Page 230 of Starside

The markings were a sign of my recklessness. My irresponsibility. My sister could have died.

She bends down to my level. “You are you, Aris. And that makes you perfect. Don’t ever hide from yourself.”

“You’re the one who tells me to hide!” I yell, getting up from the chair. “You make me feel wrong! Maybe I should go outside like this,” I say. “Maybe if the knights drag me off to the prisons, or to the king to cut me up and study me, I’ll deserve it!”

I’ll never forget the shock on her face. I never raised my voice at my mother. It wasn’t fair of me to do so. All she ever did was for my protection. I know that now.

But it was easier to blame her for my problems. My mom never screamed back at me, and maybe that made her an easier target for my anger.

The thought roils my stomach now.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper from the sidelines, feeling the twist of guilt as the sand falls away. “You were perfect, Mom.”

In a flash, the sand rises in a column, right in front of me. My mother stands there, twisted and wrong. Her normally smiling mouth is curled into a smirk. “Perfect? I couldn’t get the doors open. If I could … maybe we could have all gotten out. Maybe we wouldn’t all be dead. Maybe you wouldn’t be a ghost of your pain and worst memories, walking.”

I swallow. “It’s not your fault,” I say, meaning it. “It’s hers.”

“And what have you done about it?” She takes a step forward. “I lied. You aren’t perfect. You are weak. You are an embarrassment. You should have died that day. The world would be better for it.”

It wouldn’t hurt so much if I didn’t agree with her.

Tears sting my already sand-crusted eyes, running down my torn-up cheeks.

She steps forward. “Your sister, she was perfect. She was always better than you. Prettier. Kinder. She could have made the world better. You? You just want to kill. Hatred lives in your heart. Love lived in hers.”

The sand thickens, twisting around me, blocking the rest of the desert, trapping me with her. It circles like a cyclone, howling, her words echoing.

The air is being choked away. My senses are, one by one, being snuffed out. My knees buckle. Slowly, I sink to the ground.

“You are nothing. You are worse than nothing. You are the reason everyone is dead. You are a poison. You are a curse.”

My breathing becomes panting as I try to suck in air that isn’t there, my lungs filling with sand instead.

As I fall forward, the last words I hear are spoken right into my ear, as if my mother bent low to tell me, “Do the world a favor and die this time.”

I stay down. For the world. For everyone that would be alive if I had just stayed down. If I had just died when the lightning struck me.

Sand brushes over me, covering me like a blanket. Soon I’ll be buried, just like the rest of this desert’s secrets.

And the world will be better for it.

For a while, only the sand whispers. Then there’s nothing. A thick layer has overtaken me. I can’t even feel the sun anymore.

The world is quiet below.

Until another voice ruins it.

Stellan. There he is, in the echo of a memory. “Why do you rise?”

“Leave me alone,” I say, the words barely reaching my lips.

“Why do you rise, Aris?”

“Leave me. Please.”

“Why are you doing this? Do you even have a reason?” The voice is above me now, as if he’s trying to find me under the layers of sand.

A reason.