Conquering The Unbroken

Chapter 41

With Silas pressed against me, Renit leaning against my shield and panting through his mouth, I can't move. I can't drop the shield in fear of what might be on the other side. The heat from Bren's fire is still scorching the rock barricaded over our heads, but the shouting has subsided. It occurs to me that maybe, just maybe, Bren created a physical barrier of fire in case someone got past their watch.

Silas's crying has subsided. His breathing is still shaken and his body is an unsteady presence against my own, but he's calmed. On the other hand, Renit is staring at his brother and trying to find some semblance of normalcy amongst the face he has recognized for over three hundred years. How helpless it must feel to live that long with one version of a person, only to see them at their worst at the hands of an enemy.

I crane my neck to look at him, at the blood now caked against the bottom half of his face and the dark brown, near black strands of his hair sticking to his forehead. In the dimmest of lights, one color can't be diminished from the next. It's not until Renit stands in the sun that the reddish hues of his hair come to light and all that time of me believing the strands were black are completely gone.

I've never thought much into it, but my mind is grappling for a hold right now. I always referred to his hair as black, thought of it as black, but it's the darkest shade of brown one can muster without reaching black.

"What do we do?" He asks, disrupting me from my thoughts. I'm glad for it.

Silas mumbles something against my neck; even his breath doesn't hold the warmth it once did. I take his face in my hands, albeit gently, and pull away to sit on my heels. His eyes are puffed, his cheeks stricken with tears, and he appears utterly exhausted. Not a pinch of the original crown prince is there. Not the slightest light of his smile.

When he looks at me, there's only sorrow. "What did you say?" My voice holds the softness I would use if I'm speaking to a scared child.

"Avalie," Silas repeats. The name cracks something open in his heart and his bottom lip quivers. His hand, covered in scars and dried blood, comes up to wipe his nose. "Where's Avalie?"

I shake my head, looking back to Renit for help. He shrugs.

"Silas, we don't know where Avalie is." I tuck back a strand of his waved, chestnut hair. Silas swallows hard, and his breath shudders through him. "You don't remember what happened to her?"

It takes all the effort he has, but he shakes his head to tell me his answer. Not expressed through words, the weight of the answer is enough to make me sick. He doesn't know where Avalie is. Either she's dead, in the king's army, the dungeons...the opportunities are endless. If the girl was smart, she escaped the castle shortly after Silas's transformation, whenever that was.

Knowing the care they had for each other, she stuck around to see if there was anything to be done about Silas's condition. He wouldn't recognize her from the inside, anyway. She'd merely be another servant that he couldn't care less about.

"I don't remember their faces," Silas croaks.

"Who?" He seems to soften around my hands pressing against the sides of his face. Comfort. He longs for it now. "What faces?"

Silas forces himself to look at his lap, rather than meet my stare when he speaks. "The faces of all the people I killed. I can see their blood, the shade of it, but I can't remember their faces." Another sob cracks loose and his shoulders shake underneath my hands. I rub my palms up and down his arms, attempting to soothe, and look back to Renit.