Fate and Destiny (The Fated Series, #2)

Chapter 40 - Hiraeth - Off Beat

Aracely came this time. Normally, one of the Bhaltayr comes and meets me down here, but I was plenty happy to find her waiting for me. We've been down here for a while, talking while I lay down with my head in her lap. It's nice to see her again, to feel her warm, soft touch and beating heart rather than the cold floor and suffocating silence.

Aracely took care of me when I didn't have anyone to do so. There's little I remember about my childhood and the first chunk of my double-digit years. Every memory in my head dates back to the first memory I still have of her, but rarely ever before that. It's odd, but I try not to focus on it too much. Coming up with reasons as to why I purposefully forget years of my life isn't fun, or joyful.

Aracely would visit me after her lessons with Darius, and every now and then she'd stay with me in the night when she was too lazy to walk back into town to her house. She has no other family as far as I know, and we've relied on each other for so long that it's near impossible to imagine anyone else entering our lives and clicking as we do. She's been my mother in all of the aspects of the title, and I do recall once calling her mom on accident, and she didn't blink at it. I've missed her, and it kills me to know that there were so many people that the girl missed and she may not ever remember who or what they were to her again.

"What's on your mind, Hira?" The sound of her voice lures me out of the sleep that threatened to drag me under. It's hard not to when her hand runs along my scalp. Another thing I've been left without for two months. Human comfort.

"Too much to voice," I sigh, shifting how I lay on my shoulder so I'm more comfortable.

"Hmm. Well, how about we start with yesterday."

"Yesterday?" I try making my voice innocent and clueless, but I've never been good at it.

"Alexander mentioned that you and Garrison were-"

"Doing nothing," I finish quickly, sitting up and resting my back on the wall beside her.

"No? Well, I suppose I could just go ask Arthur. He ought to have a few ideas."

Genuine confusion hits me. "Who?"

"Arthur. The fox?"

"Oh, right. Sorry, she never told me his name."

I test the name in my mind a few times, picturing his face once more. I think him easily lowering the cloth over his face was more surprising than his name. She said they never trust anyone with what they look like, but then she followed up with "I guess it doesn't matter now. The people were trying to hide from found us, so what's the point anymore?" I guess her brother came to the same conclusion, though I don't know why Darius or his guard chose to take up the masks. I doubt The Eternal doesn't know they're back in the capital.

"It's only his alias," Aracely dismisses. She shrugs, waving away one of the few things I don't know about the girl.

"Oh."
Much as she'd go into every detail of those in her life, she only skimmed herself. I think part of her feared what talking about herself would mean. That she had already accepted defeat - and she's a natural fighter. I can't blame her for still fighting even when she wanted to.

"So...?"

"So what?" I try to deflect, but as always, she knows me better than I care to ever admit.

She points her bony finger at me threateningly. "Hiraeth, you better tell me what you and that boy are doing or I'm going to ask Kallisté."

"Kallisté would never betray – Kallisté!" The little traitor is writing out gossip in her water font.

XOXOXO