Relinquish(16)

I’m not allowed to use the weapons to hunt in Thalar. Kyan says there is no need with active supply lines up and running smoothly. I have more food than I’ve ever wanted, yet I am unhappy, for many reasons, but mostly because I feel unneeded.

Eamon and I used to be the hunters of our group. We would spend our days in the forest in search of meat. It was freeing, rewarding. We ate what he killed and nothing more. Now I feel confined and lazy, trapped within a new prison.

A pile of books collects dust on my bedside table. A gift from Aminah not long after I was moved into these quarters. She was worried I would feel lonely. I cast a contemptuous glance at the pile, knowing nothing within those pages could ease the hollowness I feel.

Bastien would have loved those books, diving through them to discover their untold treasures. Maybe that is why I’ve never opened their covers.

Kyan has gone to great lengths over the past few months, teaching me about Earth, the way it was before. My vocabulary has swelled. I can now walk through Thalar and know what dumpsters and hairdryers are, read the faded billboards that perch on rooftops, and decipher a cookbook, although it is a waste of time. No one would want to eat anything I make.

I look beyond the books to the walls. They are a light yellow, the paint a bit worn and faded, but still hold a hint of false cheer. I suppose I could have picked a room with a more drab color scheme to fit my mood, but I liked the southern light in the morning.

My walls are free of decorations, barren. I like it that way. It reminds me of the dismal grays of my cave.

I sit up, rolling my neck from side to side to release some of the stiffness that settled in during my jaunt into the future. Kyan would be proud of my accomplishment if not for the fact that I was directly disobeying his orders and blocking him completely out of my mind at the same time. He knows I am angry. Let him stew over it for a bit. Maybe it will do him some good.

Aminah came to see me last night with a basket filled with freshly baked bread and Zahra in tow. I know she only came at Kyan’s bidding. Despite the friction Zahra and I used to share over her affections for Eamon, our relationship has begun to improve, slowly. That doesn’t mean I trust her any further than I can throw her, which is a pretty good distance. I’m pretty sure I could get a good mile out of her.

Eamon has remained absent from my quarters, although I don’t find that surprising at all considering how we ended our conversation the week prior. I knew he was hurt, but so was I. He can’t always treat me like a child that needs to be protected. As much as I love his concern, I also find it to be irritatingly suffocating.

From my window last night I saw the tip of Shard lit up until well after midnight. Kyan must have called together his advisors, no doubt to discuss the next plan of attack. I wonder if he discovered anything within the pages of Drakon’s diary. Surely if he had, I would be the last person to know about it.

A knock at my door draws my attention away from my thoughts. “I’m not allowed visitors. Head pain-in-my-butt’s orders,” I call out.

“It’s me.”

I sigh, unsure if I’m ready to go head to head for round two with Eamon. I wrap my arms about my waist, preparing for the worst. “It’s unlocked.”

As the wooden door begins to swing open, I can’t help but wonder if he has already seen how this conversation will go? His ability to look into the future, to manipulate it and bend it to his will, has grown exponentially over the past year. Kyan has been a wonderful teacher, always patient and understanding.

But it was Eamon’s obsession with the future that first drove a wedge between us. He always had a plan of attack when we argued. He would stunt my anger before I even had a chance to get wound up. This I could have lived with if it hadn’t been for his obsession with one future in particular: mine.

A cloud hung over us from the first day he began digging into my future. He became withdrawn, sullen. He lost weight despite my best attempts at cooking something moderately edible. Eamon turned inward, trapped within his own powers.

It annoyed me how desperate he was to know about my destiny when I wanted no part of it. Didn’t he know I could look myself if I so desired?

Those moments when he would drift away during a conversation, I knew where he had gone. What little time we had to spend together was eaten away by his driving need to know. Having me in front of him was no longer good enough.

I tried to make things work between us, but the chasm was too great for either of us to repair on our own. Bastien left behind a gaping hole in my heart, as if he tore off a chunk and took it with him when he left, but with Eamon it was different. His rejection was the slow poison of death that rotted out my heart from the inside, making me bitter. And that bitterness was left to smolder for far too long.