Jasper couldn't be found anywhere, and that was through no lack of trying on her part. She had scoured the whole palace, and then the city, looking for him, and had just about had enough.Maybe he left, she though miserably to herself. Maybe he got annoyed at me for telling him to talk to his aunt, or he did talk to her after all and she kicked him out. Either way, it was entirely her fault.
In the end they found him aimlessly wandering the streets near the governor's palace, hollow and broken.
"Where have you been?" she shouted at him, furious. "The Elfin Generals are waiting, your aunt is waiting, Viktoria and the Low Generals are waiting-" then she saw the look in his eyes and noticed him flinch at the mention of Nala.
"Jasper," she said softly. "What happened?" He only stared out at nothing, dried tears on his cheeks and a hopeless look in his sea-green eyes. Nala's eyes.
"Jasper," she said again.
"I told her," he said hollowly. "I told her everything and-" his voice broke, and he couldn't say anything more. Jasper turned away and then said at last: "she told me to leave. To get out."
"I'm sorry,"she pleaded with him. "Oh Jasper, I'm so sorry."
"I'm all alone, now. My people will not want me when my mother tells them what I did. No one I want to want me at least-I'm sure the Crimson supporters will applaud me for my betrayal." She wanted to say that she would still want him, but she knew that was meaningless. What did it matter, when their worlds were so clearly divided?
"Have you talked to her about since?" she asked instead.
"Do you mean has she changed her mind?" he replied. "No, I haven't spoken to her since. But she won't change her mind-I never thought she would."
"Why did you go to her, then?"
"Because if I didn't, it would haunt me for the rest of my life. Every smile-" he stopped and began again. "Every smile she gave me would pierce me like the sharpest piece of glass. Every laugh would rip me to pieces, because I would know the truth. It wasn't your fault-I would have told her anyway. At least I'm not so much of a coward anymore."
They sat together in silence, unsure of what to say. After minutes passed, he finally spoke to her.
"Myra," he began. "Why don't you hate me like the others do?"
"Because-because you were seventeen. You were afraid. And you didn't choose this life, and neither did I. Because I don't know what I would have done in the same situation. Because sometimes the faces of the ones I killed haunt me.
"Because...because there's something about you I just can't hate, Jasper. Something in the way you laugh, in the way you manage to joke when the world is against us."
They were silent together for a while longer in the burnt city, and then Myra went alone to the council.
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"Where do we hit next?" asked Talia impatiently.
"Kazimiar is right in our path," Myra said carefully. "But we don't want to give the Empress too much more time to prepare."
"We could split up," Nala suggested. "The shield's location is unknown, but it can't be over the entire empire. The valkyries could take a city and we can also claim a piece of this empire ourselves."
"Could you take Kazimiar?" Viktoria mused.
"Alone? Yes."
"How quickly?"
"If it works, we could have it in minutes."
"Oh really? And why is that, when the valkyries are the reason we won this war?" Diaz hissed.
"Then it is agreed," Viktoria said. "Tarua Teris will distract the empress by taking Kazimiar, and under the cover of night, the valkyries will attack."
No one contradicted her, and in this alliance, that counted as a resounding yes.
-----------------
Nala
They were his friends, his family. Her friends, her family.
He had chosen to take the guard. Then he had betrayed them all, and kept betraying them for years afterwards, slaughtering his own and wearing the colours of the empire he had sworn to fight back against. He was a coward, and a traitor.
How do you not turn your back on the coward who got your husband killed?
How could she not?
Nala raged at him. Hated the boy he had been in that moment-the one responsible for the death of Peter. She threw things and screamed at him, cursing him. She cried tears of betrayal and anger.
But she could not hate him, no matter how hard she tried.