The Way Back (Champions of the Crystal Book 4)

Chapter 14.2

Promising was one thing. Doing it, living it, was another. Sabrina realized she didn't know how to go on. How to even begin.

And then the tears finally came.

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She never went to bed that night. When she finished crying over the comconsole, she went up to the conservatory, wanting to be somewhere she might sense his presence. But it was too changed, too inhabited by the living to be a haven for the dead. Sabrina didn't dare venture into the tunnels on her own, and she no longer knew where Tassan's old rooms were. They were probably inhabited anyway, renovated and unrecognizable.

She found herself in the Queen's Garden, on the site where the original Royal Residence had stood before its destruction in the Reissian attack. At the center of the garden was a stone obelisk, with the names of those who had died that night inscribed on it. Her father's headed the list, but she knew so many of the others too. She sat down beside it and looked up into the sky. There were an astonishing number of stars visible; living in the D.C. metro area, with its enormous light pollution, she had forgotten what a starry sky could really look like. It was like a glimpse into another universe.

Everything happens for a reason.

But what reason? Why? What possible reason can there be for this? Separating me from all the people I love?

I am so utterly alone.

Why?

She stared up at the stars, but they had no answers for her.

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Sabrina watched the sun rise with dull eyes. She was stiff and cold from a night outdoors but she didn't have the will to move. She was hungry, but somehow she couldn't make herself care about that. What did any of it matter?

"Try not to be afraid of it," Éllina had advised her. If she only knew, Sabrina thought. I'd welcome death today. To go on and be with everybody. What is there for me here, anyway? Why should I want to stay? I don't.

Sounds began emanating from the buildings around her, but Sabrina knew she was safe from observation, hidden behind the carefully sculpted hedges of the garden. She ignored the palace complex coming to life around her. It had nothing to do with her. She wasn't part of that life. She didn't want to be, today.

Someone calling out nearby momentarily drew her attention, but not enough to investigate. The rapid footsteps on the gravel pathway of the garden only made her sigh wearily, hoping not to be found. But the little giggle as the footsteps skidded to a stop made her look up.

"Oh!" Marie was standing there, her plain tunic already rumpled and a smear of jam on one cheek. She looked around as the voice called out again, then scrambled over to Sabrina, crouched down beside her, and put a finger over her lips. Sabrina complied, sitting silently until the calling voice had moved away.

"Have you been here all night?" Marie asked, wide-eyed, taking in Sabrina's appearance.

Sabrina tried to summon the energy to respond. "Yes."

"Why?"

"I looked at the stars."

"Oh." Marie seemed to accept this. "You look sick."

"I'm fine."

Marie cocked her head and put a hand to Sabrina's forehead. Then she giggled. "I guess I don't know what you're supposed to feel like."

I feel dead, Sabrina thought, but kept herself from saying it aloud. She mustn't frighten Marie. Though, to be fair, the child seemed utterly fearless.