thea perkins đĄ cyra noavek (cyra) wrote in dunhavenic, @ 2019-05-21 21:15:00 |
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Theaâs past before sheâd been a Perkins felt like someone elseâs life on most days, but on the day before she would become a Stone, it was difficult not to think about from where sheâd come. It was further exacerbated by the dreams that plagued her, and reconciling those with the memories that also felt like nightmares was even more challenging than usual. Steam filled the bathroom as Thea pulled back the curtain and stepped in, wincing as she stepped under the hot water, half expecting to feel it burn as it hit the raw wound that didnât actually exist on her head. Get some of her hair, too. The memory of Ryzekâs punishment, of the way heâd exposed her as a Shotet traitor, as their motherâs murderer, and the way heâd called for her execution by way of nemhalzak shuddered through her. As with all of the memories, it felt too real, as though sheâd only just lived through Vas taking her skin from neck to head. She shivered despite the heat and reached up to touch her head. It wasnât real. The scar was real, though. The one that lived beneath her hair, traveling along most of her skull. The one that should have been her death sentence the night that Ryan had attacked her. Ryan. Ryzek. And then there was Liam, the brother whose face swam behind her eyelids as she fought to hold onto the memories that mattered. Liam holding the back of her bicycle as she struggled to learn how to ride. Liam making space for her in his twin-sized bed on the nights when she couldnât otherwise sleep. Liam cheering even more loudly than their parents at her high school graduation. The past, both in this life and the other, should have been too much to bear, but Thea took comfort in the fact that, when it came to brothers, her memories only made her appreciate the one whoâd gotten it right even more than she already did. Ryzek could take her title, her status, her identity, but he could never take from her what sheâd found here in Dunhaven. She understood now what Eijeh meant to Akos. She understood why it had been so easy for Akos to betray her for the chance to save his brother. Sheâd forgiven Gareth for what Akos had done, even if she knew that needing to forgive him at all hadnât been fair to him, but she hadnât fully understood. Not until now. Not until sheâd realized that, despite everything both Ryan and Ryzek had done to her, she had a brother she would risk everything for. âYou wonât kill me because you love my delusional brother far too much for your own good.â Thea knew what it was like to have a love sheâd risk everything for, too. Cyra clamped her hand around Ryzekâs arm. She wanted to show these people who he really was. And pain always did that, took the insides out. Ryzek screamed into his teeth, and thrashed, trying to throw her off. The memories had hit her all at once and she had woken up covered in sweat that morning, and sheâd been relieved that Gareth had already left for the day. They were memories sheâd needed to work through on her own. The hot shower was helping. And it helped that the memories had been as revelatory as theyâd been painful. âEijeh was in the amphitheater, he was right there. You could have grabbed him. Why didnât youââ Akosâ mouthâstill under Cyraâs fingersâtwitched into a smile. âBecause I came for you, you idiot.â âCan I kiss you?â Akos said. âOr will it hurt?â Her eyes went wide. Then she said breathlessly, âAnd if it hurts?â And smiled a little. âLife is full of hurt anyway.â Thea thought she could have cried, and maybe she might have before Cyra. But Cyra wouldnât cry, and Thea couldnât, either. Neither of them were strangers to pain, both the physical and the emotional kind. But, now, Cyra knew what Thea had learned years ago--life was not only pain, it was also love, and kindness, and family, and joy. Thea had found it once in the form of this family that had wanted her and loved despite how broken sheâd been, and they had continued to love and want her as she had healed. And Thea had found it again in the arms of Gareth Stone, the man she would marry tomorrow beneath the stars, the man who loved her at her best and at her worst and every moment in between. It was really something to know that Cyra felt even a fraction of that with Akos. âI donât know what you want to call it, what we are to each other now,â Cyra said. âBut I wanted you to know that your friendship has . . . quite literally altered me.â âYou donât know what to call it?â Akos said. His armor hit the ground with a clatter, and he reached for her. Wrapped an arm around her waist. Pulled her against him. Whispered against her mouth: âSivbarat. Zethetet.â One Shotet word, one Thuvhesit. Sivbarat referred to a personâs dearest friend, someone so close that to lose them would be like losing a limb. âWhat does it mean, âzethetetâ?â âBeloved,â he said softly. She couldnât stop smiling. Thea let the water take over, its rhythmic beating against her skin a balm to the memories that hurt, and the ghost of wounds that would take a long time to heal. But she and Cyra both had proven that they were survivors, that they were stronger than theyâd ever known they could be. And she and Cyra both had love, something that had, until now, been so foreign the the Shotet girl. No matter how ugly either world got, nothing could smother the beauty theyâd both found in it. She shoved the memories of Ryzek, and of Ryan, deep down within her, deciding to not dignify either of them with too much thought. Instead she focused on the good memories. Sivbaret. Zethetet. And she focused on the good memories yet to come. Tomorrow she was marrying Gareth. There was no place in that for people who couldnât love her the way she deserved to be loved. |