Page 41 of Elemental Becoming
I don’t interrupt.
Thane’s gaze drifts, unfocused.
“There were moments . . . ”
His fingers flex at his sides, like the memory lives in them.
“He’d go still. Completely still. Like he was listening.”
He squeezes his eyes shut, as if trying to erase the image from his mind. When he opens them again, they look haunted.
“Or . . . answering something like my mother had when the madness took her.”
He swallows, shaking his head slightly.
“But there were other times he was lucid. Fully himself. He knew who we were. Knew where he was.”
His voice roughens.
“He just . . . couldn’t speak.”
A beat.
“Like the words were there, but something wouldn’t let them out.”
His hand curls into a fist.
“He’d try. Gods, he’d try. You could see it—like he was fighting for the words. For control.”
His gaze drops.
“But they never came.”
He fills his lungs with cool air, searching for the control that has never failed him.
“And the shadows . . . ” He shakes his head again. “They never came from him like my mother. Not once.”
His voice quiets.
“The healers called it sadness of the heart,” he says.
“But you don’t believe that, do you?” I ask, hearing the tension in his words.
His hands clench at his sides. “No.”
The word is quiet, but there’s something underneath it. Something I don’t think he’s ever said out loud.
“Then what do you think it is?”
“I don’t know.”
His fingers flex and shadows, absent just a moment ago, flicker between them like restless ink.
“He wasn’t of Warden blood. He shouldn’t have—” He breaks off, shaking his head, the words catching on something deeper.
I reach for him, taking his hands gently in mine. His fingers twitch at the contact. The shadows flicker again, but they don’t scare me.
The bond pulses.
