waking up.
I’ll never wake up from this.
The reality of going through every day for the rest of my life with this burden of taking both of their lives will forever haunt me.
Two men in one day.
Two humans who have won me over with their boorish and wild tendencies because that’s just who they were. Men who lived for adventure and protecting what they had to.
Then they took on me and my sisters. Giving up their lives for the greater good, knowing they’d never be able to see it.
And even then, it was a risk.
Like Tobias said my father may not be able to take her down. To plan this whole ordeal without the confidence that she’d be able to win, Taysa was not a foolish woman who wouldn’t have side plans set in place.
I mean, Dagen and Tobias were a perfect example of the small addendum to her plot to take the kingdom. Safely put in places for when she needed to use them, they’d be closely set right by my side.
She just didn’t plan for them to take their own lives or that I would have the strength to even gauge in hurting them.
“You need to eat a little something, okay?” Rohana squeezes my hand that she’s been holding for, I don’t know how long, and waits for me to answer.
I don’t.
Still staring at the shelf of books in various colored bindings, I notice how nothing is organized. That every story is mixed in with other ones, and I wonder how many of them have happy endings. How much trouble they had to go through to obtain it and if anyone in them has ever felt like me but been able to overcome it.
“She’s in shock,” I hear Isolde say to the room. “It was too much for her.”
“I should’ve taken care of Tobias.” It’s then that my eyes snap from the bookshelf to land on Atarah. Her head is bowed into her chest, picking at her fingernails while softly bouncing her right foot on the floor.
I’m about to lash out at her with words. That I’d never condone her touching either of them because I don’t trust that she’d do it in the best way, but it’s her vulnerability that stops me.
Atarah doesn’t fidget. She doesn’t pick at her nails because she’s particular about them in the first place, and she’d never let any of us see her sweat.
The tone in her voice sounds small and defeated, guilty even. And it’s then that I never considered how much of a toll it’d take on my sisters to ask and have me do what I have done to save them all.
Slowly, I bring my attention back to the bookcase, letting my eyes readjust to the books for a second time. Giving my mind a break so that I can try and think of something else. But I can feel the tension in my shoulders, the exhaustion coursing through my body, my gut hasn’t stopped twisting, and it’s not because I’m hungry. Looking at food would only make it worse.
All I want to do is wake up or go back to two days ago before everything came to light. To hold Dagen and Tobias close to my chest and never let them go.
I should’ve fought harder, refused their plan, and made up my own.
“Nothing has changed,” Brylee announces as she enters my library. “Everything is secure and...quiet.”
My sisters have been taking turns scouring the island and the perimeter of the water outside Merindah to make sure nothing was lurking outside our border. We’re perfectly seated in the middle of the ocean where Taysa can attack from any direction at any given moment with Zeus knows what.
A hand touches my left shoulder, the smell of the sea and fresh flowers gives Brylee’s identity away as she gives it a small squeeze. “Let’s go get some air.”
“Just let her rest,” Rohana counters. “It’s...it’s just too much right now.”
“It’s too much being cooped up in this stuffy library,” Brylee retorts. “And she looks pale.”
“Do you want to?” Rohana mutters at my side.
“Why don’t we just leave and give her some space?” Isolde offers, standing from one of the chairs at the small table I have along the wall. “We can come back to bother her later.”
“We can’t just leave her here locked up in a room by herself,” Brylee argues. She leans over to look me in the face. “Doesn’t that sound good, sweetie? We’ll walk the beach, and we don’t have to