Sensing a deep, terrible fear, Ty slowly flipped the page and saw her hand holding the back of the book.

  She gently set it down on her lap and turned to her classmates. Theo and Cyril. So warm. All her classmates made her feel so welcome, so normal. The monster she thought she was, it was gone when she was with them. To them she was the Tactician, the class lead, the one they depended on. There was no doubt—she wanted to protect that warmth. She wanted to make sure it lasted.

  Theo looked up from Cyril’s work and caught Ty looking in their direction. “Done reading?”

  Something within her stirred, thinking about the report. Knowing deep down it was true, that it couldn’t be a lie. Those were Faris’s words, the Headmistress’s. It was Theo’s name on the file, it was him who had been in the question. It was him who was fighting.

  The Tactician. He was their tactician, two years from now.

  Tactician lost in battle, dusk of the last day of the Fifteenth Circle.

  CLEAR.

  “Ty?”

  I’m so sorry, she thought, watching her hand glide over the parchment under her fingers, feeling the bumps. I’m so, so sorry. I didn’t mean for you all to suffer. I didn’t mean for you to die. I was selfish. I’m so sorry.

  “Ty.”

  Hearing the voice so close, she jumped and shut the file, staring at Theo with wide eyes.

  “What happened?”

  Seeing his face, she could only think of one thing to say. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so, so sorry,” she repeated, shaking her head, feeling tears well up in her eyes. “I’m so sorry for what I did.”

  He could only look at her with concern. “Was there something in that book?”

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  These words. These words were the ones in her heart. The ones she didn’t think were there, the ones Darius said would tell her what was wrong or right.

  “I’m so sorry for giving you my burden,” she spoke shakily, feeling the tears overflow, “I never thanked you. I never—I never told you—”

  Blinking and letting the tears fall, she scanned his now-fearful eyes. Imagining him on the floor, unable to fight back, crouched and consigned to death. “You must have been so scared. You must have been so alone.”

  A sob came up as she was going to continue, so she left the book on the floor and wiped her face with the sleeve of her cloak, repeating into it, “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry, Theo.”

  Instead of crouching down beside her, telling her it would be okay, reassuring her like he had done before, Theo did not move.

  He didn’t look back at Cyril—who was bewildered into speechlessness—and he didn’t stop to think about her words, or what he would conjure up this time to cheer her up.

  This time, it was him who was forgetting something. Something important.

  Her words had reminded him of something, something he was in the center of, something he had seen recently, but where there had been logic and reason was a giant, gaping hollowness.

  Loss.

  “In the end, I…n-never told you,” Ty sputtered, trying to breathe and regain her composure, lowering her sleeve. “I—you—”

  And then she saw Theo standing there, frozen, tears streaming down his face.

  There it was, in her heart. The be-all-and-end-all. The great equalizer, the thing that could not change, would not change, the great victor of time itself. The one thing the Earth Mother bestowed unto the world in infinitude, the one thing that remained the same all this time, throughout the years of pain and death, of blood and endless turmoil. Of arguments and regrets, of departures and goodbyes. Always hoping for a way out, a way to say those words she knew would change everything. The words in her heart, they would always come back to her, even if she could not say them aloud. Even when nothing could be forgiven, nothing could be taken back, when she could no longer say to him all the words she wanted to say, when there was only nothing but the fire and emptiness all around her.

  Her friends would be right behind her, their memories and their words, all their laughs and their smiles, all their gifts to her would keep her warm on the coldest nights, on the darkest of days. And above all, she would remember his face, his kindness, his flowers, his lights, his words, and his forgiveness. She would remember everything, all of it as she walked alone down her own path, as she wished things had been different, as she wished she could have stayed; all that she could not change, all that she wanted to protect, all of their smiles, all of the moments they shared, they would keep her going.

  Through it all, it would prevail. It would always prevail.

  The one weakness that would bring the world to ruin.