Book 10: Chapter 25: Drifting
Hope, it turned out, was not the remedy that Falling Leaf needed. Morning came and, although she remained physically healthy, she couldn’t be woken. With guilt seething inside of him, Sen made himself leave the room. He had done everything he could for her. Plus, much as he might wish it were different, things were still happening in the world. He’d agreed to do things in that world that he wanted to take back. Except, he couldn’t take them back. The arrow had left the string already in the form of Master Feng and Uncle Kho. Sen supposed he should count himself lucky that he wasn’t getting reports of sects being burned down across the kingdom. Then again, he had been ignoring things for a few days. Those reports might well be waiting for him.
He did his best to stay focused on the moment as he made breakfast for Ai. However, the unfilled chair at the table kept drawing his eye. This wasn’t like the times when she had been away from the galehouse. During those absences, he’d only had a general notion of where she was, but he’d been certain she’d be back. Now, he knew exactly where she was but had no assurance that she’d return in any substantive sense. He found he much preferred the former to the latter. Ai seemed to sense his mood and was unusually quiet. He hated that he was infecting her with his negative emotions, but he was struggling to keep them at bay. Then, and he knew it had always been coming, Ai asked the question.
“Papa, when will Falling Leaf wake up?”
He hoped that his face didn’t reflect the feeling that someone had driven an icy blade into his stomach. He’d been dreading this question because he’d told himself he wouldn’t lie to Ai.
“I don’t know,” he admitted.
He could see on her face that she didn’t understand, and he didn’t want her to understand this situation. She expected that Falling Leaf would wake up. After all, to Ai’s knowledge, that’s what happened when people slept. They went to sleep, and then they woke up. Order in the universe. He didn’t want to steal that innocence from her with cold facts. Saying, out loud, that Falling Leaf might never wake up would rob them both of something. Still, he knew he couldn’t leave it at I don’t know. He wouldn’t have settled for that answer in her place.
“Sometimes, when people have the kind of hurt that she has right now, they need to sleep for a long time to get better. Hopefully, she’ll wake up soon, but I don’t know that she will.”
It was the best he could do. The full extent of the truth was something that he couldn’t bring himself to face. Ai didn’t look entirely certain about that answer, but apparently it was enough to quell her questions for the moment. He did his best to keep her talking about safer topics after that. Even so, it was a relief when Auntie Caihong came to get her for whatever activities the nascent soul cultivator had planned for the day. Sen needed at least a few minutes alone to gather himself before he faced everything he expected to crash down on his head as soon as he left the galehouse. His eyes drifted to the room where Falling Leaf was, and he felt a gnawing worry that someone might do something to her while he was gone.
However, that thought was swiftly dismissed. He’d made and remade this galehouse, adding more and more formations and defenses with every new version. He and those he trusted could come and go as they pleased, even when the defenses were active. If anyone else tried to force their way through those defenses, well, everyone had to die eventually. If they decided that dying a horrible, violent, loud, and gruesome death was for them, it wasn’t Sen’s place to deny them the freedom to make the final mistake of their life. He might even do the appropriate funeral rights for whatever was left. He didn’t need vengeful spirits hanging around his home and bothering Ai, after all.