this in the morning. I might regret letting him so close again. But I studied his eyes and all I felt was a deep sadness. Not anger and bitterness. Just sadness, one that made more tears replace the ones he wiped away.
And I could blame it on the brew in the morning, but truthfully, my next words were long overdue and I just wanted an explanation. Finally. I just needed to know why.
“You didn’t even say goodbye,” I whispered.
Kiran stiffened, his eyes flashing to mine from where they’d been focused on my cheeks, darting back and forth.
“I was hurt that night on our cliff,” I continued, my shoulders sagging. “Of course I was. But I didn’t think that that was the last time I would see you. You were my friend, Kiran. And you didn’t even say goodbye when you left the saruk.”
“I did try,” he said quietly, his voice rough and low, yet still soft. It bordered on gentle.
“Neffar?” I whispered.
He swallowed, looking past me at the lake for a brief moment, seeming to collect his thoughts, before his eyes returned to mine.
“Your father wouldn’t let me anywhere near you. Vorakkar or not.”
My father?
A small breath whistled from his nostrils.
“I was expected in Dothik. I had to leave, Maeva. You wouldn’t come out from your soliki but I wanted, needed to speak with you again before I left. I needed…” He blew out a rough breath. “I needed to know you were all right. I can’t count how many times I came to your soliki. Your father was camping on the stairs, almost night and day at that point.”
My brow furrowed.
The corner of his lips lifted briefly before they smoothed into a solemn line. “He struck me across the face so hard he made me bleed when I tried to push past him.”
My blood chilled further. Kiran had been a Vorakkar at that point. If my pattar had struck him, it would’ve meant punishment. Maybe even his death.
“Your father loves you,” Kiran continued gruffly. “I don’t have to tell you that, seffi. And he told me that the only way I would speak to you again was if I killed him right there…because he wasn’t going to let me anywhere near you again.”
He wiped at more tears that streaked down my face, his jaw tightening as he saw them, as if he couldn’t stand to see them.
“I did try,” he said. He swallowed. “But I always regretted not trying harder. And as the years passed…it was just easier to stay away. To not stir up the past. I thought…I thought that you hated me. That you never wanted to see me again. I thought it was best if I stayed lost in the wild lands.”
That confession whistled out of him and it struck me like a blade to the chest.
Processing his words, I was forced to confront the fact that they angered me. It was not directed at Kiran, however, but at my pattar.
How many times had he heard me cry in the months after Kiran’s departure? How many times had he heard me sob that my friend hadn’t even said goodbye?
And all along, it had been his doing. He had kept Kiran away from me. While I knew it was done with love, that he thought it was what I wanted, that he thought it would protect my heart further…I had still needed to say goodbye. To have that closure.
Instead, that hurt had lingered. Aching and raw.
“And what about after?” I asked, my toes digging into the soft sand of the lake’s shoreline, needing it to ground me. “The year after you left?”
His brow furrowed. His hand drifted to his hair and raked through it. “The first year was difficult. New hordes always are. I thought about returning to the saruk often, thought about seeing you but there was always something that needed to be done.”
I shook my head, wrapping my arms around myself tighter.
Quietly, I said, “It was important to me that you were there, Kiran.”
I had never said those words out loud. I had never told Laru or my pattar about how hurt I’d been when he hadn’t come for my mother’s burial. It had further deepened an already festering wound, spreading like an infection.
“Maeva, you knew I was a Vorakkar,” he said, even as a flash of hurt and guilt crossed his usually cold expression. “I was not going to stay in the saruk forever. I had to leave, to make my mark, to lead