Aligning the Forgotten ✓

Chapter 25: Roux

Strapping the final bag against the saddle, I turn to face the group standing before me. There's no time like the present to get this over with. The sniffling and tears, mixed in with promises to write letters if I even have the time to do so. Celestine already made me promise that: last night when I arrived back at her chambers to find her pacing back and forth.

No one besides the king wants me to go on that battlefield. The group standing before me—Celestine, Dalis, Silas—they're opposed to me changing the tide in the war, but with the king at my back, waiting for me to say my goodbyes, I don't have the chance to console them. I can tell them everything will be all right, my closest combatants will watch over me, but a battlefield is unpredictable. No one will be able to foretell what exactly we're walking into. Bloodshed and death around every corner.

It won't be anything short of the human village, a happening Celestine frowned upon and told me as such. At one point in our lives, I would've given humans a rite of passage and hid them in Arego. There were a few, they didn't stick around long; witches have the tendency to give off the aroma of death. But we helped them anyway.

That world, Arego, it was a different time. I was a different person and my heart was still intact. When there is nothing left, when my hands are empty and my blood is spilled, only then will I regret what I've done. Celestine will not change that, if anything, she's impeding on me completing more acts like the one partaking in the human village. They deserved it, every last one.

I listened to her doubts and scolding for as long as she took to calm down. That's all she's done over these past months, scold me and remind me that there are other things to life than killing and serving a leader. I've gotten to the point of being very skilled at blocking out her voice and thinking about training instead. Once she's done, believing I've listened, I apologize and promise to better my act. Only to go out and screw it up—again.

Behind me, the king's horse shakes out its mane. He's as anxious as the leader of Esaria, sitting in the saddle and pointing out locations on the map with Binx at his side. I block out their muttering and plaster a smile on my face, one convincing enough to make them believe I'm terribly sad to leave.

Celestine is the first to embrace me. Tears gleam her eyes and the top of her nose paints a shade of blotched red. Great, more tears. She shed plenty of them the night before. Her thin shoulders shake when she wraps her arms around me and hugs tight, sniffling into my shoulder and digging her face into my hair.

"Promise me you'll be safe," she mutters.

Without missing a beat, I respond, "I promise." Where I'm going, I won't have the chance to be safe. There is no safety on a battlefield of witches.

She pulls away from me, holding me at arm's length so I don't break away and claim I have to leave early. To avoid more goodbyes, I might. "I'm serious." She sniffles. "I want you to look out for yourself, it's dangerous and there's no telling who is going to go after you. These are witches at war that don't stop for anyone—not even you."

I take her words to heart. If anyone can put them into context, it's her, my sister of fine leadership. She's always been that way, smooth and delicate like the petals of a flower—a soft velvet that no matter how many times you looked away, you longed for more.

"Binx and the king will be there to protect me. You can put your trust in them."

Her bottom lip wobbles, a promise she can't trust them the way I do. She nods, agreeing anyway, and rubs her hands up and down my arms. Her soft skin catches on the leather buckles strapping in weapons and the metal vambraces over my forearms, a hidden blade underneath. I've been careful not to dislodge it, the new technology provided by the king isn't something I necessarily trust when it's put together in a matter of hours by the finest blacksmith in the capital.