Alicia doesn't go after him, fighting against the way her heart urges her to. He needs to come to his own understanding of the situation and she won't dictate his thoughts. If he wants to hate her for what she did, then she'll accept that. Alicia deserves his hate, just like she deserves this guilt.
Wiping away the tears that soak her lashes, Alicia shoves the last of her clothes into her pack before she struggles to her feet, intent on getting the provisions she needs for the journey and not encountering anyone.
Her plan is foiled the moment she steps out of her tent.
With her head down, all she sees are mud-splattered boots, the leather of a fine make but worn and abused. Then her gaze flicks up to the man that's a full head taller than her and everything within her stills as she comes face to face with the brother that shattered her heart.
"Licia."
Hearing her name from his lips makes her want to sob. The last time he spoke to her, he was telling her that their father died because of her, hurling hatred towards her like he hadn't helped raise her.
And after that... Alicia closes her eyes as she remembers the address she gave him, hoping he would come talk to her. Instead he gave that address to the grand duke and she was tortured. And Kieran...
She's so tired of crying. She's tired of the burn in the back of her throat. Tired of being hurt by those she loves and hurting them in return. She's just... tired.
"Adrian," she says, blinking her eyes open, too exhausted to utter anything more.
"Are you alright?" he asks and her hands clench around the strap of her pack over her shoulder. Where was his concern in the capital?
"Yes," she tells him.
He nods.
Silence stretches between them, uncomfortable and heavy.
Alicia knows he doesn't deserve her forgiveness, but as she finally dares to look at him, her breath lodges in her throat. He's more gaunt than she remembers him, hollow and tired, just like she is. His eyes are hers. His eyes are Kieran's. His eyes are their pa's. They remind her of everything she lost and everything they broke. They remind her of everything she did for her family and now look what's left of it.
"Why are you here, Adrian?" she asks, purposefully avoiding his nickname. It'll only help to remind her of everything she's lost.
"I..." The words fail him. He looks around at their landscape, the bustle of life as people prepare for travel again a distant thing from her tent, before his eyes settle back on Alicia. "I was wrong. Everything I did was wrong." He presses his lips together as tears splash against his cheeks. "And Kieran is dead because of me. I don't want your forgiveness, I can't even forgive myself."
Alicia lowers her head. She knows the feeling too well. "You were right about one thing, Adrian. Our father is dead because of me. I was trying to reignite a rebellion and find the truth, and Pa paid the price trying to protect me." She spares him a glance. "So, I understand. We broke our family, Addy, and I guess we have to live with that."
Adrian draws in a breath and nods, pain etched into his tan features and she's sure it's etched into hers too. "I'm going back to the capital. Oliver has a job for me. I just wanted to see if you were safe."
Like kindling bursting into flame, an idea forms within Alicia and she doesn't waste a moment to leap upon it. "The capital? To speak with Yeong Rhee?"
Adrian pats the satchel against his hip. "I'm not much help out here. Oliver has enough soldiers. But I can do this."
Looking towards the rest of their group of scholars and soldiers, Alicia settles on a decision. Another one that she'll have to learn to live with. "I'll come with you," she tells Adrian, resolve settling within her like hardening steel.
"Come with me?" He frowns at her, clearly confused why she would want to go back to the capital after escaping it twice. She doesn't fault his confusion.
"I'm more useless than you out here," she tells him, rubbing her thigh above her injured knee. "Besides, I think it's time I had a conversation with Ma." Forcing those words past her lips makes her feel ill, but seeing Adrian's eyes brighten makes it so much worse. He wants her to reconcile with Nathalia, like that could ever be a possibility after the life that woman forced Alicia to endure.
The words work though when Adrian agrees to travel with her to the capital.
Now all that she has left to do is collect provisions and lie to everyone here, including the man that holds her heart.
"When I asked Adrian why he needed two horses," someone says behind her as Alicia wraps a loaf of bread in cloth, her hands still at the deep drawl she knows too well, "he claimed that the second horse was for you."
Closing her eyes for a heartbeat, Alicia can't bring herself to face him, face the judgement in his eyes. She's weak, but this unhealed wound within her is killing her, bleeding her slowly. She opens her eyes and prepares herself to face him, knowing she needs whatever strength she can find within herself. "I made a choice," she says, her voice firm as she turns to him.
"To leave?" he snaps at her and Alicia flinches, unused to seeing this side of him, especially these past few months.
Usually they're on the same page, moving together like the flow of a river, in tune with their choices, but Alicia is walking a path he can't follow. A path she doesn't want him to follow.
"It's for the best. Injured like I am, I'm useless. I'll be better off in the capital."
He strides towards her and Alicia takes a step back as he nears. That small action—defensive and scared as it is—makes him pause before he comes within reaching distance of her. Oliver looks at her like he doesn't recognise her.
She's sure if she had a mirror, she wouldn't recognise herself either.
Then he reaches over and grabs her pack, peering into it. "This isn't enough supplies to get you all the way to the capital."
"Adrian is bringing more," she hastens to reply.
"No, he's not. He's ready to leave."
Lie. She has to lie because telling the truth will hurt him more.
Guilt and regret weigh on her shoulders for the pain she'll cause the man she loves with everything inside of her. But she has a task to complete. She can't keep hiding, can't keep ignoring her failures. She has a lot to make up for, a lot of sins that need answering, and she won't drag Oliver down that path with her. She'd rather die than force him into the Reaper's Den alongside her.
Alicia moves towards him until the toes of their boots touch. She slides the bag away from him, looks up into his eyes, and wills him to still trust her enough to let her go. "We still have so much to talk about, Oliver. Trust that once I'm healed, I'll come back for you, wherever you may be."
He grabs her hands, like he's scared she'll slip away from him if he doesn't hold her. "Whatever you're planning to do, you don't have to do it."
"Yes, I do," she replies. "If the Ghuls attack, I'll be a burden. You know this." She tries to tug her hands from Oliver's, but he holds on tighter. Alicia closes her eyes as she feels the press of tears in the back of her throat.
"Don't go, Alicia."
She opens her eyes again, meeting his sterling gaze, brighter and more startling than ever in his drawn face. It tears her apart to see him like this, to see what she's doing to him, the pain she's causing. "I'll find you again, Oliver," she says, her voice trembling with his name on her lips. She pulls her hands from his and clenches them into fists to stop herself from reaching for him.
"Alicia—"
"Nothing you say will change my mind." She slings her pack over her shoulders, rises up on her toes regardless of the pain that arcs through her leg, and brushes her lips to the underside of his jaw. "We both have jobs to do, soldier, so let's do them."
She steps back and leaves, looking back at him bathed in the orange glow of the lanterns, and abandons her heart in his capable hands once again.
The ride is silent, rife with words unsaid between her and Adrian. She has nothing more to say to him, nothing that'll heal the scars he's given her. Their brother is dead because of their actions and they both must live with that burden. Kieran was the best of them, and now he's gone, leaving a hole in their family just as big as the hole their pa left.
Like a painting that lacks colour, lacks life and vibrancy, their family has been reduced to dull streaks on a canvas. Nothing Alicia can say will ever bring that colour back.
As they ride further from the ruins, Alicia sees the land around her with clearer eyes, the path she's laying out before her becoming surer. Her resolve only strengthens the further from Oliver she gets, knowing that leaving him behind was the right thing to do.
But there's still one matter she must attend to; escaping Adrian without him returning to Oliver to tattle on her. It's the type of betrayal she expects from him now.
Breaching the distance between them, Alicia's hands tighten around the reins as nerves twist in her gut. "I need you to continue on to the capital without me," she says without looking at him, keeping her gaze on the mist that swirls across the beaten path ahead of them.
"What?" Adrian questions, the weight of his gaze on her as he twists in his saddle.
"There's something I need to do. Alone."
"I'm not leaving you—"
"You already did," she hisses, the sharp look she sends him making him shut his mouth. "I'm not asking for your permission, Addy. You need to tell Yeong Rhee to take away our immunity to the Reaper's Curse, but there's something else I need to do."
"What are you going to do?"
"I have some unfinished business. Will you continue on to the capital or not?"
Indecision plagues his hazel gaze, a crease forming between his brows. "Will you be safe?"
She scoffs at the question, insults burning on her tongue like hot coals, but she swallows them. "It's the Dead Lands, it's never safe. But I've survived worse."
Adrian lets out a breath that clouds the air, coming to some sort of understanding with himself as he nods. "I'll go to the capital, it's the least I can do after..." He swallows and Alicia tilts her head.
"After you sold me to the grand duke and I was tortured, as was Oliver? Yes, it's the least you can do." Her words make him wince and Alicia finds no satisfaction in hurling such words at him. She's trying to hurt him, hurt him like he hurt her, but he's suffering from the loss of a brother too.
Nothing she says will make it better, she'll only make this worse.
Alicia sighs. "It's better if we have some distance anyway."
"Will we ever go back to how things were?"
Alicia refuses to be the girl that she once was, the girl that lets other people fight her battles because she's too terrified to pick up a gun. That's not the person she honed herself into being. It's the person she degraded herself to when she was expected to be nothing more than a pretty smile with a lot of money, an accessory to the charming prince. There's no going back to who she was in the palace. That girl died when the Curse began flowing in her veins.
Alicia can feel her own soul rotting the more she stays in the Dead Lands, and it's far too late to go back.
"No," she tells him, meeting the eyes of her brother that are a mirror to her own in so many ways. "There's no going back. Not for any of us." She wraps the reins more firmly around her fist and directs the mare down a different path.
"You're going after them, aren't you?" he calls before she can escape his presence. "The ones who hurt you?"
"They did much more than hurt me." She flinches as she sees Kathryn, bleeding to death before her with Warren standing over her. "And they won't stop. Their vendetta doesn't end with me."
"I can't let you walk towards suicide."
"So, now you value my life?" Alicia tosses over her shoulder.
"I've always valued your life."
Snorting derisively, Alicia shakes her head. "You certainly had a funny way of showing that in the capital."
"Alicia—"
"Good luck in the capital, Adrian. You'll need it." Then she rides into the mist and doesn't look back.