Starkeeper of the Fractured Crown

Cole nodded and knocked on the door three times. “It’s the High General, may I come in?”

Silence.

“General of what?” a small voice bit after a few seconds.

Cole looked back at me, face twisted in confusion. “Is there another General you told this child about?”

I frowned deeply.

“High General of the Fallen,” Cole finally said giving me a look.

Silence.

“No girls allowed.”

He slid his hand over his chest as if he were making sure he hadn’t magically sprouted tits. “I’m a man,” he confirmed.

Mark was quiet for a long time. “Fine.”

Cole finally pushed open the door, slipping into the room, and shutting it behind him.

I stared at the door, feeling those emotions well up inside of me, pressing up against my bones, my lungs, my mind. I had failed.

I had failed as a daughter.

As a sister.

As a friend.

I made up all of those stories to help him and now what? Now he hated me too.

I fell back against the wall, gripping onto the papersjust to keep myself from floating away.

Maybe I should have told him the truth. Maybe he needed to hear it. Maybe he could have handled it, and I was just being selfish, overprotective. Maybe all of this was my fault.

“You did the right thing,” Trick said softly.

I looked over, his eyes locked on the wall, hands still tucked deeply into his pockets. “And you know because you’ve beenstalking mefor the last year?” I snarled.

He was quiet for a moment, his expression unreadable. “Kids are the same across all species. He thinks he could have prevented it. He believes he could have protected you as a boy would his mother.”

I turned my glare to my freshly wrapped hands, my anger easing a hair at his confession. “He couldn’t have,” I said and shoved away from the wall.

“Doesn’t matter. He believes he could have.” I felt his eyes on me as I made my way to the nearest chair. “But keeping from him the horrors, the truth of what happened, he deserved that. You didn’t.”

I lowered myself into the chair, which had been turned slightly towards Mark’s door as if Cole had been watching it while I had bathed. “Didn’t what?”

“Deserve to keep the truth from someone.”

He appeared in my line of sight and I watched as he walked around the table to the counter. He leaned back against it, watching me carefully, his one shadow drifting around him. I wondered if it was lonely.

“And you’re what? Going to punish me now because I lied?”

“Is that what you want?”

I laughed and shook my head, my hands trembling in rage. “Now you’re asking? What happened to taking what you want? What happened to not caring what I say? Oh, I get it, now you know the truth. I’m just some beaten kid covered in scars, damaged goods. You don’t care enough to keep up with your games.”

His eyes turned to ice. “How many scars did she leave on your body?”