Two
I was sitting on a stone wall overlooking the mountain valley below staring down at the package of paper in my hands. The ivy crawling over the walls tickle my skin as the breeze blows it gently against me.
I didn't even hear her walk up the path, she had stopped donning metal for fashion and without it, and it is difficult to hear her coming.
"Hello Mare." Evangeline purred leaning over the stones next to me, looking down at the cliff below. "Are you going to open them or not?" She asked not bothering with pleasantries.
"How?" I stumble over the word. I haven't spoken to her in at least a month. I knew she was in Montfort and I had caught glimpses of her silver hair from a far in the market a few times but we had no reason to speak. Not anymore.
She pointed up the mountainside to a villa's balcony overlooking the stone path. A familiar red head waved and smiled down from the railing not twenty feet above us. "Hello Mare," Elaine Haven called from her spot on the terrace. Her fire hair cascading over one shoulder.
"Elaine and I have been watching you for almost an hour starring at those papers." Evangeline said calling back my attention to her, "I'll help you out, one of them is a wedding invitation. I got one as well." At the sudden blush in my cheeks and the widening of my eyes she quickly clarified, "It is for Julian and Sara's wedding." If I didn't know better, I could have sworn she smiled as she looked back down at the stone, curling a piece of ivy around her finger.
"Oh?" I responded pulling at the red string holding the papers together. "And the other two?" I asked, knowing she would be of no help.
I hear her sigh and see her out of the corner of my eye pulling herself up on the short wall to sit beside me, her facing the villas. "Listen, I know we're not friends. But at this point I don't really think we are enemies either. Am I wrong?" She asks looking at me sidelong.
She isn't wrong. I don't hate her like I once did. She has saved my life more times than I can count and I hers. But still when I look at her I see her brother, and then I see Shade. I shake my head anyway.
She holds her hands in her lap and is quiet for a moment before she speaks again. "War makes us all do terrible things." She looks up and meets my eyes. "I know this is no consolation and if I were you I…" She trailed off shaking her head, looking back down at her hands. "I don't know how many people my brother has killed. I'm sure you could understand not wanting to tally up the death toll." She looks up at me again. "But he regrets it. Killing your brother. He told me so himself. He said if he could erase anyone of them, bring back anyone that he had taken, it would have been your brother."
I look out to the mountain not knowing what to do with that admission, the slate gray of the stone is cold and unyielding. It doesn't change anything. Shade is still dead, but I feel something loosen in my chest. "I won't kill him." I remind her quietly letting my gaze meet Evangeline's. "But I can't promise that Farley won't." I look down at the package in my hands, "I don't think Shade would want me to at this point." As I say it, I hadn't thought it before, but it feels true. I don't think Shade would want me to hold on to that anger.
"And I…" She sighed looking up to the sky. "I let my father die. I let Annabel and Julian kill him."
I snap my head up to look at her. "What?" And then I remember what Farley had told me a few months ago, Volo Samos falling like a shining stone just to splatter on to the deck of the Lakelander Queens battle ship.
She doesn't explain but continues as if I hadn't said anything. "What I'm trying to tell you is that there are people who left this war with bigger crosses and heavier burdens to carry then you. We have all done terrible things to survive. When," She stops looking at the package in my hands, "If you read those letters just try to think past what happened to you and think about what he went through. Whether right or wrong, put yourself in his position." She hops down from the stone wall brushing dust from her pants. "And maybe, just maybe, I'm hoping the little lightening girl gets her happily ever after." She looks up at me then, her eyes meeting mine. "She deserves it. And if you tell anyone I said that, I'll kill you." I smile weakly at that, knowing the threat is empty. She turns on her heel and starts back up the stone path. "Let me know if you ever want to spar, I know you must be itching for it."
Again, she isn't wrong.
I don't know how long I sat on that wall. I'm not sure when Evangeline got so wise, or kind for that matter but of course, it doesn't change anything. Or… does it change everything? I put the package of letters back in my pocket without reading them. As I walk down the path and I could have sworn I heard a disappointed groan from above and someone hissing 'Coward'. Maybe I will take her up on her sparring offer.