The Book of Trials || ONC 2019

Chapter Twenty-Two

It was his eyes. The look in his eyes before I ran away had struck an arrow of painful, aching guilt right into my heart, and I felt horrible. What could I have done? Esterwilde was my everything. I had lived there with Mom and Dad and Juna. My fingerprints would never leave the halls of the orphanage I had helped rebuild, and my fingerprints were still on the ashes of the building before it. How could I leave when I had worked so hard to get to where I'd been?

Still, the ache in my chest remained, truly insatiable, and I couldn't find the will to lift the bedsheets from my face as I lay there alone in the room Miss Mylda had lent me.

Atlas had said... he'd said he wanted me to be a part of his home. Did that mean... he loved me? My eyes burned and I lifted the heel of my palms to my face, miserable. Was it even possible to love a person like me?

I'd had many suitors since I came of age—even I could tell I had an agreeable appearance. But I knew what they had wanted, and it'd had nothing to do with my personality. I'd watched as many girls had been swept into the allure of their flattery, taken off to the alter with a man they had barely met. I'd known girls who'd been married off by their families, but I'd never even had the chance for something awful like that. Besides, no one wants to marry a girl who doesn't even know her own lineage. The only reason anyone would want me is lust, because the saints know I am not worthy of love. In the end, I always end up putting myself first.

But in all my life, I'd never felt this way about a person before. I'd never met anyone who confused me like him, whose mysteries I wanted to unravel so badly that I would strip my life bare before him so he could understand. When had I gotten to think that about him? I'd never cared what people thought about me, and yet here I laid, torn from the inside out over lashing out at him. I couldn't describe the awful, gnawing feeling inside if I tried. I rolled to the side, finally taking the sheets from my face...

... and saw Evyne in the doorway, arms crossed as she leaned on the doorframe.

"Evyne!" I yelped, wrenching the blankets back over myself. "Go away!"

"Not happening."

I wasn't listening. I waited for her to leave, but after a long moment of nothing, I peeked out again from under the sheets, wiping the tears from my face self-consciously. "How long have you been standing there?"

"Long enough." She looked unamused. "Stop wallowing in self-pity and help me find Lefeli. She's gone. Probably ran after the magic scared her out of her wits."

"She's missing?" I asked, sitting up.

"I knew she'd crack eventually," she continued, pushing off from the doorframe and strolling down the hallway. "To be expected of a lallygagging dressmaker..."

I gawked at the empty doorway for a second, then scrambled into my clothes and hurried after her down to the parlor, where everyone was gathered minus, of course, Lefeli.

"I don't know what you all are fretting over," drawled Miss Mylda from the kitchen, sipping bitter tea I could smell from my seat. "She's simply having some time to herself. Maestus ran off practically every week when he was her age."

"Mother, please. I was practicing my potions."

I caught sight of Atlas sitting on a couch on the other side of the room, holding a steaming mug in his hand and gazing listlessly into it. He looked so somber...

"Oh, stop it." Evyne smacked the back of my head and shot Atlas a glare. He looked up from his tea and jumped to his feet when he spotted her, then took a long pull at his drink and handed the empty mug back to Miss Mylda. Evyne turned and started down the hallway. "Let's go find that girl before she gets robbed or something."