I sit by Melkin’s body until dawn bleeds across the sky. Quinn sits with me while Willow remains on guard somewhere in the trees.
I didn’t ask him to sit with me. But somehow having him there, quietly present without offering judgment, makes the ragged edges in me settle just a bit. I haven’t spoken since my final words to Melkin, but as the gloom around us lifts, I raise my eyes to Quinn’s.
“I killed him.”
He nods.
“I thought he was going to kill me first. He attacked me. He had his weapons out. I was sure he was going to kill me.” I was sure, but now I’m not. Now, I’m looking back and remembering I jumped up from my travel mat with my knife already raised for battle while his was still trained at the ground. I lunged at him, blade out, before he ever raised his sword.
He was trying to disarm me and defend himself. And I killed him.
I struggle to my feet and run to the edge of the trees, where I fall to my knees and retch.
I killed him.
My stomach is empty, but I keep heaving.
I killed him.
I’m shaking, my teeth clattering against each other violently, when Quinn’s solid arms wrap around me from behind and hold me against his warm chest.
“You thought you were defending yourself.”
I did think that, but it doesn’t comfort me now, and it won’t comfort Eloise.
“It happened fast. Did you make the best decision you could given the information you had?”
I twist around to look at him, his warm brown eyes steady on mine, his straight black hair haloed by the early morning light. “I don’t want absolution.”
“I’m not offering any. Take the blame that belongs to you, and nothing else. I’m asking you to look it in the eye and face it for what it is.”
But I can’t face it. Not really. If I do, if I let it cut me like I deserve, everything else will spill out too. Oliver. Dad. Melkin. Logan at the Commander’s mercy in a dungeon. It’s all one gaping pit of loss, destruction, and grief, and if I feel it, I’ll never be able to protect the device and deliver judgment.
I don’t even have to ask the silence to take it from me. It’s already gone. Slipping into the emptiness before I make the conscious choice to send it there, and leaving me numb.
I push away from Quinn, and he lets me. Why shouldn’t he? I mean nothing to him. I’m just a broken girl who lost her father and then killed a man. And I’m about to go kill another.
Gathering my belongings, I stow them in my pack and then turn to find Quinn and Willow packed as well, standing by Melkin’s body.
I can’t abandon him for the forest animals to eat. Leaving my pack beside Dad’s grave, I use my knife to start digging a new one a few yards away. Soon, Quinn and Willow drop down beside me and dig as well.
“I’ll do it.” I don’t want their help. I need to do this for Melkin. Alone. A small piece of atonement in the lifetime of penance I’m going to serve for my crime.
“We can help. It will get done much faster,” Willow says, but Quinn lays a hand on her arm, and they pull back.
It takes me almost an hour. I use my knife and then scoop dirt out with my bare hands, letting the dust of his grave mingle with the stains of his blood on my skin. Then the three of us lift him and lay him gently down. When Willow picks up his walking stick to lay across his chest, I hold out my hand for it.
On our first day in the Wasteland, the Cursed One incinerated everything but Melkin’s weapons. His sword is far too long and heavy for me to carry across the Wasteland, but I can bring this back. A reminder of what I’m capable of. A faint comfort for the wife he left behind.
Together, we push the soil back into place until all that remains is a little hill of dirt. Quinn stands beside me, a solid, reassuring presence I refuse to lean on. Willow stands across from us, scanning the surrounding trees, her bow already in her hand. I should say something. A eulogy. A good-bye. But Melkin deserves to be memorialized by someone other than the girl who took his life, and I don’t know how to put into words the cost of what I’ve done.
I turn away. I have a mission to complete. When it’s over, I’ll look for absolution. When it’s over, I’ll find what comfort is left to me.
I refuse to brush the dirt from my hands. Scooping up my pack, I arrange it against my back and slide my Switch into its slot so I can carry Melkin’s ebony walking stick instead. When Quinn and Willow pick up their packs too, I frown at them.
“You don’t need to come. I can find my way back on my own.”
“Can you?” Quinn asks.
“I can find what I need to find.”
“We’ll go with you.”
“Why? You don’t even know me.”
“I knew your father.” His voice is steady, but pain runs beneath it. “And you were right when you said we still owe him a debt. I’d like to pay that debt by escorting you through the Wasteland.”
There’s a quiet insistence in his voice, and I’m too tired to argue. Besides, what do I care if two Tree People tag along? It isn’t going to slow me down or change my plans.
“Fine. But remember how you insisted on coming with me when you find I’ve landed you right in the middle of a war.”