MEMORIES
Captain Kullen left me today. With his wounds fully healed, his memory returned, and even his uniform scrubbed clean, there was nothing left to keep him here.
We sat on that boulder by the grassy knoll that overlooks the falls. Even the Rook had joined us, though he seemed more interested in bathing himself than watching the river below.
Nubrevnans crawled across the forest, the shore. At least a hundred women and men, and with one angry Windwitch at the fore.
“Merik,” Kullen informed me, “acting like he always does. He will budget and ration, even to the detriment of his own health … until I’m involved. Then he will waste a hundred sailors and witches and boats and food.”
“It’s what Thread-family does,” I said quietly.
Something in my tone must have betrayed my thoughts, for Kullen’s brows pinched, and he offered a gentle smile. “I’m sorry about the Sisters.”
I pretended not to hear, and in my most Hilga-like, matter-of-fact manner, I got to my feet, dusted off my tunic, and declared, “There’s something I need to tell you.”
He winced. “That sounds ominous.”
“When you leave the glamour”—I gestured south—“you’ll forget everything that happened here. The memories will get buried in a place you cannot find them.”
His eyebrows shot high. Then, in a flurry of limbs and speed, he hauled to his feet. “I’ll forget everything? Even you?”
I nodded.
“I didn’t forget when I left Paladins’ Hall. On the beach, I remembered you!”
“Because the glamour doesn’t reach inside the mountain.”
“But I don’t want to forget you, Ryber. Or … anything that’s happened. Please—can’t you change the spell?”
“No.” I twisted away to frown in the Rook’s general direction. I knew this would not go well, yet it was turning out harder than I’d imagined.
Because I didn’t want him to forget me either.
I hopped off the boulder, and grass blades scratched at my knees.
Kullen followed, leaping down in a graceful whip of wind. His shadow stretched long over the meadow.
“Is this why you made me write down what I remembered? You knew I would forget.”
“Hye,” was all I said before striding to the falls’ edge.
The Rook paused his cleaning to watch me stalk his way with Kullen fast on my heels.
“Then I won’t leave,” Kullen said, though it was less assertion and more plaintive beg. “I’ll stay here—”
“And do what?” I cut in. “This is no place for you, and an entire army is trying to find you.”
“A navy,” he murmured in a very Captain Kullen-like correction. Then, with sudden animation, he added, “You said ‘buried.’ That the memories would be ‘buried in a place I cannot find them’—which means they’ll still be in here. I just have to … to dig them up somehow.”
“You won’t be able to.” It took all my control to keep my stern Hilga mask in place.
“I will,” he insisted, and there was an edge to his voice I’d never heard before. A determination—a strength that could tame storms and summon cyclones.
“It’s time,” I said, motioning to the falls. To the river below. “You need to go before some Nubrevnan accidentally finds this place and I’m forced to kill him.”
He sniffed, a bitter sound. “You would never follow through with Rule 37.” He strode to the cliff’s edge, and though he scowled down at the sailors and ships, I do not think he truly saw them.
“Will we ever meet again?” he asked eventually, dragging his gaze back to mine.
I hesitated. There was one side of Lady Fate’s knife, one path that I could take in which I was certain we would meet again. The answers to healing Sirmaya might reside somewhere in that Paladin mind of his, meaning one day I would need to find him.
And if I was being honest, I wanted to find him.
But there is always the sharp, hidden side of Lady Fate’s knife, where what we want is not what we ultimately get.
“I … will try,” I forced out, groping for the right words. Then I bobbed my head curtly and repeated, “I will try to find you. One day, Captain.”
“Ah.” His shoulders relaxed. A warm breeze gusted around us—not from the summer’s day, but a charged wind. A happy wind.
Then Kullen flashed me his widest grin yet, and I couldn’t help but match it with my own.
Either he was getting better at smiling, or I was getting used to it.
“Good-bye, Captain,” I said with a small bow.
He lifted a fist to his heart and swept a bow so low that his pale head scraped across the grass. One bow for me, then a second for the Rook, who still splashed upon the shore.
“Safe harbors, Ryber Fortiza,” he declared as fresh, magicked winds furled in. The grass lashed and waved. “And safe harbors to you, the Rook.”
Then Kullen Ikray launched off the knoll, leaving me, the Convent, and his memories of us both far behind.