Book 1: Youth of Delarn

Chapter 11: Indoctrination

The day after, Solene came to find her. He arrived in the afternoon, but it didn't really matter much when she had been sleeping most of the day away. She had hoped none of them had noticed what happened to her at the gathering, but word got back and Vermy was with her every waking moment since.

She had loved the affection, but with such a terrible headache she just wanted to be left alone. She was glad she had an excuse to leave when Solene showed up.

Solene asked, "What happened? You look sick," and that made her happy. She was glad he was worried for her.

"It wasn't anything too bad," she said, shrugging, not knowing how to explain it in a way that made sense.

"Oh, okay," he said, going from worried to annoyed.

She didn't want him to be annoyed, wanting to hear him say she could go home with him and she didn't have to live underground anymore. "How are things going? Will James leave me alone now?"

"Yeah," Solene answered. "He's going to leave you alone. He's trying to act like nothing happened." He shrugged.

"Does that mean I can come home?" She asked, feeling worried since he didn't seem to offer or imply that she could.

"Do you actually want to? You seem to be having a good time down here," he said. "I didn't think you would ever want to leave."

"So you didn't miss me at all?" She asked. "Is that what you would want? Is that why it took you so long to find me?"

"What? Of course not. I tried to find you yesterday, and they said you had gone to some sort of party," he said. "I thought you would wait for me or something like that. Are you saying you want to go?"

"Of course I want to go," she snapped. "You're making it sound like you're trying to get me to say that I don't, like—like I don't know? Like you don't want me to come back with you."

Solene stepped forward, and she braced herself, but he wrapped his arms around her. It surprised her and reminded her of how he had hugged her when she first saw him after her father died. She hadn't reacted to it then because she was more worried about food and where she was going to stay.

"Of course I want you to come back with me, but you weren't here last night, and I got scared you wouldn't want to, okay? I wouldn't blame you if you didn't after what my parents put you through," he said.

"I don't care about that," she said, trembling and trying to keep her voice steady. "I want to go back with you. I like it here, but if you want me, then I want to stay with you."

She felt confused. She knew there were a lot of reasons she shouldn't. She knew he wasn't always nice, but she also knew he lived on the surface. She considered if this was what she really wanted, and pulled back, wanting to think about it out of his arms.

He held her tighter and pulled her in, whispering to her, "and you know my family is most likely to help you get revenge. What have you been doing here, anyway? You still haven't seen what we think of Salvika yet, have you, and what we think of Danterst and those people that took your father from you."

She then relaxed in his grip and nodded in agreement. She wanted to know more about what he had said. "I think I want to go back to the house now. Do we—have to go through the sewer?"

"No," he said. "There's a way to get there over the surface." He grinned at her, and she got the feeling he was happy about it because he won so easily, but she hadn't understood why they were fighting to begin with.

She looked back at Hyde and said, "Thank you for letting me stay here. Let your moms know I appreciate them taking care of me while I was here."

"Sure," he said, his voice quieter than usual. "I'll let them know, and it was nice having you stay with us."