Chapter 382
Micah forced Loren to drink again and Ume laid a fluttering hand on the teen's shoulder. "I really am sorry, Loren." Katelina couldn't see his face, but she imagined he was beaming.
Ume looked at the point of saying something else, but she turned away and let her eyes roam over the others, stopping at last on Verchiel. "Is he all right?"
"Your boyfriend's better than us, if that's what you mean," Micah snapped.
Ume bit her lip and carefully crept around the others to kneel next to the redhead. She reached for him, hesitated, and then finally laid a hand on his arm. He didn't move and she pulled back and dropped into a sitting position, her knees pulled up to her chest. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I didn't mean for any of this."
Micah grumbled and busied himself with Loren, and Ume hugged herself. In the dim light Katelina could see tears sparkling on her cheeks.
Verchiel's voice came so soft and low that Katelina could barely hear it, "We'll be fine."
"But you hate me now," Ume whispered. "All of you, and you- You can't even remember anything to set against it."
His sigh was so quiet it sounded like a breath. "I might remember something."
Ume perked up and her violet eyes went wide. "Really? But I thought you didn't."
"I don't know. It's more the echo of a feeling than a memory. I noticed it at the island."
"We used to live there," Ume whispered. "In Batavia, I mean. Mother and Father died. I don't remember what it was now, an illness of some kind. And you worked on the streetit was so long ago that it's a hazy blur. But your hair. I remember when you dyed it because you used-you used something and it stained the basin and the wall and everything it came in contact with; like bright red blood, and I scrubbed and I scrubbed, but it wouldn't come off. And then the dark woman came. She claimed she was free, and you-I don't remember. But I know you spoke of her, and then you didn't come home and someone said they'd seen you with her-" Ume trailed off in frustration. "It was so long ago."
Verchiel sat up and met her gaze. "If you don't remember, does it really matter?"
"Of course. It's the past that defines who we are."
He looked thoughtful. "Is it? Or is it the actions we do right here and right now that make a difference? What does it matter if someone was kind before if they're cruel now? Does their past goodness excuse their evil?"
"That sounds like a riddle."
"Maybe it is. Or maybe it's simple. You shouldn't ask yourself what I did before, but what you want me to do now."
"I-I don't know," she admitted. "In the beginning I imagined I'd find you and things would go back to the way they were but now I can't remember what that was. I guess, I thought you might join us, but I see now that that won't work. Even if Fethillen was willing to bend the rules, I don't think you want to. And, after Sushel's reaction, I'm not even sure I want to be here anymore. They've been my family for so long. That they could turn on me so quickly, with so little provocation. I don't understand it."
"It sounds like you have some thinking to do," Verchiel said.
"Yes. I do." She gave a heavy sigh. "I suppose it's too much to hope that you might be a little pleased to find out about me?"
He leaned back on his hands, and grinned, though with his cracked bleeding lips it looked macabre. "I never said I wasn't."
"No, but you didn't say you were. Never mind. I should let you get some rest. I'm sorry I didn't bring you any blood, but I couldn't get very much. Game is plentiful and we hunt daily, so we don't keep a store of it."
"It's all right. Loren needed it more than I do." He glanced in the direction of Micah and Loren, who were both lying down and pretending not to listen. "You like him, huh?"
Ume looked surprised. "He's nice and very sweet."
"I think he likes you too."
Katelina couldn't be sure in the gloom, but she thought that Ume blushed. "I hadn't thought of it that way."
"Maybe you should." Verchiel yawned loudly. "If you don't mind we can finish this conversation another time."
"Of course." Ume stood but hesitated. Once Verchiel was stretched out she leaned over him and whispered, "What about you and Jorick's human? Are you teasing them, or do you really like her?"
His answer was a soft snore.
Katelina told herself she'd misheard Ume's final question, and with that denial managed to slip into dreams of burning light and running blood. Eventually the screams faded into darkness.
The wind was chilly and Katelina saw that she was standing in front of a lake. Snow was sprinkled on the ground around her feet and ripples danced across the surface of the water. The world was cloaked in night, but she had a sense of nature; trees and plants rustled and whispered. She could see the outline of a building hiding in the dark. A siren wailed low and far away.
She turned to see someone standing near her in the snow. He gazed into the distance, staring at something she couldn't see. His long black hair stirred in the breeze and she held herself back from touching it; from running her fingers through the silky strands.
"Does it please you?"
She wasn't sure what the question referred to: his hair, their location, the warm soothing tranquility that spread through her, so she chose the second and said, "I'm tired of the cold."
"The world is cold. Cold faces, cold words, and cold hearts. All war, fight, betray, and steal to take everything that they cangold, land, liveswith the hope that these will keep them warm. But one cannot steal warmth from another. One must make their own warmth."
The words felt like wisdom, but in the dream she couldn't grasp their full meaning. "I don't understand."
"Of course you do, you need only acknowledge it. But be not troubled. You will come to see the truth when you are ready."
