The Point of No Return

[Jay Carpenter]

Jai

There was no explanation that could take away that memory of how desperately he wanted to kill Daniel. Of the hatred with which he hunted the man down. It wasn’t a cold stalking. He planned and imagined every detail with vivid consideration. Of the memory that Daniel’s screams of an agonizing death pulsed gory satisfaction through Jai. Of wanting to help the nobleman finish him off… That was why Jai clawed at the back of his neck like he might scratch the memory from his brain with his bare hands. Daniel was dead, and coerced or not, Jai was going to live with knowing what it was like to want to kill his brother.

That was why he needed to turn himself in. He had no idea how he came to be in this room, cupping Daniel’s blood-washed skull, but he knew that he had to be the one to do it. The last he knew he was in Bandar Eban witnessing Daryen sign away his life and country for what? For wealth and prosperity? Was he not wealthy and prosperous enough? Was that why he wanted to kill Daniel? For letting it get this far?  It was maddening. A roar of despair shook an avalanche from his chest, and from the back of his neck, he squeezed his own skull like the answer might pour out if pressed hard enough. His forehead was digging into the floor. His elbows dug deep.

Until the pressure was slowly peeled away. His hands loosened in the coaxing of hers, and he felt her face sink low to his. She would hear his despair, but he dare not look up. He wanted to tell her to let him go. To let him be free of this feeling and let him make something right for once in his life. There was nothing he wanted more than to just do the right thing. Nothing else in the world… except her.

When his neck twisted, the eyes that stole his heart were so close he could see nothing else, not even himself. Right, or so bloody wrong he might choke on his own screw ups, that world was the only one that mattered. His were red in turn. Sleepless and sorrowful. His breath stolen on shallow pulls he didn’t deserve to take, but her pleading shattered his will for atonement. He shook his head in submission.

“I would never leave you alone,” he whispered a soft promise in turn. He stared into her eyes and thought of a world in which she wasn’t in it. Where he wasn’t with her every moment of the day. She mattered more than a thousand M’Hael’s. A thousand oaths to duty. And in that realization, something was buried that Jai never wanted to resurrect. He gripped her hand tight in his, and together they climbed to their feet. New determination set the line of his jaw intense as his eyes floated beyond her shoulder with dire concern. Crash after crash of saidin assaulted from outside.