Page 2 of The Last Hope

Franny stiffens and cautiously glances back at me. I don’t know how to ease her worry.

Mykal takes a step toward my spot on the floor. I don’t know how to ease his either.

“Don’t,” I say weakly, stopping him.

He scratches his jaw. Frustration burrowing through his body and mine. He stays an arm’s distance away and gestures to me. “I may not be a physician like you, but once upon an era, I nursed you from the brink of something foul. I can do it again, you realize?”

It’s too late for that.

His muscles flex. “Court?”

He can’t read my mind, and so I’m left to wonder what emotion accompanied my thought. What did he sense?

I blink a few times. Unsure of what I felt. But I want him to know something. “I still remember…” I swallow hard and fight to speak louder. “I still remember the winter wood.”

His eyes redden. “Yer telling me this now?” His northern lilt breaks through. I’m truly happy to hear it again.

In a whisper, I clarify, “I know what you’ve done for me.”

“Court—”

“I wouldn’t have survived without you.” My voice cracks, days and months and years rushing toward me. Frostbitten skin and the crackle of fire and his impossibly bright laughter. I remember the moments after I escaped Vorkter.

Where Mykal brought me to his warm hut out of the wetsnow. Hovering over my gaunt frame, nearly nose-to-nose, he lathered mud and herbs on my wounds. Grenpale remedies.

He was a wild Hinterlander.

I was a lost boy of fifteen, and years later, we’ve found ourselves in a similar position. I’m on the brink of something foul again, but there are no trees, no mud, no plants, nothing that can save me by his hands.

I’m afraid.

I take in a breath, finally understanding my emotions, and I do everything I can to contain them. Bottle them. Swallow them. So they won’t know this fear.

Let me suffer alone.

Mykal bends low to be at eye level, palm on the floor. “I don’t want yer praise. I got you in this mess—”

“No.” I cut him off.

He’s still kicking himself for not stopping Bastell. In his mind, he broke a devout promise. He swore that I’d never encounter that cruel bastard again, but I did.

I already forgave Mykal a hundred times, even when he didn’t need to be forgiven. He’s just not ready to absolve himself yet.

He reaches out his hand to me…

“I don’t want your guilt,” I say, more strictly than I intend. Purposefully pushing him away, and it works.

He retracts his callused palm. And he flicks his forefinger in a vulgar Grenpalish gesture. Rising to a hunched stance again.

I try to bury my disappointment. Because I long for Mykal. I want him closer and closer, our chests pressing together and the heat of our bodies easing us into a contented sleep. I’m called toward him. Every minute of every day.

Toward his kindness and fortitude and foolish optimism. A great pull beckons me into his arms, but in the same breath, I’d rather Mykal be far, far away from my suffering.

If we touch skin-to-skin, the link will make him feel what I feel tenfold, and since we’ve kissed, we’ve already heightened this bond between us a significant amount. He’s noticed theshortness of my breath, whereas Franny can’t distinguish the subtleties as well.

He’s even started recognizing emotion in me that I can’t even name.

“I’ll just be standing right here,” Mykal says, angling toward me, “where I can stare at your handsome face.”