Fate and Destiny (The Fated Series, #2)

Chapter 16 - Fauna - It Flickers

"And your brother? Do you remember him?"

I squint my eyes, thinking that if my brows furrow, it'll help me think and eventually, remember.

We've been at it for a while – the healer and I. Hira. That's her name. I know her face, her voice. Something in me scanned every part of her body after she healed my swollen and black eye. My vision snagged on her blue lips, the circles under her eyes, and hollowed cheeks. Then to the dress that I somehow remember being fitted before this. She could use a few days' rests and a feast, but seeing as we're stuck here – at least until I die – that day seems an eternity away.

She's been asking me to recall the people in my life. Forcing me to remember why I'm here and how I got here. Technically speaking, I put myself here. Bullshit move, but now remembering my brother, I know – a little – why it was worth it.

"He's two and a half years my senior," I recite. "I was supposed to have a birthday on..."

Neither of us can remember what day it is, but it feels like years have passed. I'll bet he's already married and has a kid – or two. I can't say where he is now, but I can speak about who he was.

"He's the only family I have left. He used to call me teeny, and I...I hated it, but I treasured it all the same."

"What does he look like?"

"Tall-er. A few inches over me. His hair is dark like my mother's, and his skin is like mine. His eyes...his eyes...they're grey."

"Like your father's?"

"No...like his father's. He's...he's my half-brother. His father is...Kerrigan. Mine is Aldred."

We already went over my father, and my mother I remember clear as day. I remember Kat and Thomas and the King and Queen of Vandaria. I vaguely remember the Jade Assassins I've grown up with and the...twelve men? Yes. Twelve men in which I last remember calling my friends.

There's someone else neither of us has mentioned, but I don't want to talk about him. Not when the emptiness of the missing piece within me threatens to swallow me whole when I think of him. Hira must know this because she starts chewing on her bottom lip and avoiding my gaze.

Nonetheless, "And what about...the prince?"

Don't throw up. Don't cry. Don't break, I repeat to myself.

"The prince..." My eyes betray me, sending emotionless tears over my cheeks and onto the ground. "The prince...Darius..."

The tears roll faster, though I still feel like there's nothing filling them. I feel...numb. Maybe that's they I'm crying – because I can't feel. With everyone else, there's a spark – small as a dim candle's flame – that lights in my chest. There's a vague sense of love, of hope. With Darius...everything fades. Happiness, joy, fear, love, anger, pain...it floods through me for a split second, and then...nothing. There and then gone. Like everything that I felt before left when whatever bond we had snapped.

It's my fault. I broke it, but for no reason that I can recall or try and use to explain, I don't regret it.

"Well," Hira says as she finishes up with the last of my cuts. "Despite the ending, I'm happy to see that you're back."

She gives me a reassuring smile, but I can't return it. Not when I keep thinking about Darius. Remembering all the moments from the few cycles we got is pulling me into myself. The chill of the room still touches my bones, but it feels like a distant wind. A distant land. He's gone. He's alive – that much I'm certain of – but he's gone in the one way that matters. In the one way, I've only ever dreamed of feeling.