detail, she does recall when a man came in. She'd heard her father cry out at the door before being cut down. Then, stomping footsteps. A man panting for breath. She'd hunkered down in a corner with her sister and brother, shadowed by their mother. She'd shut her eyes and waited for it to end. For the sword to cut through them or, at least, for the terror to stop her heart.

But the silence had seemed to stretch on forever, when finally, she heard him speak, "Go."

Mother had yanked her and her siblings upright, and then they were rushing past him, outside, through the burning village. Only to be stopped by another bandit who slit Mother's throat. She never saw her brother again after that, either. But she and Jacklyn were valuable commodities. They were both young and pretty.

Thus began four years of living nightmares. Jacklyn was killed two-and-a-half years in by a bandit who took things too far. Evelyn was left for dead in the road. Only a miracle brought Ilvara to her.

And this man. This man she trusts, even loves. This man she thought she knew, was part of that night. He'd let them go, sure. Gods knew why. But he hadn't escorted them out safely. He just let them run into a pack of rabid wolves who ended up devouring them when a quick death would have been merciful.

"Yours was the house I tried to burn down," Caius is saying now. "I realized what I was doing and wanted to kill myself."

Evelyn can't look at him. Her eyes are focused on the bits of stick laying in the grass at his feet. "So why didn't you?"

Caius takes another hard breath. "Your brother saved me."

That's when the tears come. They flood her eyes and burn, but she doesn't blink. She lets them pool until they overflow and drip down anyway. "How could he have saved you?" He'd been naught but ten.

"I don't know. The house was burning. I was dying. He appeared in the flames and pushed me out the window. I broke right through the wall—it was so weak from the fire." His voice shakes. "The roof collapsed just as I landed on the ground."

So that's where Caleb was. Tiny, ten-year-old body buried beneath the rubble of their home. Dead because he'd tried to save the bandit that had "spared" them. He'd be twenty-two now.

Throat burning from trying to control her tears, Evelyn's mind blazes with questions. But the one she voices, in a hoarse whisper, is, "Why?"

"Why did we burn the village down? Why did I spare you?"