“I know,” I say quickly, cutting him off to leave yet another unbearable truth unspoken:
After tonight, I will have no one left in Gravenburg.
My voice is hoarse when I murmur, “I will see you soon,” and make my way to the door before he can see the glint of sorrow in my eyes.
As I charge out into the snow, I do nothing to stop the frost from settling over me. Instead of clinging to my cloak, I let it ripple behind me, and although I could pull my hood up, I’d rather feel the sting of winter on my cheeks, let the chill freeze whatever tears are left inside of me so that I might face my sister with dignity.
By the time I reach our home, I feel just as raw as ever. The walk was too brisk, the distance too short, to allow for any real hardening of my disposition.
But it becomes clear that I never stood a chance at matching her resolve anyway, not when I find my sister just inside our childhood home, standing taller than I’ve ever stood a day in my life, let alone in these recent ones when grief has thoroughly consumed me. If her unwavering stance wasn’t intimidating enough, the large raven perched on her shoulder is. At least I know she received my message and that I don’t need to bother telling her where our mother and father are.
My boots sound on the wood as I enter behind the two of them. Only the raven deigns to glance at me. Kalli stays where she is, in the middle of the ransacked room, with her hands clasped before her. The longer I wait to be acknowledged, the more I start to remember why she irritates me so much. Leave it to Kalli to depart years ago for a fancy job with the Senate, to have visited only a handful of times and only to do so to gloat about how important her position is for the welfare of Arcathain, then to come here after our parents have been slaughtered, and to hold her head up high like she is above it all, unfazed by the anguish.
“I didn’t expect you so soon,” Kalli says, tone as cold as the winter’s breeze. The bone-white ropes of hair heavy against her spine barely move when she finally glances over her shoulder, one slender brow raised. “You came alone?”
My knee-jerk reaction is to remind her that I am alone now. With Mother and Father now gone, with her all the way on the other side of the continent, and with Dimitri just a few hours away from his departure, I have no one. But Kalli and I shared a childhood. She was a part of as many of my memories of Dimitri as our brother Tor was, so I know that she’s asking about him, and rather than bristling the second we start our interaction, I rein myself in long enough to answer her.
“Dimitri’s still at home. He offered to come, but I asked him not to. This seemed like a family matter.” Crossing the room so that I’m not just speaking to the official, silver insignia on her purple cape, when I’m finally facing her, she is as unreadable as ever. Never before has she looked more like our mother in that way. But before I can follow that thought to the pain it leads to, I add hurriedly, “He did, however, extend an invitation for you to join us for supper once we’re done here. I don’t know if you‘ve heard but—”
“Let me guess?” she asks. “The Shadow Crusade?”
With a frown, I tilt my head.
Kalli exhales a single curt breath through her nose. “I thought he was better than that. All the Shadow Crusade has ever done is wasted men on the wrong fight.”
Rage, unrelenting and wild, boils inside me. She speaks as if he’s some common fool. She speaks as if every Crusader hasn’t fought for the people of Arcathain and sacrificed their lives just to save others. If it weren’t for the Shadow Crusade who rushed to our aid during the demon scourge here, I’d likely be dead.
“Why?” I snap, casting all notions aside of having a civil conversation anymore. “Because Uncle Esmond says it’s the wrong fight?”
“It’s Magistrate, Halira. I know you’ve been living with Father all these years, but do not let yourself inherit his treasonous tongue.”
My fingers tighten into fists at her proper speech. She never used to call him Father, nor our mother Mother. Not until she took such a high and prestigious position in the Capital.
“Don’t call Pa a traitor,” I growl, inching closer, my nails digging into my frozen palms.
Kalli’s lips part, but before anything comes out, she presses them back into a hard line. She closes her eyes long enough to regain her composure, and I’m envious of how quickly she can return to her neutral state, even if there is always a displeased angle to her features.
“I’m not calling him a traitor. Our father was a good man, but he had his flaws.”
“And the Magistrate doesn’t?” I sass. “As far as I can tell, the Crusaders are the only ones doing anything to protect us. They patrol the borders of the Shadowthorn night and day. They defend the people when we fall under attack. Maybe they’d be more effective if the Magistrate brought the rest of his army here to aid us in their cause?”
Kalli’s eyes widen, but where I expect to find rage, fear softens their usually hard edges instead. “Us? Halira, please don’t tell me you have enlisted?”
My cheeks burn at the suggestion. It had been a slip of phrase, obviously. I only said us because of the recent attack and how personal all of this had become. But now that she’s brought it up, I do feel the pull of it. As a child, becoming a Crusader had always been a dream of mine and Tor’s, but when my brother lost his life to the Shadowthorn, when his death shattered my mother and father, I abandoned that dream. Suddenly, I was afraid of what I could lose, and of what being lost could do to those I love.
But now, what’s stopping me? After we finish our parents’ pyres and send their souls off into the next plane, Kalli will return to the coast, Dimitri leaving soon after her, and the parents I’d stayed behind to protect are gone now.
“Halira. Tell me you haven’t enlisted in the Shadow Crusade.”
“No, I haven’t,” I say finally. “But maybe I should.”
Rage flickers behind her cold eyes, but her exterior remains unchanged: hardened, unflinching. “The Shadow Crusade? The only ones who join that dying cause are those eager to die themselves. You’re not actually selfish and pathetic enough to want to take your own life just because our parents are dead now, are you? Many have lost far more than their parents, Halira.”
Fury spins me around and I bang my fists against the nearest thing. The table shakes with fervor. “I’m not doing this because I want to die! These people need protection, and the Magistrate isn’t giving it to them!”
“That’s because the real fight is overseas on Illashore with the mages. If you want to fight so badly, if you truly want to protect our people and these lands, join the Magistrate’s Legion. Avenge our ancestors, and restore the soil that is rightfully ours, once and for all, before Qaeus has spread its reach too far to reverse.”
Shaking my head, I lean into my hands where they’re still pressed into the wood. Kalli left before the Blight reached us, so she’s never seen a demon; she can’t know the danger that she’s suggesting I leave the people on the borders to; she didn’t see our neighbors mauled, that child eviscerated, our parents feasted upon.
“The mages don’t care about us anymore,” I say through gritted teeth. “They fled the danger and now they’re living their lives as if we’re already dead. And if it’s war they want, they’ll overpower us anyway. We don’t have magic to fight them—”