Brynleigh didn’t say that last part, but that didn’t make it any less true. Any less horrible.
Brynleigh was an orphan. Her family was gone because ofRiver.
The screams that had haunted River for years had never been so loud, never felt so personal.
River could barely breathe. Barely think. Barely do anything at all. It took three tries to force her mouth to form words, but she had to know. “And you…”
“That was the night I was Made,” Brynleigh said softly. Mournfully.
Which could only happen if someone was on the brink of death.
Which meant…
It meant…
That she had…
She was the reason…
River’s lungs seized. The ground trembled beneath her. Except… not the ground. Her legs were shaking.
River stumbled. She clung to the side of a side table and stared at her sister-in-law.
“You were there when Chavin flooded? You were…”
Dying.
The unspoken word swirled around them, as loud as a clap of thunder.
Brynleigh dipped her head. The movement was almost imperceptible, but River would never forget it.
“Oh, gods.” River’s voice was hoarse, echoing the pain in her heart. Her mind. Her soul. “I… You were Made… because of me?”
There was no answer this time, but River didn’t need one. She already knew the truth.
And this was…
It was…
Awful.
It had been one thing to know that River had brought death upon a whole village. The people she’d killed had been nameless and faceless. She’d grieved for them, knowing that she would forever bear the weight of what she’d done, the deaths she’d brought about, on her soul.
But this…
She knew Brynleigh. Loved her as a sister.
And she’d basically killed her.
River crashed to the ground, her vision darkening as echoes of the past swept over her.
Screams. Waves. Shouts of terror.
Agony.
The farmhouse faded away. All River could see, all she could hear, was that night.
That disastrous, horrendous night.