My Dear Savior

Episode 19

I let out a relieved sigh when I opened the door and saw that Dae had really left. As I moved back through the main room to the little bedroom, I called out Zane’s name happily. He wasn’t there, so I looked around the rest of the house. When I couldn’t find him anywhere, I ran outside and called out his name numbly as if that would make him materialize before me. Only the oppressive blanket of humidity answered my calls. Sweat began to break out across my face as a pit began to form in my stomach.

I gasped as an insidious doubt needled my mind. “Oh no…” I whispered on a groan.

I quickly ran to my mother’s work room, hoping to prove my suspicions wrong. However, I saw immediately that my intuition had been right. He was definitely gone and would not be returning. I walked slowly to the back of the room as if in a trance. I kept telling myself this had to be a bad dream and that I would wake up again soon to the sound of horse hooves. I would be alone this time because surely this had all been a nightmare and none of it was real. It had to be a nightmare. It just had to be.

As I placed my hand in the spot where the poison my mother was working on used to rest and glanced around for the notes I knew would be missing too, I felt like my stomach had been hit with an axe of betrayal. I felt the contents in my stomach begin to boil, and I quickly rushed to the fireplace to throw up.

Tears welled in my eyes as my throat and nose burned.

“Traitor…” I barely managed to whisper from my hoarse throat as the tears streamed down my cheeks.

But I wasn’t speaking to the memory of the raven haired, flame eyed boy- no, I was speaking to myself. For I had betrayed my mother, Dae, my father, my people, and my nation the moment I had allowed Zane to enter this house. I had labeled myself a turncoat the second I placed a healing hand to his cold skin in the woods. I should have left him to die out there in the snow where he belonged instead of letting my curiosity get the better of me. Instead of slitting his throat for good measure, I had helped him. I had healed him. I had let him have me.

I let out a broken sob as I sank to the floor and grabbed my knees to my chest. I felt like I couldn’t catch my breath as my tears dropped onto my skin. For a long, scary moment, I wished that they were burning oil that could quickly light my treasonous form on fire here and now. I didn’t need a judge and jury. I didn’t need my father to hear the evidence against me. I was guilty. And I deserved to burn for treason.

I had deluded myself into believing anything other than the fact that Zane was my enemy and would only ever be my enemy…

Sitting there all alone in the middle of my mother’s workshop, wishing she would come home and wrap her loving arms around me and tell me everything would be okay- that I hadn’t just endangered the people I loved most in this world- I only just began fathom the consequences that would follow my actions. But I knew I would pay a heavy price for my treachery. Fate demanded retribution.