Jaden searched over the faces around him. His brother Ryan was at his right side, the traveller Tarsha was next to him, and on the left, he now saw that the familiar husky voice had belonged to his grandfather. Memories began to flood back of the battle, of standing before his enemy and the power that had come. They had been foolish to try to kill him. Their actions that day had decided their fates. But the innocent people that were underground and the Daijuar who had been running to save him … had he killed them too?
‘I didn’t mean to hurt them,’ he said aloud.
‘Hurt who?’ asked Vennoss.
‘The Daijuar.’
‘They are recovering,’ assured Vennoss.
‘What about the Resistance?’ asked Jaden.
‘Some did not make it,’ said Vennoss sadly. ‘But their lives were not lost in vain. If not for your actions, many more would have died.’
‘How many?’
‘It is not important,’ said Ryan.
‘How many?’ Jaden repeated angrily.
Ryan paused and looked at Vennoss for a moment. ‘We estimate two thousand.’
‘And the Alliance?’
‘More than ten thousand,’ said Tarsha, holding back a note of excitement as she unbound his arms.
Jaden shook his head, unable to make eye contact with any of those around him. When his arms were free, he began unwrapping his wrists despite his brother’s protests. He wanted to see where the endobraces had been and why it hurt so much. The skin on both arms was now scarred and distorted over charred veins. He remembered feeling them burning into him when the power had come, as if he had overloaded the endobraces somehow. No longer would he be able to use the Daijuarn energy, but he would wear the markings of them for the rest of his life.
‘Let me go,’ he said suddenly.
‘Rest, brother, you are not in good health,’ said Ryan.
‘Untie me, now, or I will.’
Hearing Jaden’s tone, Ryan looked to Vennoss to know what to do. After a moment, the white-haired man nodded, and both unbound Jaden’s chest, waist and legs. Before they could hold him back, Jaden had thrown the bed sheets up and leapt from under them, racing through the curtain and out of the medical unit. They called for him to come back, but in his haste, it seemed he had not heard them.
Jaden ran as fast as he could outside, paying no attention to the dawn or the still-smoking piles on the fields of the badly damaged terrain of Corsec city. The smell of death and burning flesh was still present, but he did not care about any of it. He was searching for something he knew was close, for something that he needed to see. In the next medical unit, he sensed it near, and he ran past the hundreds of beds where the wounded and sick lay to find it. He came to a drawn curtain in the next section, and without a request to enter he opened it and walked through.
There was a young man lying in the bed, his head bandaged heavily and his leg in a cast. Sores and scabs covered his skin, and there was blood coming through the wrap around his chest. Jaden turned to see all the people sitting around the bed looking at him questioningly. He ignored them all except for one, the girl with shadowed blonde hair sitting at the end, the young man’s head in her arms.
He thought he would feel anger for her being here, and hate that she was still with him. But as he saw Alyssa’s new love lying so helplessly before him and Alyssa with tears in her eyes by his side, he felt nothing of either, only remorse for all that had happened, and pity for those who had suffered the same fate at his people.
‘He saved her life,’ came a voice from behind him.
Jaden turned to see the Kayde of Ceahlin standing at his side. ‘What are you doing here?’ he asked.
Lendon glanced at him, maintaining eye contact briefly, searching for something. When he had found it, Lendon exhaled slowly and nodded. ‘I guess it is time you should know. He is my son,’ he said, indicating the young man lying in the bed. ‘I didn’t know that he was tending to her if that is what you think. I was busy with my people and I apologise for not keeping to my word. But even if he were not my son, I could not have let you harm someone for what happened. We are all innocent people at heart just trying to do the best we can with the circumstances we are given. To hate us is to hate life, and most of all yourself. You would have done the same if you were us. It is rare that true evil intention enters our hearts without confusion of what is real. I hope you can understand this, even with all that you have lost. Sometimes, Sentinel, there is nothing you can do to change the world.’
Jaden was silent, staring at Alyssa as she turned back to the young man lying in bed.
At first, it appeared Jaden was about to say something in reply, but then simply nodded to Lendon, and then without a word, he walked past the curtain, exiting the medical unit and leaving Alyssa with the new man she had chosen. No matter how much he wished to take her with him, he knew she was where she was meant to be.