Relentless

Chapter 83

We made our way back to camp. As we walked through the darkness of night, I lead the way since I could see anything in our path. I was preparing myself to announce to the Divines that we were going to war.

When we approached camp, I pulled my uncle aside to say an apology, or sorts.

"Hey, thanks for coming back. I know you could leave at any time but you didn't. You stayed."

"You're right. I didn't."

"It means a lot to me."

"Well, don't think that I came back for family, for you, because I don't have a family anymore. My parents and all of my siblings died. I don't have a family anymore."

His words hurt but I could tell that he was just hurting and that I understand all too well so I let it go. "Then why did you come back?"

"because I have nowhere else to go. I don't have a home anymore so I can't let you lose yours."

"I thought it wasn't about me." I teased with a smile.

"'You' in general, not 'you' specifically." He said, suppressing a grin.

"You were right, you know, about me isolating myself. I didn't want to admit it at first but it's true. You think that someone is going to be in your life forever until they're not. Doing things on my own was my way of avoiding grief. I didn't want to face the fact that I would never get them back. I was also protecting myself from getting close to someone again and being hurt when they left. Was I wrong?" I couldn't keep my voice from trembling as tears began to run down my face. "Look at how much death has surrounded me the past year."

He pulled me into a tight hug. "I'm so sorry that you had to go through all of this. Your life, your childhood was supposed to be so much better."

"What?" I said, pulling away and wiping the tears from my eyes.

"What's wrong, Celeste?"

"Why did you say 'supposed to be'? What is that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing! Just that this isn't what your mother wanted. I know that she wanted the best for you girls and she would have never wanted any of this to happen to you."

"Oh." I had to watch it. I've been reading way into things lately.

"What's wrong?" He asked me.

"Nothing."

"No, if nothing was wrong, you wouldn't have reacted like that. I will only ask you one more time. What's wrong, Celeste? You know you can tell me anything."

"I'm just trying to understand all of this." I said, gesturing to the world camp around me.

"What are you trying to understand?"

I was afraid that he would push me to say it out loud.

"Our enemies. More importantly, the unseen ones. Destiny and the Oblivian Emperor are always hanging behind the scenes. I can't help but think that there is a reason they were drawn here. I'm not an idiot. I know that they aren't from here and their interest in this particular war, that only the parties involved know about, tells me that they are from the future, or at least my future.

"What makes you think they're from the future."

"Well, you are from the past. You just spent the last two centuries in a dimension between worlds, so it isn't a far stretch to assume that they are from the future."

"But why would they be here?" He asked. Something about his tone told me that he was fishing for information. He wanted to know what I knew and what I speculated. Why it mattered to him, I didn't know, but I know that he is used to being a by-stander so I'm sure that's all he's doing. Not getting involved. Still, I couldn't help but wonder if her knew something about my future.