i worshipped at the altar of losing everything )
She can’t be gone.
But she is.
He’d seen her.
His beloved sister, bled dry as he’d succumbed to his rage. As he’d gritted his teeth and then let out a guttural scream, a sound carved out of the darkest corner of his soul. (He has chosen to believe it was the sound alone that had splintered the tiger’s edges and then shattered them because he is not ready to confront the possibility of magic just yet).
He knows that the word that gets swallowed up by all of her grief is immortal. And how can he explain to his mother that he’d kissed his sister’s head and caught her blood on his tongue and then felt the gold in his own veins.
He struggles to pick himself up off the ground, staggers to his feet, a pathetic child in the face of his mother’s pain. The knowledge that it is his fault, that he is the one who has brought her to ruin, compounds the ache in his chest.
He drags in a shuddering breath, chokes out his apology. “I’m sorry,” he coughs, pressing his eyes tightly closed. “Mother, I’m so sorry,” he whispers, the words stilted by the vise tightened around his throat. He swallows thickly in an effort to loose it, but it remains.
What happened?
What happened?
What happened?
He forces his eyes open because he will not be a coward. He will look his mother in the eye. “It was my fault and I’m sorry.” Oh, how fiercely he wants to look away! So that he will not have to look into the face of his mother’s pain and let it erode him from the inside. “I went to see her and I was followed and I don’t… I don’t know how it happened, but I couldn’t save her and I’m sorry.”
