Keeper of the Lost Cities: Rebuild [COMPLETED]

Chapter Four - LINH

"I know—it was just an offer."

"Well I don't need your help!"

"Then why did you come?"

Tam stiffened.

Got you, she thought.

"I don't know," he said. "I guess your presence is... calming or whatever. Don't tell Marella I said that."

"I won't."

"The whole situation is so... ugh!" he shouted, throwing his hands up in the air.

"Complicated?" Linh offered.

"Yeah! I mean, the humans are everything to the rebuilding effort. Sure, there are dozens of unfair prejudices in the elvin world, but the human one is the biggest. If we can successfully merge the two worlds..."

"Maybe the elves would realize that multiple births aren't that big of a deal," Linh finished.

The shadows withdrew, and Tam's silver-blue eyes met hers. There was so much pain in his. It made Linh ache all over.

Tam had taken her banishment seven years ago harder than she had. It wasn't that she'd wanted to be banished, but... she'd been naive back then. She'd thought Quan and Mai would accept her back once they realized their mistake. But Tam... he'd known all along. That they wouldn't be going back to the Lost Cities.

Once Linh had realized that too, she'd turned to other things to hope for—because without hope, she would have given up a long time ago.

Tam didn't see it that way. Linh had kept him going—he had some brotherly duty to her or something—but he'd never forgiven their parents for what had been done to them.

Not that Linh had either—but she'd learned to live with that. Tam... Tam saw something in the humans that gave him that flicker of hope. He saw freedom—freedom from the scorn they'd lived with their whole lives.

Linh thought the situation was more complex than that, but... she couldn't take his hope away. It would make her a monster.

So she reached for his hand and said, "The Black Swan will do everything in their power to make the Human Reinstatement Program work."

It wasn't a lie.

It wasn't her promise to give, either, but if it helped Tam, then she would say it. Over and over. Reminding him there were people that loved him—that she loved him.

Tam pulled away from her, and she felt her heart break. I can't help him.

"How do you know?" he asked softly.

"Because our friends always do what's right."

"Yeah," he snorted. "Because we're the 'good guys.'"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

He shrugged, already drawing the shadows back—retreating into his Tam-shell. Hiding from everyone. Hiding from Linh.

It hurt, but that wasn't fair. Tam would tell her what was wrong when he was ready. And it wasn't like she told him everything either.

Maybe that's why it hurts so much, she thought. Because he's not so different from me. And I'm a coward.

"Do you like life here?" Tam asked suddenly. "In the Neutral Territories, as an Exillium Coach?" He said the word "Exillium" with a scowl, but Linh ignored it; she had gotten used to being the one who saw the beauty in even the ugliest things.

At first she didn't say anything—she figured if someone really cared about your answer, they wouldn't mind if you gave it some thought—and instead looked around her. Today's class had been taught at Hollow Valley, a small territory bordered by snow-capped mountains. It was also one of the Neutral Territories that had been affected by the gnomish plague—not as much as Bosk Gorge had been, but there were still black scars marking the surrounding forests. The gnomes had wanted to regrow the trees, but the Council had forbidden them from going near the zones, just in case a remnant of the sickness was still there.

In the distance there were campsites—human campsites, where they were building civilizations. At first the Black Swan had tried to get the humans to live with the elves in the Lost Cities, and while some did, the majority refused, stating they wanted to keep their independence. And once the Purities had started marching, humans in elvin cities were becoming sparser.

Even together, the two species still found a way to be apart.

"A few human children have joined Exillium," she finally said. She didn't mention the fact that the other Waywards were terrified of them—terrified to talk to the humans for fear their parents would punish them somehow.

Linh had tried to tell the elvin children that the stories about the humans' violence were exaggerated. But... she wasn't so sure they were—of course the human Waywards, nor the humans in the campsites, would do anything to harm the others; there were too few that had moved to the Lost Cities to cause as many problems as they did in the Forbidden Cities.

But perhaps the next human that moved to the elvin world wouldn't be as peaceful.

Or the next.

Or the next.

Or the next.

There was no way to tell—the humans were too unpredictable. But she said none of that. She only said, "I love it here, Tam. I just... hope the Black Swan knows what they're doing."

Or else the rest of the world will suffer the consequences.

"We don't," Tam said, "but we're trying. We'll find a way to make this work."

Linh raised an eyebrow. "Was that a hopeful statement, brother, because it sure sounded like one..."

He shot her a glare. "You know what I meant."

"If you say so."

Linh smiled, turning to face the mountains once more. The water behind her called—a pulsing beat—but she pushed it back. She was getting better at controlling it, instead of letting it control her.

Tam held out his hand. "You ready to go?" He shot a worried glance at the water, as if Linh would jump back in it at any second.

She pushed back the urge to do just that and clasped their hands together. "I'm ready."

He held Tiergan's home crystal up to the light and guided her into the beam. As it started to pull them away, Linh's eyes drifted to the campsites.

The last thing she saw were the fires, burning a familiar image into her corneas.

The symbol of a white eye.