The Midnight Watch

Chapter 21

I had never seen a dead body before, except Seb. I remembered that day as if it were yesterday. We had been walking in the woods, looking for blackberries and likely places to play. And he was nineteen years old, a fully-fledged member of the Moon Guard, while I was an eleven-year-old kid who hadn't even learnt to control her shift. So it was no surprise that he was the one to notice the scent of strange werewolves in the air.

In hindsight, Seb must have known who they were, because he realised that he was going to die in that moment. And his only concern was getting me to safety.

"Hey, Sav," he had said and knelt down to my height. "We're going to play a game, okay?"

"Is it the one with the cat and the wolf?" I had asked, full of excitement.

"No," Seb had said. "We're going to play hide and seek, but for serious. You run back to the house and find a place to hide, and don't come out, not for anything."

My parents were away, else he could have told me to find them. They were visiting our grandparents, who were very ill. It had always agonised me, knowing that if they had been home, we might not have been in the woods that day.

Then, with all the frustration of a child who understood what was going on but was expected not to, my eyes had filled with tears. "I'm scared."

"It's okay to be scared, beause you're going to be brave, Sav. Run home, and don't you dare look back," he told me.

"Why aren't you coming?" I demanded. He knew they wouldn't tolerate witnesses, and that getting me away from him was the only way to save my life. I knew none of that at the time. It was only when Nate had told me the murder wasn't random that I realised exactly what he had sacrificed for me -- his only chance at getting away.

"I'll be right behind you," Seb had promised, but it was a lie. Even an eleven-year-old could realise that. He wrapped me in a last hug. When he finally pulled away and gave me a gentle push in the direction of the house, a trickle of water glistened on his own cheek. Seb was braver than I would ever be, so it wasn't the dying that bothered him, I don't think. It was leaving me alone.

I ran, just as he had told me. I always listened to Seb, more than I had ever heeded my parents. But there was a particular part of the order I failed to follow that day, to my unending regret. Just before the trees obscured him from sight, I looked back.

There were four masked people surrounding my cousin. All of them were tall and strong; there was no hope of Seb fighting his way out, so he didn't even try. He squared his shoulders and said something to their leader. Although I couldn't hear the words, there was only sadness on his face. No anger, no defiance. Simply grief.

My lips parted to scream when the leader stabbed him, but no sound came out. Seb took the knife to his stomach, then the next and the next after that. Each of the four had their turn, and only when the fourth knife tore through his lung did my cousin finally fall to his knees. He saw me through the trees as he took his final breath, his eyes so full of apology. There were no last words or eulogy, but if I was feeling particularly fanciful, he may have mouthed, I love you.

It was that stream of painful memories which came rushing back when I saw the dead boy in the Winterusk forest. He was stone cold, frozen in death. Someone had closed his eyes though, perhaps the person who found him. No one had closed Seb's. When I crept back to sit next to his body after the attackers had gone, his hazel eyes had been open and staring into nothingness.

Kai's expression was exactly how I imagined my own to look in that moment. Whether or not he was drowning in his own memories wasn't questionable. I didn't know much about the king's assassination, except that it hadn't been quick.