Brotherhood Saga 03: Death (46 page)

“This is what you get,” Nova mumbled, “for overthinking everything.”

“Sorry?” Katarina asked.

“I
’m talking to myself,” he replied. “Don’t worry, hon.”

“Are you sure we should be eating out on the dock?”

“Why shouldn’t we?”

“I don
’t know. I just don’t want to get harassed by the guards.”

“Fuck them. This is our picnic, not theirs. They can make their own if they want one so bad.”

With a smile on her face, Katarina settled down at the edge of the dock and allowed her feet to dangle above the water as Nova began to unroll the sheet that would serve as their picnic cover. The sound of crows alight in the distance, laughing and jeering likely at the stupid humans who prepared to do stupid human things, Nova lifted his head to eye the creatures that sat in the far trees across the pond and offered them a brief nod as one spread its wings as if beckoning for a fight.

“They
’re funny little things,” Katarina said, as if echoing his sentiments verbally instead of mentally.

“They are,” Nova agreed. “What do you want first?”

“A snack cake would be fine.”

He pulled one of the miniaturized treats from its paper wrapping and offered it to his wife.

All right,
he thought, watching Katarina as she began to nibble at her treat.
How am I going to do this?

The most obvious way to do it was to just come right out and say it.
Katarina,
he would proclaim, his voice not in the least proud and sounding like something resembling a cross between a scared boy and a mouse,
I’ve been having some problems and I need to talk to you about them.

He would then say, in clear, precise and extraneous detail, that Miko
’s sudden and unexpected death had struck him in ways he could have never possibly imagined. He’d always considered the Elf a friend—had, in ways, even went so far as to call him a brother—but the fact that they had always been so emotionally distant had left him feeling troubled as to what could have been going through his head near the end of his life. He knew that the Elf suffered, if only because of his age and the implications that came from it, and knew that regardless of the false exterior he put on there seemed to be something dwelling beneath the surface, knotting itself into a black tumor and eating him alive. Coupled with Odin’s explicit disappearance, it seemed he’d just been struck between the eyes by a hammer and expected to see straight for the next three days. No man could run blind and expect not to run into barriers, no person could look forward and see with eyes clouded by blood, and no man, woman or child could expect to count the individual stones in the path when they could not see a thing. To believe such an ordeal was to diminish the human character to a point where they might as well all have been blind like moles beneath the earth who see and feel nothing more than vibrations within the earth.

“Katarina,” he said, drawing his wife
’s name out to catch her attention.

“Yes?” she asked.

“I… I need to talk to you about something. Something important.”

“What is it, honey?”

Here goes nothing.

With a deep breath, a long exhale and an even more threatening c
ase of the shakes throughout his arms, he said, “I’ve been having some trouble over the past weeks.”

“Nova?”

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed it or not, but… well… I’ve been having a really rough time and I’m not sure how much longer I can keep it to myself.”

“I knew something was wrong,” she sighed, setting the last half of her snack cake down. “When you left last night…”

“Yeah?”

“You were having a moment, weren
’t you?”

“I
’d be lying if I said I didn’t.”

“What
’s going on, Nova? What’re you feeling?”

“Like I did nothing to help a person I considered a friend—like I sat by and watched him die before abandoning his son to watch him run dozens of leagues away to a place he could be dead in.”

“Don’t think that.”

“How
can’t
I when almost all I think about is whether or not he’s alive?” he asked, struggling to maintain his composure as what felt like a sob began to rise in his chest. “Goddammit, Katarina—it’s like I turned a blind eye and left him to die just like his father.”

“You did no such thing.”

“Yes I did, honey, because if I’d’ve known something was going on, I would’ve stopped him before he even had the chance to
think
about leaving.”

“You c
an’t blame yourself for Odin’s actions,” she said, reaching up to set a hand on his face and stroking the end of his beard with the tip of her thumb. “He’s a grown man. He should know what he’s doing.”

“But that
’s the thing—he
doesn’t
know what he’s doing because he’s completely out of his mind.”

“I
’m sure he had to have some sense to know what he was doing, otherwise he would’ve turned back already.”

“How do you know, Katarina? How do you know he didn
’t run off and get himself killed?”

“Because I know Odin has courage that allows him to do things that most normal people wouldn
’t be able to. His mind, Nova… all that time locked up in that tower had to have taught him something about remaining strong and determined despite whatever was set against him.”

“You really think so?”

“I do,” she said. “And I know that, one day, he’ll come back. I don’t know when that will be, and I can’t say whether or not that will be anytime soon, but I know that he loves you more than anything else in the world. You’re a good friend, honey, and an even stronger man for leaving home when you were just eighteen to help him reach his dream.”

“He didn
’t get his dream.”

“But he got somet
hing so much more. He won’t let that go to waste.”

“How do you know?”

“Do I really need to answer that,” Katarina said, “or are you just asking because you can’t find it in your heart to believe it?”

Can I?

Nova closed his eyes.

A splash in the near distance echoed through his ears.

When he opened his eyes and saw ripples spreading across the water, he thought he saw his and his wife’s reflection in the pool directly before them.

“Don
’t keep your feelings locked up,” Katarina said, sliding her palm over his hand to lace their fingers together. “It’ll hurt you in the end.”

“I didn
’t want to hurt you or the baby.”

“There
’s no way you could ever hurt me, Nova. Besides—if this baby’s as strong as I think it is, it isn’t going to let a little something like this bother it, are you, honey?” Katarina reached down and caressed her stomach.

Nova pushed his palm forward.

When their hands touched above the swell in her abdomen, he felt for a brief time a moment of clarity that seemed to dispel all of the horrible things from the world.

That feeling made him feel like the luckiest man in the world.

One day, Odin would return. When, he couldn’t possibly know, but until then, he had all the time in the world.

Here, in the present, he had a family to worry about.

Until the time came when his friend returned from the south, he needed to concentrate on the matters at hand, otherwise he may  end up spiraling out of control.

They ate the rest of their meal in silence, only occasionally speaking to comment on the wayward bird or even the occasional fish they saw swimming beneath their feet. Content with the silence and the fact that things, despite their harsher connections, seemed fine, their lips remained sealed throughout the picnic until they rose, gathered themselves up and began to make their way to the castle.

There, walking the halls and likely toward their room, was Carmen, whistling something under her breath and shaking her head to the tune.

“Hello,” Katarina said.

The Dwarf jumped and looked with wide eyes in their direction before she settled down and offered a slight smile. “Hello,” she replied.

“Are you still helping the men build the house?”

“I
’ve been helping, yeah. Was about to stop by on my break and see how the two of you were doing.”

“We
’re doing great,” Katarina said, sliding her arm around Nova’s waist. “Aren’t we?”

Better than we were,
he thought, though decided to say nothing if only to secure the clarity of the movement.

After reaching forward and pumping the Dwarf
’s small wrist, Nova allowed the little creature to lead them through the winding halls with guards stationed at every corner until they came to their room. Once there, Nova reached down, pulled a key from his pocket, then allowed the three of them into the room before closing the door behind them.

In the very corner of the room, Ketrak slept silently, torso sprawled out in one of the armchairs and legs dangling from beneath them.

“I should probably leave,” the Dwarf said, taking a few steps back and into Nova’s legs. “Sorry, bud.”

“Don
’t worry about it,” he replied.

“You don
’t have to leave,” Katarina said. “He’ll wake up once he hears us talking anyway.”

“Pardon?” Ketrak a
sked, cracking his eyes upon.

Katarina smiled
almost immediately. “Nothing, father. Don’t worry about it.”

“Hello Carmen.”

“Hello,” Carmen replied.

“How are you doing today?”

“I’m well, thanks.”

“Still working hard?”

“More than ever,” the Dwarf agreed, stepping forward and hopping onto one of the chairs. “Nova and Katarina just got back from a picnic.”

“A picnic?” the older man asked. “That had to be nice, especially s
ince the weather isn’t bed yet.”

“It will be though,” Nova said, bracing an arm around his wife
’s shoulders when she bowed her head and reached up to rub her eyes. “Are you all right, hon?”

“It seems like only yesterday that we were coming up from Bohren,” she said. “I still can
’t believe it’s gone.”

“
I’m sure it won’t be much longer before it’s back to normal,” Ketrak said, crossing his arms before leaning back in his seat. “The king
has
to do something about it, doesn’t he?”

No,
Nova thought.
He doesn’t.

Like several of the smaller villages within the country that had started and failed either due to lack of populations or agricultural reasons, Bohren could simply be declared a dead zone and never repopulated again. Combined with the fact that most ordinary individuals would not want to live in such a place that had once been attacked by the enemy and the fact that, for all intents and purposes, people would rather stay away from the G
ermanian border as much as possible, it would be a miracle if the king actually instated a cause to return the town to its former glory.

The idea that the place he had grown up
in for most of his life turning to nothing more than a ghost town more than obvious in his mind and the all-too-familiar revelation that he’d been captured by the army there prevalent in the worst ways possible, Nova settled down at the foot of Katarina’s bed and stared at the floor, desperate to escape the feelings attempting to rush forward like floodwaters from the great Sylinian river.

Why now, of all times, did he have to feel this way, especially after he and Kat
arina had such a good picnic?

Because it
’s life,
he thought.
Because that’s the way the world works.

The world established itself on a few basic principles—you lived, you ate, you slept, you loved and you persisted no matter who or what managed to get in your way. It didn
’t matter if you were born blind, mute, deaf, with broken legs or even the inability to walk: you were, by nature, forced to move as though strung by some magical rope and walk, crawl or hobble toward your next destination. Sure—you could always turn a blind eye toward something in your way, and you could always look back at the mistakes you made in order to better yourself as a person, but you could never really, truly go back to the past and change something that had been done. The fact was that no matter how much Nova tried to hang on to the spiritual reality that he and his family were in a safe place, his past seemed to haunt him, so much so that whenever he closed his eyes he seemed to see before his darkened vision a glance of home and what had happened to it when Herald’s men had infiltrated it. He also, sadly, could not shake the reality that his frustrations had driven him to such a hellish place only to get him captured and abused.

If he truly thought about it for a few hard, concentrated moments, he would realize that he had escaped lucky and that, by the chance of God, his friend had arrived at just the right moment to save him from the hellish agony of his situation.