The Fallen

by Anne Schlea

  “Friends?” His voice is hesitant. “Girls or boys?”

  She turns to look at him. “One of each.”

  “Oh.” Riley nods, seems to consider this for minute, and then follows her into the small kitchen. He puts his hand on her arm to stop her from opening a cabinet. “Don’t bother cooking. We can head down there, too.”

  “And spy?” Anna hates how hopeful her voice sounds. She isn’t accustomed to dealing with boys in relation to her daughter. Marissa didn’t show an interest before they came to Orasul. Of course, now she knows why. She’d known all along she wasn’t a normal human and therefore human boys were off limits.

  Now they live in Orasul and Anna has something all new to keep her awake at night. Something far worse than the demons that might be lurking in the park down the street. She’d take demons over boys any day.

  “No, not spy.” He takes her hand and pulls her toward the door. “It’s no four star swanky restaurant, but you cook for me every night. Let’s go grab something where you don’t have to cook.”

  Anna thinks about everyone who eats in the main dining hall. Any resident of Orasul that doesn’t want to cook, all the soldiers who live alone in barracks, visitors from other cities…there are a lot of people who will see her. If she’s eating alone with Riley, what would that say?

  “Are you sure you want everyone down there to see you with me?” She pulls her hand away and wishes Marissa hadn’t said anything about her relationship with Riley. Now something as simple as touching Riley’s hand seems filled with all kinds of extra meaning.

  “People see you with me all the time,” he points out. He frowns at her and starts to pick up on her anxiety. “Is something wrong?”

  “No.” Anna shakes her head and rubs her eyes. “It’s stupid.”

  “So tell me.” Riley sits down at the table and motions for her to sit across from him. “Is this about Marissa?”

  “Yes. No. Sort of.” She laughs at herself, then grimaces with the laugh sounds like shrill giggles. “I’m sorry. She has me second guessing myself. We had to have the talk. There was a boy here when I got home earlier. Well, there was a girl, too, but the point was there was a boy in my house without my knowledge or my permission.”

  “The talk?” He looks truly confused and Anna wonders what kind of talk men have with their sons. “I don’t understand.”

  “Of course you don’t.” Anna laughs again, it’s not a giggle but it’s an uncomfortable chortle. “The sex talk. Or part of it. We’ve had it before, but it’s different now that we’re here. I guess Frances beat me to it. Either way, there’s a boy here and then she brought you up.”

  “I don’t think I want to know how I figured into your sex talk.” Riley gives her a mock shiver and looks completely horrified. “I’m also really happy I don’t have a teenager to raise.”

  “She wanted to know why we weren’t married.” She can’t look him in the face and isn’t completely sure why she’s even telling him this. “She thinks we should have gotten married before I ran with her ten years ago, that you would have taken care of her. Us. Of both of us.”

  “Oh.” Riley’s face becomes a mask Anna can’t see through. His eyes close off to her and she can tell she’s hit a sore spot. His body shifts away from her. “What did you tell her?”

  “That it wasn’t like that.” Anna looks back down at her hands. She didn’t mean to hurt him with this conversation, but he looks like she has. “I told her you didn’t look at me that way. Please don’t tell her we’ve had this conversation, she’d die of embarrassment.”

  She isn’t going to tell him the rest of what Marissa said. Their relationship is comfortable and safe the way it is, she doesn’t want to change it now.

  “I can absolutely promise you I won’t tell her what you’ve told me.” He smiles at her and the wall fades away. The conversation is closed. Period. He pushes up from the table and holds his hand back out to her. “Come on, let me get you some dinner.”

  She lets him pull her to her feet. “Riley, what is it? I said something that upset you a minute ago.”

  “No, you didn’t.” He touches her nose with his finger. “A lot has happened in ten years, that’s all.”

  Her stomach drops out from her body. There really is something he isn’t telling her. The look in his eyes is deeper than an uncomfortable conversation. That look is the look of someone who’s suffered a terrible heartbreak. “Does this have something to do with why you’re still alone here?”

  He gives her a clipped, tight smile. “I’m married to my job, Anna, you know that. It’s the whole reason I brought you back here.”

  “No, it’s not.” She moves in front of him when he turns away and meets his eyes. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  “I let my heart get broken. Let’s just leave it at that.” He rests his hands on his hips. His deep green eyes bore into hers with firm intensity. “Please, can we drop it? That was a long time ago and I really don’t want to re-live it today. What I do want to do is take you to eat and have a nice, relaxed evening. You don’t even have the teenager tonight. It’s like free babysitting. Can we do that? Please?”

  Anna can see whoever had hurt Riley had done it deeply. Whether she just chose someone else or if she’d gone off and died, Anna doesn’t need to know. Either way, it’s obviously a closed subject. “Marissa hasn’t needed a babysitter in a few years.”

  “You’re missing my point.” Like someone flipped a switch, his whole body relaxes. The energy in the room changes, lightens up.

  “I guess I am.” She can’t do anything for his broken heart but she can at least be a good friend. “Let’s go get some dinner.”

  ∞∞∞

  Riley guides Anna to a spot in a corner, as far away from Marissa and her friends as they can get. It’s a private table, hidden from most of the dining room. It’s the first time Anna has ventured into one of the large public areas since she moved back and the large room makes her uneasy. It’s easy to hide in the training facilities – find a room where no one else is and work until someone shows up. But this area is a maze of tables and smaller rooms built for privacy. There are people everywhere.

  “You’re uncomfortable.” He notices as soon as she sits down and looks over her shoulder.

  “Just a little.” Anna takes a deep breath to settle herself and looks down at her meal. She has to hand it to the cooks who take care of handling meals for the soldiers, and by proxy anyone else. Tonight is prime rib, honey carrots, mashed potatoes, and a slice of cheesecake. Not bad for cafeteria food. “I’ve avoided public places since I got back.”

  “You’re going to have to get over that sooner or later.” Riley reaches over and touches her arm. “No one’s looking at you like you don’t belong. It’s all in your head.”

  “Riley, I’m an entry in Marissa’s school text book; it’s not all in my head.” She looks at him over the top of her water glass and wishes she had a glass of wine but that was one thing the dining hall won’t serve. You can purchase alcohol and take it to your home but it isn’t readily available where the students eat.

  He nods his head and chuckles. “You have a point.”

  “You know all about my life for the past ten years but you’ve never really told me what you were doing all that time.” Anna hopes this conversation will be a safe one. She doesn’t want to fight with him and still feels unsettled after the conversation at her home.

  “I worked hard and became a General.” He shrugs and pushes his food around on his plate. “There isn’t much else to do here. We fight, we die, and some days it feels like we’ll never be able to win and it’s hopeless. But every once in a while we have that big victory that gives us hope.”

  “Sounds difficult.” She doesn’t know what to say. He leaves out details and skims over ten years. It isn’t that she feels she deserves to be a part of those years, but she’s here now and she really wants to know what molded him from the carefree, always on the brink of trouble young ma
n she knew then to the strong leader she knows now. “Where are your parents?”

  “They’re in Paris now. After Mia graduated from school and joined the army, they felt like it was time to go. Life here was too unstable, too many people were dying. I think they wanted us to go with them but we were already commissioned here.” His eyes are miles away, probably thinking about his mom and dad half way around the world. They’re close, Anna knows life here must have been bad for them to leave their children behind. “Do you ever think about yours?”

  The change in subject doesn’t go unnoticed by Anna but she goes with it. “Not really. They died when I was so little I only really remember Lily. I think about her a lot.”

  “I can’t imagine not knowing my parents.” Riley’s eyes drill into Anna. “Do you remember anything at all? I’m sorry, is that rude?”

  “I remember yours much better.” It’s her turn to push food around her plate. It’s obvious it bothers Riley that Anna doesn’t know her parents or remember them at all, but it doesn’t worry her. She can’t miss what she doesn’t remember. It’s an unfortunate part of their lives that people die in a never ending war. “I remember my mom had a soft voice and she read to me when she put me to bed at night. I remember my dad was big and strong. That’s it. The rest of my memories are of Lily trying her best to raise me, be a soldier, and have a relationship with Jonathan. I remember being dropped off at your house, too, how your mom and dad accepted me into your lives like I belonged there.”

  “That’s because you did. Mom and Dad were good friends with your parents. They told me they offered to take you in, but Lily insisted she would keep you.” Anna watches his eyes scrutinize her. “That’s one of your problems, you know. Sometimes I think you want to be the outcast when the rest of us just want you to let us care about you. Lily did a good job with you but gave you too much self-reliance.”

  Anna wants to argue his point but she can’t. Aside from Marissa, she’s never completely trusted anyone except Lily. And Lily had gone off and died on her just like their parents had. “You’re probably right. In my world everyone dies.”

  “I didn’t die.”

  There it is.

  She can’t deny that, either. Riley had been as solid as a rock, when they were children, when Lily died, and now that he’s brought her back to Orasul. He’s at her house every night for dinner at exactly the same time. If he isn’t going to make it, he sends her a text so she knows not to worry. Four times each week he meets with her in the training facilities to help her get back into shape. He’s never missed a session even though she knows he has to be needed elsewhere to lead an army. He doesn’t push her, he lets her find her way back into their social structure at her own pace, and many nights he sits quietly with her when she’s worn herself to the point of exhaustion and needs to borrow his energy to heal.

  This is what bothers him.

  He’s absolutely right. He didn’t die and he didn’t let her down but she pushes him away like she expects him to.

  “You’re right.” Anna looks up from her meal and feels a burst of energy. “You’re right. You’re here and you’ve always been here, and I’ve been terrible to you.”

  Riley laughs and reaches over to take her hand. As soon as their hands touch, the black cloud lifts and everything is right again. “You’re not terrible, just untrusting.”

  “Oh, hi, guys.” Mia’a voice interrupts their conversation. She stands at the corner of their private room with her own dinner and must have felt like she needed to announce her presence. Her eyes land on Riley’s hand resting on top of Anna’s and she shifts her feet uncomfortably.

  “Hi, Mia.” Anna pulls her hand out from under Riley’s and rests it in her lap. “Would you like to join us?”

  “No, I’m with a couple of my friends over there, I was just cutting through this room.” She looks at Riley and Anna sees something pass between them. It makes her feel a twinge of jealousy; she used to have those kinds of conversations with Lily. “I’ll see you later.”

  Then she ducks through the archway that leads into the next section of the dining hall. Anna frowns after her. “That was weird.”

  Riley tosses his hands in the air. He looks frustrated again. “That’s my sister. Who knows what she’s up to.”

  ∞∞∞

  Anna arrives at Riley’s meeting the next morning, bright and early as promised. There isn’t much accomplished, just a bunch of ideas thrown onto a big whiteboard. It will take a few meetings before they can start to settle into a rhythm and formulate some kind of plan. The only thing they all agree on now is that something needs to be done.

  He heads off after the meeting to take care of other responsibilities and promises to meet up with Anna later for some fencing practice. She still doesn’t feel like her sword arm is up to par to be out in the field.

  Anna exits the military leadership complex and passes Mia outside in the hall. She smiles in greeting but is received with a scowl. Anna stops short and wonders what she’s done to upset her. She thinks back to dinner the night before and wonders if Mia was reading too much into Riley’s hand on hers on the table. He was comforting her, just being a friend, and even if it was more than that, why should that bother Mia? It isn’t any of her business.

  “Mia, wait!” Anna turns to hurry after her. She doesn’t want Riley’s upset sister to cause trouble and figures she needs to address whatever the problem is right away. “What’s wrong?”

  Mia stops short and turns to face Anna in the hallway. Her face is contorted with the held back frustration Anna feels coming off her. She isn’t completely sure the younger woman isn’t going to take a swing at her. She looks upset enough to do it. Her green eyes flash her rage and her hands curl into themselves like any other movement will end in violence.

  “You just don’t get it, do you?” Mia’s words are ground out between clenched teeth. She turns away and paces down the hallway a few steps before she turns back around to face Anna. “In your world it’s all about you. Marissa is all about you. Riley came to get you because you were the best. The Committee has granted you this never before seen forgiveness because they need you. Well I have news for you; I’m tired of watching you string along my brother for something you obviously don’t feel. That isn’t all about you.”

  “What are you talking about?” Anna feels like Mia really did hit her. Her head spins as she tries to follow Mia’s thoughts.

  “There will be a price Marissa pays for what you and Lily did to her.” Her hands come to rest on her hips. “It may not happen today or tomorrow, but it will happen. It will happen in some little bit of knowledge she doesn’t have when she needs it. Or it might be when someone in her class treats her like she’s less than the rest of them because she wasn’t raised Fallen. When that happens, when she comes to you in tears, just remember you did this.”

  Anger flares through Anna’s body. She feels her adrenaline spike and her own aggression start to take over. She pushes her energy at Mia and takes several steps toward her to crowd her space. “Don’t talk about my daughter. You were a child and can’t possibly understand what that decision was like.”

  “Fine, let’s talk about it now. Let’s talk about Riley, then.” Mia closes the distance between them so that they’re eye to eye. “Let’s talk about how he almost got himself killed when you left. Let’s talk about how he refused to take another partner and it left him vulnerable. Let’s talk about how a Fallen blade almost took his head off one night and how I sat by his bedside for days willing him to live. I may not have been there when you left with Marissa but I sure was there for all of that.”

  “He did what?” Every ounce of anger bleeds out of Anna. She’s floored. From the first day of training they’re taught to always fight with someone at your back. They’re broken into pairs and rotated until the perfect complement for each soldier is found. It’s insanity to fight alone.

  “Why do you think I left school?” It’s Mia’s turn to look hurt. Anna hadn�
�t thought much about it before, but Mia had been a bright scholar when she left. Even at that young age she’d shown great promise to become a member of the sacred scribes of the Fallen, the scholars who study the prophecies and recorded the history of their people. She looks Anna in the eyes. “I became a soldier to try and keep my brother alive because you didn’t, and then he runs off to find you the first chance he gets. Yes, while we’re on that subject, I think he would absolutely betray the Committee, Orasul, and the rest of the Fallen if were a choice between them and you. You’re completely blind to it. I saw you at dinner, manipulating him for whatever you want next.”

  Anna opens her mouth but no sound comes out. She can feel the blank look on her face as she stares down Mia. What is she saying? It isn’t possible Riley didn’t take a partner because she was gone, that’s just foolish. Surely he has trust issues because of what happened to Jonathan. It would make anyone untrusting of a new partner after that. “I really don’t understand.”

  Mia seems to back down right with her. She looks at Anna and her whole body sags forward. She rubs her hands down over her face and paces back across the hallway like she needs the space. When she turns to face Anna again the gaslights in the hallway flicker and throw strange shadows across her features. “Anna, I love my brother more than almost anything. I can’t imagine what you went through the night Lily went off and got herself killed.”

  Her hand goes up in the air when Anna starts to protest.

  “No, hear me out.” She crosses back over to Anna and lowers her voice. “Riley hasn’t had anyone at his back in ten years. He’s not some heartsick youth; he’s a full-grown adult man who makes his own choices. I think he always believed you’d find a way back. When the Committee gave him a way he accepted their terms far too quickly without any regard for his own personal health. All he could think about was getting to you.”