Discordant Note | TBATE

Chapter 88: Mending Wounds

Darrin Ordin

I walked away from Toren, feeling a strange sense of loss welling up from his words.

"What's stopping you from getting with Dima again?"

I didn't know where we went wrong, honestly. Half a decade ago, Dima and I had been on track to settle down truly. We'd met in the Relictombs ten years ago in a convergence zone. Back then, the Unblooded Party hadn't even been a name worth the dirt on a highblood's boots. But she'd fit in naturally, her sense of justice and independence like the missing cog in a machine.

Once things had gotten further on in our relationship, I'd even considered retiring from ascending, even though the thought of leaving behind the thrill tugged on something in my gut. And if we were to have a family, I'd need to give up my more dangerous avenues, too.

And then we had the talk. I told her what I was thinking. Where I'd seen our relationship heading.

And Dima went dark. She cut off all contact for a year straight, avoiding me and the rest of our party. I'd gone over that conversation for years, trying to find what I'd said wrong. Had I been too forward? Had I not shown enough dedication?

Every time my eyes landed on Dima, I felt that open wound smolder just a bit more. But despite all the time that had passed, I knew the woman. If I tried to push the issue; tried to broach the open gap between us, she'd hunker down.

I found that grimly amusing. That was something I found attractive about her: her bull-headed stubbornness. If a rock thought to stand in her path, her glare would weather it down to dust, and she'd continue on as if nothing had interrupted her in the first place.

But that made talking to her difficult.

I moved toward Hraedel. We were the two figureheads of this operation, and both of us knew it. That was the nature of leadership: standing tall so others could stand tall in turn. But the shield and I didn't always see eye-to-eye.

Scratch that; we rarely agreed. The man was deep in the pockets of a number of Named Bloods I'd had legal spats with. He didn't like me. I didn't like him.

But he was a leader. He recognized the necessity of working with me, regardless of our disagreements. There was a begrudging respect between us that came from shared tolerance of the other.

"How long do you think it'll take to prepare your team?" I asked Hraedel, trying to distract my mind from the thoughts of Dima.

Hraedel was spooning himself a heaping of rice onto a paper plate. Even weeks later, this zone continued to baffle me. The intricate colors on simple things like paper plates felt like a waste. Colored ink was expensive. To see it constantly was weird.

"I'll give them a more thorough rundown of their jobs," the leader of the Aensgar Exiles affirmed. "Jameson already knows how to make bridges. Just make sure your shield can match him. Else we aren't avoiding any undead at all."

It had taken some painful negotiations to get the Exiles and Twinfrosts on board with working together. Namely, my team and I had to sacrifice part of our potential accolade cut–and any claim to a relic within this zone–to convince them all to work with us. I'd promised the rest of my team that I'd compensate them from my own personal reserves once we made it out, yet it still left a lump in my gut.

I smirked. "Jared can outmatch anything Jameson can do, friend," I said. "You should cross your fingers about yourself. How many boats have you made?"

Hraedel, unfortunately, didn't take my bait. A shame. "I know my craft," he said. He gave his food a slight taste. "I refrained from asking during the meeting," he said slowly, "But how did you come across this food?"