Blood-Bound [ Lore of Penrua: Book I ]

62

Mhera looked at Matei as if seeing him for the first time. They now stood a hand span apart, so close she could see the drops of sweat—or was it the dew?—clinging to the stubble on his cheeks.

It was quiet and still. She could hear his breath, which came unsteadily. Neither of them spoke. Neither of them dared.

It was the silence that told her she was right. She was looking into a stranger's face...but he was the stranger her cousin had become.

He looked torn between standing there and running away. She had never seen such fear in the rebel king's eyes. She parted her lips to speak, but she could think of nothing to say, nothing to ask. The shock of it ran too deep.

Slowly, slowly, Matei raised a hand. Mhera, feeling unfocused and confused, turned her face to look at it as if she had never seen a hand before. She watched as it came close, watched as it fell to gently touch her cheek. It was cold.

She closed her eyes, beginning to tremble.

"Mhera," Matei whispered.

Mhera's legs felt weak. She let herself fall, dropping to her knees in the grass, and blinked down at Matei's filthy boots. He knelt before her. The fear had faded from his expression and turned to worry. "Mhera. Are you alright?"

She jerked back from his touch, raised her hand, and slapped him as hard as she could. The sound of it reverberated off the cottages around them, harsh and clear. Matei's head turned with the blow, and he knelt frozen for a second before putting his hand up to cover his own reddened cheek.

Mhera's breaths came in ragged gasps. There were tears somewhere inside her, she knew, tears that she must let free, but she could not seem to find them. She could feel nothing but the ache, and it was an ache that was more akin to anger or grief than any kind of joy.

She had dreamed of this moment. In her dreams, she found Koreti in the Sovereign Square, or the stables, or the kitchens. He would be swinging his wooden sword or pilfering ginger cookies, a cheeky smile upon his familiar face. In her dreams, they would embrace, children still, and all the pain and darkness of the intervening years would never cross her mind.

In her dreams, her reunion with him was not a reunion at all, but a continuation of what had once been.

Now, as the fitful mist around them began to turn to spitting rain, she knelt in the cold grass and shivered, unable to find the joy in this twist of fate.

He waited. She could sense him looking at her, but she stared down at the grass. Heavy droplets of water collected on the blades, bending them before dropping to the earth.

"This cannot be real," she whispered at last. She closed her eyes. "This cannot be real. You have killed me, and I am in some...some hell."

"It is real," he said.

"No." Finally, the tears came. They scalded her eyes, her cheeks. "No. I've Seen you. I Saw you die. They buried you. I prayed at your tomb."

"No."

"I Saw them beat you. I Saw them cut your throat. You are dead."

"No. No, Mher. I cannot explain that. It was not me."

She put her hands over her face. Sobs began to shake her, and she shuddered with the grief and the cold. When he put his arms around her, she could do nothing but lean into the embrace and clutch at his clothing. She felt as if she were drowning, and this man, this stranger, was the only thing she could hold onto. All the same, he was the one who had pushed her into the current.

"I'm so sorry, Mhera. I am so sorry. You'll never know. You can never know how sorry I am."

"It can't be real," she sobbed. "It can't be real."