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When it was all over Numair found a corner in Lindhall’s menagerie, the new one, curled up with his head on his knees and cried. Sunstone, Lindhall’s big tortoise, wandered up and bumped him gently, and Numair stroked the animal’s head.
He had already told himself all the ways this – the fight and the running and the pirates and the war -- wasn’t his fault, he had been doing it for years after all.
He reiterated all the darkness he had always known Ozorne was full of. All the nasty, vicious things he’d always done. And then, just like he had been doing for years, he had also told himself all the ways he could have prevented it all if he had just done one thing different; just told Ozorne no, one of the times he had gone along with him, or hung on, one of the times he had given him space. Then he worked his way through the lingering thoughts that surely he or Chioke or Lindhall or Mahira or Mesaraz or Tristan or Varice could have kept this all from happening.
He had always known that wasn’t true. Viciousness had always come easily to Ozorne. No matter how hard he’d tried to be otherwise, Arram had never known his friend without that edge of the darkness and steel that had eventually swallowed him up. But he had tried so hard. And Arram had loved him so much for it.
But even though he’d known it wasn’t true, he had missed his friend so much over the years. If he waited until Lindhall came back, would Lindall remember all the birds and bats Ozorne had brought him? Would he remember him laughing and holding Preet and kissing Arram, or was the only thing left of that boy a few memories Numair tried not to think about?
That was the problem. He didn’t dare to ask. He couldn’t talk about it. Even now he still couldn’t talk about it. He couldn’t ask Lindhall, he couldn’t write to Varice, he couldn’t cry to Daine.
Maybe that was why there had always been some pitiful walled off part of his heart that thought that it was all just a mistake. Some terrible misunderstanding. Ozorne got like this, but he would come around and be okay again. He didn’t mean it. This was the thing with Ozorne though. He never meant it, except that he always meant it while he was doing it.
At some point, he didn’t mean anything by that, had become, he isn’t usually like that, had become, he isn’t always like that, had become, he didn’t used to be like that had become intolerable. But he couldn’t remember when. It drove him half mad. How could he not have a clear memory of something like that?
He had tried, so many times over the years, once he’d run out of anger, to grieve for his friend Prince Ozorne. He had tried to convince himself that his friend was dead. To count him as one more body on the Emperor Mage’s account. There had been so little left of his friend inside that hollow, vicious thing he had seen holding court in Carthak it had horrified him. But he was a fool and hadn’t stopped hoping. Right until the end he had hoped and hoped and all for nothing.
And now he actually was dead. Not a made up death to spare Arram Draper’s broken heart. He had died. Ozorne Tasikhe was really gone.
“I can’t even bury him,” he told the tortoise, “’there’s nothing left.”
Nothing left of Ozorne Tasikhe, and not much left of Arram Draper either. He could already tell wasn’t going to visit his family in Tyra even though he could. Maybe he would manage to write to Varice eventually. But not while he still ached like this.
He slumped and let his knees slide down, and Sunstone started clambering his awkward way into Numair’s lap. Numair reached out and helped the tortoise lift his hind feet up.
What about Ozorne? Why couldn’t he have done something differently? Reasserted the part of himself that he thought of as Numair Salmalin, or perhaps just as not-Arram-Draper-any-more.
You know the state he was in by the end. Ozorne was so scared. He was scared and he was hurt. When was the last time you saw him happy before you left? When was the last time he even felt safe? Arram argued.
Right, Numair argued back, he was upset and he couldn’t help it, just like I’m upstairs terrorizing Daine instead of down here inconveniencing Sunstone.
The thought turned his stomach. He had to swallow hard so he didn’t retch.
No, Numair told himself, no. The Emperor Mage was not my fault. I did not make Ozorne do those things and I did not deserve what he did to me. I did everything I could and more.
But I would have forgiven him if he had just been able to ask.
I forgive him for not being able to ask.
Sunstone heaved himself off Numair’s legs and trundled off down the hall. Numair sat there alone and cried for his long since lost and beloved leftover prince while he waited for the feeling to come back into his legs.