Winter, White and Wicked - Shannon Dittemore Page 0,116
power to keep her alive. Hyla would have though. She would have done anything for her friends.
“She was so brave,” I say, fighting to keep my composure.
“I know that, Sessa,” he says, the tears flowing freely down his face. “I do. She braved the Kol Sea and the devil spirit of Winter just to meet you. To bring you to Paradyia. It was her greatest wish to present you to her king.”
“Paradyia?” I glance to Mars and then to Kyn. Mars’s face stays remarkably blank. At least Kyn has enough integrity to look uncomfortable.
“You will come?” Dakk asks. “You will help us?”
“I don’t . . . what?”
“Aren’t you going to help?” Lenore snaps. She’s on edge. The set of her teeth, the narrow slit of her eyes. All nerves and ready arguments. I have no idea what I’ve done to deserve her fury.
“Stop, stop,” Kyn says. “Dakk, Lenore, you two need to let Mars explain. Sylvi has no idea what you’re asking of her. No idea what you want. That’s not why she made the trip.”
“Why did you make the trip?” Lenore asks. “Because I’m wracking my brain, and if you didn’t come to help the rebels—”
“I came for you!” I say, pushing away from the fence. “To take you home. So life could go back to the way it was—”
“The way it was before I grew a conscience? Or did you simply want life to go back to the way it was before I left and you suddenly had to take care of the tavern and the garage all by yourself?”
“Drypp left them to us, Leni! And that’s not an easy thing to do under Majority law. Two women in the Kol Mountains with the ability to fend for ourselves? Drypp worked hard to make that happen, did everything he could to stay on good terms with them so we wouldn’t lose our livelihood. We have a responsibility to him—”
“Don’t talk to me about my responsibilities to my own grandfather,” she says, turning away.
“What does that mean?”
She whips her head around. “He could have stayed with me like I asked. Stayed and helped me with the replanting, but you wanted to go fishing. You took him with you that day and I needed him at home. And when you brought him back, he was bloodied and half-dead.”
Her accusations crack a fissure between us. She blames me for what happened with the Abaki.
“That’s not fair,” I say, wishing she’d take it back, needing her to. The weight of Drypp’s death is too much for me to carry.
“Fair! Who was it that nursed him day and night? Not you. You were out the road, running from what you’d done.”
She’s never said any of this before. I didn’t know. How was I to know we were already broken?
“I was out on the road,” I say, refusing to fold under her words, “making the coin that kept us afloat!”
Her head is shaking now. “I thought you’d learned to put the needs of others first, but you haven’t. You’ll always be my sister, Sylvi, but you’re still the same selfish girl you’ve always been.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Kyn says, stepping between Lenore and me. There’s something righteous in his anger. Something offended and indignant. He’s going to tell her what I did for him, going to use it to make her see. I feel the words on his tongue and I’d rather he didn’t. It’s an intimate thing. Private. I don’t want our connection used as a weapon.
“I’m selfish?” I yell, pushing past Kyn, fighting to drown out his words. “I came here for you!”
“So your life wouldn’t have to change. So you wouldn’t have to change. Well, guess what? I’m not going back to Whistletop. I made promises to the people here and I’m not running out on them. You can stay and help or you can run again. But either way, life will never be the same for you.” She glances at my lips. “If you don’t know that already, you haven’t been paying attention.”
“Miss Quine,” Mars says. “Let’s walk. I think some space would do us all good.”
He takes my elbow, but I fight my way out of his grip, flick my cheek at Lenore, and climb over the fence and out onto the Desolation.
“One of these days you’re going to run out of road,” she calls.
Mars follows behind me, his boots splashing through last night’s rainwater. There’s a swoop in my stomach, so I turn back and