Page 84 of These Immortal Truths
Anna has never met anyone who embodies patience quite like Silas. She suspects they will be waiting decades, if not centuries, before he caves to frustration. She’s walking over the threshold whenshe comments, “I think we’ll both be ready for another drink by then.”
The three of them sit by the fire, a tapestry of stars overhead, and fill their cups. To Anna’s delight, Eira’s gruff edge is completely smoothed by alcohol. Two glasses in, and she becomes the happiest version of herself—laughing and smiling freely at just about everything. Silas seems as amused as Anna is at the development, his own grin bright and full of fondness as he pours her third.
If he’s affected by the alcohol, he shows little sign of it. His hands and voice are as steady as they’ve ever been, despite the way Anna’s vision can’t seem to keep up with the turn of her head. She and Silas talk quietly about different parts of the world for a bit. When Anna asks Eira her opinion, she is answered with silence. With her chin to her chest, Eira had fallen asleep sometime between Anna’s second and third glass.
Anna smiles, her eyes tracing the familiar wrinkles lining Eira’s face. “It’s nice, seeing her like this.”
“Yes,” Silas hums. “She carries her burdens quietly. I imagine it feels good to let them rest for a bit.” His gaze meets hers over the fire. “You two are much alike in that way.”
Anna doesn’t deny it. It’s hard to combat the truth, particularly when she’s inebriated. She takes another sip, the whiskey burning as it goes down. Eira said she received it as a gift but couldn’t remember how long ago. Anna suspects it’s been at least a few decades, if not longer.
Silas’ gaze doesn’t fall away. Instead, it only seems to sharpen into something contemplative. “He asks about you, you know.”
Even with the whisky warming her veins, Anna doesn’t need to ask who ‘he’ is. Her gaze drops, tracing the rim of her glass. It feels strange to use Eira’s finer dishes after using wood for so long with the children. “And what do you tell him?”
“The truth.”
A huff of breath, threaded with annoyance. “Sometimes you’re as vague as he is.”
Silas doesn’t laugh. Maybe he knows she is at least partially serious. “You should talk to him.”
“I’m not the one who’s unwilling to talk.”
His sigh is heavy. Tired. He looks up at the sky, eyes tracing the constellations. When he speaks, his voice is so cadenced it could be a song. “Once, I was a man lost in the sands. I saw the past and future in the wind, a shimmering vision of everything that was and everything that could be. I thought I was dying. I was so thirsty, so hot, I would have embraced it. Then I saw a fox watching me from the dunes and whispers spilled from her like music over water.Come, they said. Nothing else. That one word, over and over, and in so many voices it felt like the desert itself was speaking to me.”
He shrugs his broad shoulders. “Maybe it was. All I know, is that I followed and the sand beneath my feet became moss and the towering dunes turned to giant roots. And where there was once a fox, was a peach.”
Anna stares, pulse racing. “Why are you telling me this?”
“You are my friend and you wish for the truth. I cannot give you Khiran’s, but I can give you mine.” He holds her stare. “You are the anomaly, Anna. The only one of us to receive the gift without the price.”
The price? The price is having to watch anyone she gets close to grow and wither. It is standing over the headstones of her son and his children, and their children, andtheirs. The price is watching the world burn, over and over, and being helpless to stop it.
He must see something in her expression, a flash of hurt, because he shakes his head. “The only one you answer to isyourself. The rest of us … we do not have that freedom.”
“I don’t understand,” she murmurs, her heart a tattoo against her rib cage. “Who would you possibly need to answer to?”
“The same one Khiran would save you from knowing.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Pain is a gift. It means he is still breathing, still living. So long as they’re watching him, finding pleasure in every blow he suffers, it means they aren’t looking for her. Pain means she’s still hidden. Still safe.
BERLIN, GERMANY
1933
Anna watches as the books pile higher, a mountain of bound paper and leather, when she feels him at her elbow.
The face he wears differs from the one she’s grown to love. Blonde hair cut short around his ears, face pale and freckled. If his eyes were blue instead of brown, he could be the regime’s poster child. He stares out over the parade, a scowl hardening the smooth lines of his face. “You need to leave,” he says, the wordsbarely reaching her before the shouts and cheers of the crowd swallow it up.
She leans into his space, their elbows touching. “I don’t remember asking your opinion,” she says in near perfect German.
He turns to her, hand gripping her upper arm with a fierceness that feels out of place. Dipping his head, his words hiss against her ear. “This isn’t a joke. You need to leave. Now, before things get ugly.”
She pulls away, eyeing him suspiciously. “What do you know?”
He rolls his eyes. “Nothing good ever follows abook burning, Anna.” He tips his chin, discreetly, toward the students. “Look at them. How can you watch them revel in such blatant destruction, such violence, and not know where this is going?”
