A/N: Finishing up yesterday's arc...readers, beware of grief!
Edaline found she didn't have the strength to get up. Couldn't summon the energy to get out of bed and face the day.
When Grady stirred beside her, they wordlessly looked at each other. The sorrow in his eyes broke her heart into even more splintered pieces.
"I don't know how to do this," she eventually whispered to him. "I don't know how to live in a world where Jolie doesn't exist."
Please don't make me.
If she can't live, I don't want to either.
Grady let out a sob. "We'll do it because we have to," he whispered back. "Because she would want us to. And because Brant is going to need us."
Oh, Brant. They really needed to check on him. He was probably suffering just as much as they were.
Dry sobs racked her body as she thought about the day ahead. "I can't. I can't, Grady, I can't breathe, I..."
"I know," he whispered, pulling her in closer. "I know. I don't know how we're supposed to even find the strength to get out of bed. But somehow, we have to."
I can't, I can't, I can't.
And yet somehow, they did.
It was an odd feeling.
Edaline felt numb.
And also desperately wished she really could feel numb. If she could, maybe it wouldn't hurt so much.
She was numb, but not nearly numb enough.
When they came downstairs, intending to merely say hello and thank you to Alden and Della before leaping home, they found Elwin waiting for them.
He threatened them with forced sedation if they wouldn't sit with him long enough to let him check them for shock--and drink two bottles of Youth each while he did so.
Then forced them each to also eat something--just a small fruit--to give them some measure of physical strength back.
"No matter how dark it gets," Elwin told them, "no matter how hard it is, you have to take care of your body's needs. I wish I could advise you on how to get through something like this, but...I can't. None of us can. But please...don't punish your bodies because your hearts are broken."
He'd apparently had a similar conversation with Alden and Della minutes before.
Everything is broken, Edaline thought with a deep pang. Nothing will ever be the same again. Jolie will never laugh again. She'll never visit us. She won't tell those precious pointless stories or argue with Vertina over the latest fashions. She won't marry Brant or have children or do any of the great things she'd planned to do.
Edaline had to force herself to stop thinking about it long enough to concentrate on leaping home safely.
They walked in the front door and the first thing that caught Edaline's eye was the cape Grady had tossed aside the day before.
It was the last happy moment they'd had before getting the hail from Brant.
Edaline desperately wished she could go back. Back to that moment in time when everything was as it should be.
Instead, she was left staring at an embroidered cape wondering how she could ever learn to live day by day without her daughter.
Then the sight of Jolie's bedroom brought on a wave of grief so intense that she and Grady both felt they'd never survive it.
Yet somehow...they did.
Edaline wasn't sure if that was mercy or cruelty, to somehow feel like you're dying without ever actually doing so.
This was the sort of thing that should kill a person.
That thought, almost more than any other, was what went through Edaline's mind again and again during Jolie's planting.
This should kill us. Why isn't this killing us?
The rest of her thoughts were consumed with all the things they would never do, never say, never again experience with Jolie.
One look in Grady's eyes told her he was thinking along the same lines, though she saw something else there, too. Anger, maybe, or bitterness.
She was too tired to ask him.
Everything was exhausting. It took a colossal effort to take every step. To remain standing. To hand over Jolie's wanderling seed.
Watching Jolie's sapling spring from the ground with large blossoms the exact shade of turquoise as Jolie's eyes—inherited from Edaline—added a finality to everything that Edaline hadn't been expecting.
It wasn't closure. Or at least, it didn't feel like closure. That word implied a sort of peace, a sense of moving on.
This was an end, but there was no peace involved.
Nothing but crushing grief and despair.
Finally, finally, the ceremony ended and people began to disperse.
Edaline wanted nothing more than to be alone with Grady. She had no energy for anything else.
But Councillor Kenric approached them, his normally cheerful demeanor markedly subdued.
He'd been speaking with Brant—who'd been deemed too unwell to attend Jolie's planting--and then with Elwin, and they had pieced together most of the story.
Jolie had gone to see Brant, and a fire had broken out. They still didn't know what sparked the fire, and perhaps they never would. But Brant had tried to get to Jolie, and found that he couldn't save her, and barely got out alive himself. It seemed he'd even heard her last moments.
Which meant that he'd likely saved Edaline's life when he'd stopped her from running into the house.
But the grief had changed him.
After checking his thoughts, Kenric was beginning to suspect that Brant's sanity had fractured. It clearly hadn't shattered, he still knew who he was and knew what was happening, but he wasn't right anymore, either.
"I hope I'm wrong, and that the grief is just overwhelming and will become more manageable in time, but I thought you should know."
With that, Kenric gave them a sorrowful smile and left them alone.
They leapt back to Havenfield and went straight to bed, despite it only being late afternoon.
All they could do was hold each other, and weep, and continuously ask, "now what?"
Though neither of them had an answer to that question.
Eventually, Grady reached out and stroked her cheek, wiping her tears. "It isn't right. Death is...unnatural. But especially..." his voice wobbled and he had to pause to clear his throat. "No parent should ever have to say goodbye to their child this way."
"No," Edaline agreed.
It was all she could find the strength to say.
"Listen," Grady told her, looking hesitant. "I'm not convinced this was an accident."
"What do you mean?" Edaline asked with a sinking feeling.
No one would want to harm Jolie. No one would be able to process the violence they'd committed even if they had.
"You know I've been getting messages from the Black Swan?" When she nodded, he told her about the one he'd received a few days ago, telling him he didn't know who he was dealing with.
"You think they killed Jolie to punish you for refusing to join them?" Even just thinking about that hurt so deeply, she didn't understand how she wasn't bleeding.
"It makes sense. The Council doesn't know what started the fire. Brant didn't see it. He might even be in danger now, once the Black Swan realizes he survived. We'll have to try to protect him before they try to silence him."
Edaline blanched at that.
"Is that why you looked so angry today?" She asked.
Grady sighed. "Either I can be angry, or I can feel guilty. But if I let myself feel guilty..." he shuddered. "I can't do that to you."
Edaline let out a sob and scooted closer. "Definitely not. I can't survive this without you. Please, Grady. Be angry if that helps, but otherwise let the Black Swan go. I need you."
"I won't let it break me," Grady promised. "I need you too, Eda," he added, his voice suddenly rough with emotion as he brought his face to hers and kissed her deeply. Desperately.
And it was such a relief to be able to find comfort in each other's arms this way. Edaline had thought she'd never be able to feel anything again—nothing other than her grief—but she'd been wrong.
She could still love her husband and find comfort in him. It changed nothing, fixed nothing, erased none of the pain.
But his touch, just as much as his tears, was a tangible reminder that she wasn't in this alone.
Afterward, they both eventually drifted off to sleep. But a vivid dream of Jolie woke Edaline with a start after only a few hours. She looked at Grady, who was still sound asleep. She didn't want to take that temporary reprieve from grief away from him, so she didn't wake him.
She climbed out of bed, silently put a robe on, and stumbled down the hall to Jolie's room. She allowed the grief to overtake her, weeping as she looked around Jolie's room, taking in the sight of her books and makeup and clothes, careful not to disturb Vertina. She may only be a mirror, but...Edaline wasn't ready to face saying the words aloud again.
She sank onto Jolie's bed, spritzing Jolie's favorite perfume on one of the pillows and holding it tightly against her chest, breathing in the scent.
That was how Grady found her a few minutes later--clutching the pillow and staring at nothing.
"There you are," he murmured. "Why didn't you wake me?"
"I didn't want to pull you into grief when you were getting a break from it," she whispered.
Grady shook his head as he sat down next to her. "Eda," he chided her softly, wrapping his arm around her waist and pressing his lips to her temple. "I'm your husband. The only way we can survive this is together. It's my job and my top priority to love you, and care for you, and bear your burdens with you. Just like it's your priority for me. So let's agree to bear this together. Please, never grieve alone, okay?"
Edaline nodded and leaned in to his embrace. "I love you."
"I love you too, Eda," he crooned softly. "Are you ready to come back to bed?"
"No," she said immediately, her voice quavering. "This is as close as we can ever be to her, now."
The pain in Grady's eyes crushed Edaline's already broken heart as he whispered, "you're right."
So instead of leaving the room, he scooted back onto the bed, pulling back the covers and drawing Edaline in close.
"My baby," he said, shaking with grief. "My little girl."
How long they laid there in Jolie's room, weeping again over their loss, neither of them knew. But eventually sleep found them again, and they woke to the harsh reality that though it felt like their world had ended, life would continue to cruelly plow on. It was almost offensive, somehow, that the sun continued to rise each morning. Hadn't the world ended? Couldn't it, please?
But no. Life would go on. It always did.
And day by day, the only thing that got them through was their love for each other.