Zac paused in his writing, then wiped away the tear that threatened his cheek, signed off and sent it.
Isaac noticed this and had a fleeting feeling of deja vu. He’d keep an eye on Zac. The last thing he wanted was for Zac to go the way Taylor went!
**********
Dear Sir Knight,
My darling I mourn your loss. I believe your honour would never allow you to betray your friend, so do not fear that. When you join him (and that will not be soon, I sincerely pray), he will greet you with open arms and the thought of any battlefield betrayal would never have entered his mind, like I genuinely dismiss it as the fear or regret of a grieving heart.
In any fight against the black knights, good men as well as bad fall. These good men we hail as heroes and remember forever in our hearts. As long as we keep their memory, they will never leave us.
We must always stand strong in the face of adversary, my love, but we must also take time to grieve the ones we loose. But do not grieve too long, for life must go on. And do not dwell on the past for that you cannot change and wondering what we could have done only succeeds in making things appear much worse than they really are.
I, too, have had a recent loss, although I did not know him as well as some of my other friends. He will be sadly missed.
On a lighter note, my dear Sir Bright,
As Zac read her words his heart immediately felt lighter, but he couldn’t shake the feeling of guilt over Luke’s death.
**********
After Luke’s funeral, Rebecca wandered over to Zac.
“Hey man, how you doing?”
Zac shrugged.
“I... I keep thinking it was all my fault.”
“Why?”
That stopped Zac for a moment. It was the first time he had been asked that.
“Uh, well... I just... I keep replaying the fight in my head, y’know... and I keep wondering if there was anything I could have done differently that might have... changed things.”
“Like what?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, what’s something that you could have done differently? I mean, there was... how many of them? And of them, how many were on you and how many were on Luke? You dodge one hit only to get into the path of another. You try to hit back only to actually strike or miss completely. So, what would you have done differently? Which hit would you have taken, thrown or dodged that would have saved him?”
“I... I don’t know.”
“You don’t know huh? And yet you’ve been replaying the fight over and over in your head? Not good enough.”
“Not good enough? How can you say that? You weren’t even there!”
“No, I wasn’t. And you were. You say that you keep on wondering if you could have done changed anything, and then you say you don’t know what you could have done. Well, frankly I wish you weren’t there at all. Then they would have killed him right out and none of us would have had to go through all that.”
Zac stared at her.
“How can you say that?” he accused. “He was your brother!”
“Yes. And he was your best friend. Zac... I didn’t mean a word of it. You were there. You stuck up for him the best that you could, and you tried to save his life.”
“Yeah, but I failed.”
“No, he was still alive after the fight. He was just in a coma. And I don’t seem to remember you coming out without a scratch on you.”
“Some scratch.”
“Well, anyway, no one blames you but you. We can’t forgive you for a sin you didn’t commit, so quit dwelling on it and get on with your life.”
Suddenly Zac smiled.
“Thanks Rebecca.”
“Any time.”