Ashes

Twenty-Four: Of Renewal

A/N: Guys!!! We're only six chapters away from the end of book 2!

I had always grown up hoping that the world was always keeping my best intentions in mind. That every time things were good, they would stay that way.

There's a simple way to explain how that idea was removed from my head: what goes up, must come down.

The first few days after our meeting are basically eventless; I spend time with Echo, Brynn, and Andi for the most part, keeping up our training as we wait for the peace to crumble. My sister and I, especially, have found a sort of solace in the process of sparring with each other; it requires so much focus that it doesn't leave much room for anything else. I don't talk to her about Hayden and she doesn't talk to me about Kyros.

And I've been trying-oh, how I've been trying-to avoid even thinking of my skywalker, but there's a guilt like toxic gas that rests within the cavity of my chest and no matter how hard I try, his ghost doesn't leave me alone. Echo understands. I do not.

It's only a few days later that I snap.

It might have been the boy who resembled my skywalker that I had seen on the train early that morning, or maybe it was the way my mother asked about what happened to Mikhail on our weekly phone call, or maybe even the fact that Kyros and I have only gotten closer, but the fact stays the same: I'm not ready to move on. I can't; not when I see his grin every time I close my eyes and hear his voice whenever I fall asleep.

Someone I cared for gave his life up to a love that wasn't requited, and I am still breathing while he is nothing but ashes in a desert full of dust. All I can feel is guilt; it fills up my lungs and chokes out my happiness and leaves nothing but ashes in my mouth.

He was never even given a funeral. We accepted his sacrifice and moved on with our lives. Mostly.

He deserved better than this, so I tell Kyros that we need to fix this. He agrees with me as soon as I propose this insanity. Ezekiel manages to pull some strings and convince Gwen Stevens to send a Canaan crew to Astheneia. Someone else is assigned to build a gravestone.

The crew returns a week later with a jar full of sandy ashes. How they got it, or if it's even the right stuff is beyond me, but it's something.

Andi, Brynn, and Echo never really knew him, so they elect to leave us to mourn on our losses. Callie refuses to return, even for this.

The rest of us huddle around the hilltop where we'd buried the jar, a marbled headstone frozen in place.

The inscribed letters upon the dark stone is simple; it's his name and timeline, and none of us could find words adequate enough to fill the space beneath it. The rainclouds form above us in a bitter sort of irony, and I can't help but scoff.

And everything washes over me like a wave. I've written out what I want to say; it's two pages of tear-stained paper that suddenly seems so incredibly inadequate. He's dead because of me. He died with a broken heart because of me.

"I don't really know where to start with this," Felix chuckles, the mirth sapped from his voice as a thundercloud rolls behind us somewhere. His hands tremble as he flips through his notes.

"I didn't know you for as long as everyone else did, but for the time I did, you were an incredible friend. You were sacrificial and loved all of us like family, and I know none of us can thank you enough for what you did. We're all only standing here because of you," he says, and tosses a handful of earth onto the jar that's now seated in the hold in the earth. With a sniffle uncharacteristic of our goofball, he holds his chin up high as he walks away.