The Untold Forest by Elisa Menz (ebook offline reader TXT) 📕

good now,” she smiled, “but you should eat and take a day to rest. Can you stay at home?”

After sharing breakfast, Maeve returned to her gardening, and Hakken gingerly followed. Shame and awkwardness gave way to the desire of being around her and enjoying her presence. Maeve gave him the perfect excuse, and he offered to help with her work while he recovered from his imaginary illness.

“See? This is the correct shape.” They busied tying sticks to support the stems of a bright green plant, gaining height every day. At first, Hakken didn’t give much thought to her work, but seeing so many buds growing and changing the barren soil around his cave, he had to admit it impressed him.

“I’ve meant to ask you,” she said, “Mynte told me she learned the human language from the matriarch and she from her parents. Who taught you, Hakken?”

After all their time together, he realized he didn’t tell Maeve anything about his past. Not because he was actively avoiding the subject. He simply didn’t speak about it. “My mother. She came from a family of merchants, and she told me her ancestors had dealings with humans. She taught me your language when I was a child, and after she died, I kept hearing it from the humans living near the border.”

For a moment, only the sound of Maeve’s hoe removing the ground echoed over the side of the cliff. Hakken bit his lip, concentrating on tying the noose around two wobbly sticks to keep them upright.

“I didn’t know about your mother,” Maeve muttered, “I’m sorry.”

A sorrowful note tinted her voice, something Hakken never caught before. Worried about her sudden sadness, he chuckled and shook his head. “No need to feel bad about it, Maeve. She died years ago, and I had Kniv to care for me. I don’t remember her anymore.”

“You remember her since you’ve gone through all this trouble to preserve her gift to you.”

Hakken tilted his head. “What gift?”

Maeve didn’t say a word. She straightened, sending a lopsided grin his way, and tapped her lips twice. Hakken laughed, delighted with the conclusion she’d come up with. And she was right. After all those years, the memory came back to him; a little boy, sneaking to the border, straining his ears to listen to the humans speaking close by. Only to keep the heritage of his family alive.

They fell in comfortable silence, working side by side. Whenever he got stuck with how to use a tool or doubted between a vegetable and a weed, Maeve came to his rescue. The way in which she guided him reminded Hakken of something pleasant. He couldn’t place his finger on what it was. A homey sensation, long forgotten.

After they finished their work, they sat under the shadow of the cliff to rest, sharing the remaining fruit. I’m eating a damn quince. Hakken smiled at the thought. He only ate fruit when hunger became unbearable. Slumped against the rocks, Maeve chewed the juicy pome by his side. As discreetly as possible, Hakken glanced at her and discovered a longing look in her eyes. What was troubling his beautiful ward?

“Hakken?”

“Yes?” Whatever it was, he’ll do anything to ease her mind. It kept baffling him, how leisurely he decided everything Maeve wanted, he would provide.

She sighed. “Last night... you said something.”

Oh, no! Anything but that! Maeve had figured out he believed her to be a child. Hakken cringed, trying to come up with a believable explanation on how he was not entirely an idiot, and he only acted how he did too—

“You said you thought it was a shame to live.” She grew quiet, and her last words came out as a murmur. “What did you mean?”

Did he really say that? He did, and there was a time in which dying sounded almost like a release—freedom from his constant pain. But the notion felt so foreign now.

Guilt was still very much present, though. “Maeve... we fought a war, long ago, and I can’t say I understand much of how it started.” This was the easy part. Nothing but context. What came after made his jaw clench. “I lost my mate in that war.”

Maeve remained quiet, but Hakken could swear he saw how she diminished a little, folding back into herself. He didn’t like it, but it was better than hearing the usual apologetic response.

Hakken carried on. “We both joined the fray, but we were kids, only a little younger than you, and I... failed to save her.” If he didn’t think of the words, talking became easier. “She died in my arms, and I failed her.”

It wasn’t until he finished the sentence he remembered why he hated talking about her death. This was the moment everyone would assure him it wasn’t his fault. It was fate. He should stop blaming himself. It was a matter of time before the same empty excuses bounced from his ears once more.

“What a pair of failures we are, huh?”

His head whipped so fast to the side, and he got a little dizzy. What did she say? Maeve’s eyes were lost in the distance, glistening with unshed tears. Her hands rested on her lap, fingers slightly crossed. Her lips formed a thin line, and it didn’t seem like she wanted to elaborate, but Hakken was worried stiff after her last words. With measured gentleness, he took one of her hands in his. “Maeve... who did you lose?”

Breaking up from her daze, she blinked at him before looking away. Hakken’s chest tightened. Was it a friend? A lover? She was young, but it was quite possible she—

“My mother.” Her voice trembled, but the tears refused to fall. “After my older brother died, she lost all will to live. For years I did nothing but watch her waste away.”

“How old were you?”

“Does it matter?” Maeve frowned, realizing where he was going with his question. “I heard so many times what happened to her wasn’t my fault. I was too young to carry the burden. There was nothing to be done.” Her