Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 77692 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 388(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77692 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 388(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
“Father?” Bothaki questions, but I hear the pain in his voice.
My father’s eyes open at his other son’s voice, and he looks back and forth between us, sad eyes darting between the two whose hearts I can tell he’s about to break.
“My mother or my sister?” I repeat.
Who is the reason for the tears on my father’s face? Who is the cause of the rupture of his soul that I can see in his gaze? Who have we lost? Who do we mourn?
“Your …” he croaks, but the words stop as he clears his throat. “Your mother.”
His mouth continues moving, but I don’t hear a word. Luna hugs me, but I only see her pressed against me. I don’t feel her arms. I could swear I hear a gut-wrenching scream leave my brother, but I feel frozen, not even able to turn my head to look his way. How can anything that happens in this room matter, when my very world has just shattered apart?
TWELVE
Duty. It’s been the only thing that elicits any words out of Halun since the moment he found out his mother had died. He did not speak, and I’m not even sure he really heard, while his father told the family what happened on Earth. That Jozay had gone with The Opposition to meet with The New Order, but that the meeting was nothing more than a trap. Many humans had been killed, but only one Hallan. Jozay.
When Nowas told us that Jozay would be buried on Earth, and that Vabila would perform all necessary rituals over her funeral procession, Halun only uttered four words.
“Vabila comes home now.”
But his father sadly shook his head. “She says she will not leave her mother’s body so soon. And that she feels she must stay to finish what her mother …” Nowas had to stop to swallow. “What her mother gave her life for.”
Halun only casted his eyes down and remained silent the rest of the time we were in the room. Nowas retreated to his rooms the last few days, and the decisions and many questions from his father’s kingdom have fallen upon Halun’s shoulders. I hear my mate’s stricken voice speak when he needs to, and never more. I bring him food to ensure he eats, clean him and dress him when he must leave the room, and when his duties are done and I can see the toll they’ve taken on him, I drag him to bed. That’s the only time the stoniness that’s overtaken him since his mother’s passing bleeds away. His arms wrap around me the moment I lay beside him, so tightly that it sometimes feels hard to breathe, but there’s no way I would ever tell him to loosen his hold. If my back is to his front, I feel the way he barely breathes behind me, and when he finally does exhale, how it shudders out of him, full of grief and sadness. But it’s even worse when I’m facing him. His eyes stare into mine, two black orbs of devastation. I dare not look away, not until he finally loses his fight with exhaustion and his haunted eyes drift shut. It doesn’t last long, though, because each night leads to a fitful sleep. I don’t have to ask to know what his nightmares are about.
A knock at the door wakes me, and although I know Halun has to be the one to handle things at the moment with his father not having left his room in days, I hate that anyone is disrupting the only peace he seems to get now. Hoping I can buy him just a little more time, I hurry from the bed to put on a robe and open the door.
“Yes,” I say when I peek my head out.
“I’m sorry to disturb you and Waliz,” the Hallan says as he bows his head. “But we have another message from Earth.”
My heart sinks. Could it be more bad news? Could Halun handle more bad news?
“Just … give him a little time, okay?” I ask.
The Hallan gives me a tight smile and nods. I close the door as he turns to leave, but I find my mate has awoken, anyway. He takes a deep breath and begins to head towards where he keeps the bags for the bathing hall. His shoulders are slumped, head dropping forward as he walks. He will never let his people see him this way, but I do, each day, and it kills me more each time.
“If you keep going on like this, it will break you,” I say softly.
“I’m already broken, Luna.”
My eyes would widen at him speaking at all if it weren’t for the way my heart squeezes tight at his words. I walk over to him with determined steps that I know he can hear from the way his back muscles tense. I don’t try to turn him around, instead stepping between him and the shelf he was heading towards. When I bring my hands to his face, his eyes dart away from mine, but I silently stare at him until his stare finally meets mine.