Inheritance

Part 2. Sixty-Four: Friends

Eory's eyes widened as he realized why Pollyanna was so angry. "She thinks I slept with Maruka?"

Eliita, Them, and Terran nodded in unison

Eory's stomach twisted into knots; his shoulders slumped. I can't lose her... Not over this.

"Well," Them clarified. "I don't necessarily think that she thinks you slept with him, but at the very least, she thinks you're giving your affections to him instead of her."

Terran snorted. "Who cares what Pollyanna wants or thinks. The woman is a monster. You're better off with that wet blanket, Maruka, which is saying something."

Silence befell the group for a time, and during that time, Eliita saw that Eory was not eating or drinking. Misery held him still. Compassionately, she said, "I don't think you should abandon Pollyanna. It's true that she's not a good person, but there's more to her than that. I think everyone deserves a second chance, and I strongly suspect that Pollyanna never got one. Maybe you should try taking care of her for a change. She's looked after your family her entire life, after all."

Terran rolled his eyes. "Eliita, we are not speaking of a redeemable woman! Why should he waste his time on someone who will always be a villain? Eory can't fix her any more than he can fix his parents. In order to fix a woman like that, he would have to dig the evil out of her very soul, and I doubt that there would be an ounce of goodness left underneath all that evilness."

Eliita stared over Eory's shoulder with a shake of her head and a deep frown. "You're wrong, Terran. When I spoke to her—when I dressed her wounds--I saw a vulnerable, tearful woman; a woman who regretted the decisions she made. I didn't see the cold, cruel eyes of a killer. I saw big, innocent eyes buried and camouflaged by twisted, wrinkled skin. There's a good person in her, a good person that she has tossed aside in pursuit of being strong."

Eory listened to Eliita with glistening eyes. "Her wounds—her bandages--Are they due to me?"

Eliita folded her arms on the table. She nodded. "I think so. She was distracted and couldn't concentrate during the battle. After the battle, she was desperate to know some... Personal things about my relationship with Terran."

Eory was befuddled. That sounds so unlike her...

At the thought of the old woman, wrapped in blood-soaked bandages, wounded inside and out due to his actions, he felt immensely guilty, but also...

Hateful of the foolish old woman. It's her own damned fault she drank that potion. How am I to love a woman that I can't even touch?

Eory flinched at his own thoughts.

He sank his teeth into his arm.

Them turned his nose up and tried not to blanch at the fairy's bloodied teeth.

He recovered in a moment and asked the question he wanted to ask. "How is Taylor? Is she still mad?"

Eory's mind was awash in white fear. Learning of the pain he had caused Pollyanna was hard enough, but having to tell Them that he killed Taylor would be too much for him in one day.

The fairy hugged his aching stomach. "She's decided to rest and let me take over for a time."

Them looked the sorriest that Eory had ever seen him look. He cleared his throat. "If you see her, please tell her that I'm sorry. I am guilty of thinking that she slept with Maruka the same as Pollyanna. I shouldn't have gotten so angry at her; even if you or she slept with Maruka, it shouldn't matter to me. We're not lovers, after all. I was blinded by jealousy, and I shouldn't have been."