Forever Green

~ 19 ~ A Truth Hidden and A Decision Made

"You killed her," Theiden echoed, and Lenesa felt her stomach drop at the ice in his tone.

"She died because of me, but I did not kill her," she amended. "There is a slight difference."

"And what difference is that?" Theiden asked, with all the acidity of a fresh lemon.

"It was not intentional," she explained. "She was only protecting me."

Theiden crossed his arms, his gaze lingering on the scar across her face before moving down to the spot on her left arm, where she knew he had seen that other scar in her moment of weakness. "You're only giving me bits and pieces. Does it have something to do with..."

He gestured at her arm, and Lenesa took a deep breath, willing herself not to hide it beneath the table. Instead, she reached out for her mug and took a sip of water to cool her suddenly-dry throat.

Theiden deserved to know. But she was afraid, and in her cowardice said something else instead.

"Well, in any case, that's all you need to know about the origin of Turned creatures. Perhaps I'll tell you about this—" her gaze barely flitted to her left arm at the word "—another time." The smile that followed her reply felt forced, and rightly so. It quivered like leaves in a harsh wind, and she quickly returned her attention to the greens on her plate.

They finished their dinner in silence. The stoniness emanating from her guest was just like when he had first arrived at the cottage, and the room was stifling with tension. Silverware clinked against the ceramic plates, seemingly just as loud as the clash of thunder during a storm. Theiden took a drink, and then lowered his mug back to the tabletop with all the merciless force and sound of a hammer striking an anvil.

Lenesa cringed, turning her head to the side to hide her expression. They were almost done with their meal. Perhaps by tomorrow he would have forgiven her for her avoidance of the topic.

A moment later, Theiden's chair scraped backwards, and Lenesa looked up with a start as he stood up from the table.

"You're finished already?" she asked, in a small voice she usually only used when talking to young children she helped heal in the city. She immediately regretted how intimidated she sounded, and cleared her throat.

"I'd like to get to bed early tonight," was Theiden's excuse, his tone still terse with disappointment. "I haven't been getting much good sleep lately."

He rubbed his temple as though to alleviate a headache, and turned for the loft. Lenesa watched him go with a knot of worry in her stomach. She had noticed the dark circles under his eyes as of late. It was past overdue to replace the mandrake root beneath his bed with a fresh one. She'd need to remember to ask Kettle tonight—the past few days, she'd been so preoccupied with other thoughts that she'd kept forgetting.

After finishing her own salad, Lenesa brought the plates to the sink before wandering over to her armchair by the fireplace. The flames were flickering low in the grate as she sat down, staring unseeingly ahead with worries flickering through her mind just like the tongues of flame until both the fire and her thoughts had been exhausted.

It was only after a different light, calming and blue, shifted in the corner of her vision that Lenesa emerged from her thoughts. She turned to see Shwei hovering just behind the armchair, near her shoulder. The wisp gave a worried coo which she dismissed with a wave of a hand.

"I'll go to sleep soon, Shwei. Don't mind me."

"Don't mind you? When you're sitting in the middle of where I'd like to be cleaning?"