The doctor nodded, his eyes gaining a distant feel.
“She’s gone, isn’t she?”
The doctor nodded again, the heartbreak clouding his eyes. “She’s never been one for goodbyes.”
Raven sat astride her flesh horse, the emptiness in the pit of her stomach overwhelming her. She needed to leave. She wasn’t ready for these feelings yet. They were beyond what she had ever understood. Was she even sure of them? But as she sat at the north gate that would take her in the direction of Gregory’s empty house, she couldn’t choose where to go.
“I thought you’d decided to retire from your reaping life?” a voice said.
Raven startled. Monroe stood at the grey mare’s head, a hand on her bridle. Of course he snuck up on her—the man was as silent as a shadow. “I did, but I have a life to redeem, so I intend to do so before I return.”
The old man scratched his chin. “What life would that be?”
She couldn’t help the sneer that raised her lip. “The witch.”
Monroe shook his head and tsked her. “That doesn’t make much sense. It seems to me that you saved a few lives directly after that one.”
“How so?”
He chuckled. “Do you not remember putting yourself in the way of the mechanical man’s blade when it lurched for the boy?”
“But that made no difference. Grant took the blow.”
He shook his head. “Seems that your intention was to save the boy, but let’s give that one to Grant, then. How about when you saved Grant?”
“What do you mean? I’d nearly killed him when he shielded me from the mechanical’s blade. All I did was ensure he didn’t become a second life I had to redeem.”
“But you saved his life, right?”
She shrugged. “I guess so.”
“And you can’t redeem a life that wasn’t taken. You can’t declare Grant both dead and saved. It doesn’t even out by my math. It seems that you saved him…you killed the witch. Even. Square.”
The wheels turned inside her head, but instead of feeling relieved, she felt confused and lost. “This all seems so arbitrary. If I am redeemed, then why do I still feel so guilty?”
The smirk on the old man’s face grew into a wide grin. “Are you finally learning, child? Adding a burden to yourself that was never meant to be there doesn’t make you more righteous. It does not make you stronger. The rules the reapers live by are not put there to be followed to the letter. They are good laws, and by following them, we are better people. More human than we would have been without them. But they aren’t what make us truly human.”
“Then what does?”
“Love.”
She rolled her eyes. “Love? That seems too simple. Besides, what is love?”
“The fulfillment of hope. When you dare to hope that you’ll find the forgiveness you need in one person. When you find the match of your hopes and dreams in that person. When you find your equal and the one who treats you as an equal no matter what you’ve done, no matter what the future holds. That is love.”
Her voice cracked. “But I thought I found it once and was wrong.”
“But you think you’ve found it again, so you’re running away.”
Raven’s heart flopped in her chest. Her throat constricted, and her voice came out in a whisper. “But what if I’m wrong again?”
The horse stamped a foot in the dirt. The pressure to run came on Raven stronger than ever before, but Monroe pulled back on the horse’s bridle and set a hand on its nose to still it.
“But what if it is love this time, and you run from it?” he asked.
The thought broke her heart. “I’d hurt him.”
“And you’d hurt yourself.”
“I’ve already left. I’ve already broken what we had.”
“…no matter what you’ve done, no matter what the future holds, love will forgive.”
The urge to run away remained strong, but the urge to turn back played tug-of-war…with her as the rope. “I don’t know if I can do it.”
“Sometimes we redeem ourselves just by admitting we were wrong.”
She blinked tears, and relief washed over her as quickly as the tears ran over her cheeks. She could do that. And something inside her told her that the guilt she felt would go away if they would just forgive her for what she’d done. She smiled down at Monroe. And he nodded, finally releasing the bridle.
The mare responded immediately with a lurch forward, but Raven reined her in and turned her back toward the main house. The steady rhythm of the horse’s hooves against the cobbles raced the pounding of her heart.
FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENS NEXT:
The Chronicles of Steele: Raven is a stand-alone novel, but Darius has been hanging around in my head, kicking up dust and telling me he has his own story to tell. Be on the look-out for The Chronicles of Steele: Darius in 2015!
If you want to join me on the next adventure and be notified when the new book is released, please sign up for my spam-free mailing list at:
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Creeden, Pauline - [Chronicles of Steele - Raven] - Episode 4 Page 6
