Life in Colour

“I don’t know.”

The answer surprised both of us.

Isabelle sat back down, and I immediately regretted giving her enough encouragement to do so.

“That’s new.”

“Don’t get used to it.”

The guild had almost emptied.

A single lamp burned near the bar while rain whispered against the front windows, lighter than it had been the night I left.

We were alone enough that walking away would have looked deliberate.

So I stayed.

“You said they were safer without you.”

“They are.”

“Gideon is helping organise a revolution.”

“That is not relevant.”

“Marek and Tessa take mercenary contracts for a living.”

“I’m aware.”

“And I was following Cedric before I knew you existed.”

I looked at her.

“Your point?”

“My point is that you keep talking like danger follows you.”

“That’s not what I said.”

“No. It’s what you act like.”

I pushed the abandoned cards into a neater pile.

“They get dragged into my problems.”

“They seem perfectly capable of finding their own problems without you.”

“You know what I mean.”

She watched me for a moment.

“Are you scared?”

“No.”

“Not of dying?”

“No.”

“Or getting hurt?”

“No!”

“Then what?”

I tried to fall back on one of my usual answers, but she had already ruined all of them.

“I’m scared that it’ll happen again.”

Silence.

The words stayed in the air after I wanted them gone.

The truth is, it was more than that.

Losing them. Being there and still being unable to stop it. Knowing they cared enough that, if I was the one who didn’t come back, they’d be the ones left behind.

I hated that.

“You think that once everything is gone, there’ll be nothing left to lose.”

How could she possibly know?

“You don’t understand. You have a father waiting for you at the docks. People who have known you your entire life. You walk into a room and somehow trust everyone in it before I’ve worked out where the exits are.”

“That isn’t true.”

“You know what I meant.”

“I know what you think you meant.”

I stood before I realised.

“You don’t know what it’s like to watch everyone you love disappear in a single night and spend the rest of your life wondering which person will be next.”

The words hit harder than I intended.

Isabelle went quiet, and regret arrived immediately.

I knew almost nothing about who she had lost.

“I’m—”

“My mother died when I was seven.”

…

Isabelle looked towards the dark window.

“Disease,” she said. “No knights. No conspiracy. She simply got sick, then worse, and eventually the physicians stopped telling us she would recover.”

I didn’t know what to say.

“That’s not the same.”

“No,” she said. “It isn’t.”

The immediate agreement disarmed me.

She did not tell me that losing someone made our losses the same or pretend that she understood Valemont simply because she had lost someone too. She just sat there with the memory of her mother between us.

“But you have people—”

“So do you.”

Across the room, Marek had fallen asleep with his head against one arm. Tessa was gathering the cards nobody had bothered putting away. Gideon was somewhere upstairs, probably asleep over paperwork he would deny falling asleep over. And Isabelle sat opposite me.

She had been here for one evening and somehow looked as though she had always belonged at that table.

Why had I left?

To protect them.

That had always been the obvious answer.

Except Gideon had already been part of the revolution. Marek and Tessa had kept taking jobs. Isabelle had walked into danger long before she knew my name.

And when Gideon saw me again, he had not been angry. He had every right to, but he didn’t. Instead, he hugged me.

My fingers curled against the edge of the table.

Because I was scared.

I hated the thought immediately.

I had faced men with swords drawn and felt less exposed than I did sitting in a nearly empty guild.

For an instant, I was eight again, with stone closing between me and everyone who had stayed behind.

Then the memory passed.

I looked at my hands and remembered I wasn’t eight anymore.

Marek was still here. Tessa was still here. Gideon was still here. Isabelle was still waiting.

And, with an uncomfortable certainty, I realised I wanted to be here tomorrow.

Not because somebody had ordered me to survive long enough to reach it.

But because I wanted to.

“I don’t want to leave,” I said.

Apparently saying it aloud was worse.

Isabelle didn’t smile or tell me I had finally understood something.

She simply said, “Then don’t.”

That was all.

For a while, neither of us spoke.

Then Isabelle stood.

“I’m hungry.”

I blinked.

“That was abrupt.”

“We’ve been here all night.”

I looked towards the windows.

The black beyond them had softened towards grey.

“There’s a bakery opening near the eastern square,” she said.

“You know that?”

“What don’t I know?”

Many things.

“I know six escape routes from this building.”

“And I know where to get breakfast.”

“That does seem more useful at the moment.”

Isabelle headed for the door.

She put one foot outside and stopped.

“Coming?”

I decided to follow her.

The capital before sunrise was quieter than I remembered.

A cart creaked along the road carrying milk cans. A woman swept the front step of an inn while arguing with somebody inside about the horses. Further down, shutters opened one by one.

Usually, I noticed exits first.

Today, I noticed the smell.

Bread.

A baker was lifting fresh loaves from a covered basket when Isabelle stopped. She bought one, tore it in half and held a piece towards me.

I took it.

The crust was still hot enough to sting my fingers.

“Careful,” she said.

I bit into it.

Then stopped walking.

Butter. Salt. The faint sweetness of fresh bread. Warm crust giving way to a soft centre.

It tasted good.

That should not have been surprising.

Somehow it was.

A cart rattled past with bright red apples stacked beneath cloth. Someone laughed near the bakery door while arranging flowers beneath a striped awning. Above the roofs, the morning light had begun turning a pale gold. Steam curled from Isabelle’s bread. And a bell rang somewhere beyond the market.

She was saying something about the expression on my face, but I missed half of it.

For once, that was fine.