To the White Wolf | Fenrys (ToG)

Chapter 6: Weakness is Potatoes

Marla didn't ask questions as she removed the knife and bandaged me up. She told me that she had gotten Rowan and Fenrys after that male came into the infirmary looking like he was going to carve me up. She said she thought I was going to die. I said nothing but a simple thank you as she finished. She placed her old hand on my check and smiled her motherly smile.

I wanted to scream. I wanted to scream because she wasn't my mother. And I was frustrated with myself for not killing the male. What if he didn't heed my warning? I didn't want to kill him, I was so tired of killing. I always felt like it was never my right to end another's life, yet I had took the lives of those who had hurt me so eagerly. But their deaths had never made me happy.

My emotions swarmed me.

I washed away the blood on my forehead from my cut and stared at my empty face in the mirror. Why had I ever thought that I deserved to be happy? I washed more blood away. It just kept pouring and pouring out of my forehead as I wiped more away. It was small, a two-inch cut across my temple, but it just kept bleeding. Eventually I put a piece of cotton to it and wrapped a bandage around my head.

I crawled under my thick blankets and nestled into them. I pulled my legs into myself and wrapped my arms around them. A sob came loose. My chest felt tight as one sob followed another and then I couldn't stop. My knees became wet as I rested my bandaged forehead on top of my legs and cried.

I didn't hear the door open. I didn't look up as the edge of the bed shifted as someone sat down.

"I'm sorry Elide, we can work on your ankle tomorrow. I just want to go to sleep," I said. I was so tired. It had been so long since I had a goodnight's sleep.

"I brought you dinner," she picked up my hand from where I gripped my legs and gave it a reassuring squeeze. "If you want to talk about it, I'm two doors down."

I squeezed her hand back and cried harder. I released her hand and she was gone, but only two doors down. I didn't visit her. I ate my food and then I fell into a deep sleep.

I stayed in bed for two days. Lionna brought me food and brushed my hair and Queen Aelin stopped by to drop off books and tell me that she respected that I brought the fight away from the castle. I started one of the books but found myself blinking at one of the walls and thinking about a million other things.

I thought about how I would never see my mother again.

I thought about how I was too much of a coward to meet my brothers.

I thought about the men and my time in The Release.

And I thought about Lennis, the human man I had loved and who had lied to me, and how killing him felt like a miserable mistake. I kept thinking about him as I fought that male. I thought about the guilt and shame I felt for killing him and I didn't want that again.

After swearing the blood oath to Maeve, I was deep in my sorrows. I began to drink too much to numb the pain. Maeve ordered me to stop drinking after I got a bit reckless. I got violent too.

I went drinking without Connall one time, he usually kept me level headed. But I just drank and drank and became angry. I was still pissed off and hurt that Lennis had a wife and children and had made me feel like a foolish girl.

So, I flew back to Lennis' house. I entered the front door and saw him sitting at their dinner table carving a wooden clock and his wife was reading to one of the small children. She gasped as I walked in unannounced and stood while holding the child to her chest tightly.

Lennis' eyes went wider than I have ever seen them, I laughed as he said, "who are you?"

"She was the girl that came here weeks ago," his wife looked back at him with a I told you so in her eyes.