Chapter 21
The cottage was more of a cabin, made of long logs interconnected at the corners, and tucked away in a clearing bordered on one side by an emerald forest and a shallow sea on the other.
Flowers bloomed in abundance, overgrown plants of every variety and color thriving beneath the warm sun. Green vines crept over the walls, each one speckled with dainty blue blooms and consuming the house like nature had claimed it.
“No one has been here in a very long time,” Alden whispered.
I peeked at him to find his expression haunted, his posture slumped. He barely held onto the reins, his horse slowly coming to a stop beneath him.
Wryn may have been a Storm Bringer, blessed by the Goddess, but power like that had to have been helped in part by a mate bond between his parents, right? And if that were the case…where was she?
I glanced back at the cottage, beautiful—and abandoned. It was clearly adored at some point but now stood neglected, and it haunted Alden. It was hers.
“What was her name?” I asked.
“Ara,” he breathed. “Her name was Ara.”
The ache burrowed in my chest, and I took a slow, intentional breath. “Was she Wryn’s mother?”
“Yes.”
I waited for him to say more, but when he didn’t, I simply said, “Thank you for sharing her with me.”
I couldn’t imagine how excruciating it must have been for him to bring me here after so many years, but I was grateful. I hoped he knew that.
He turned to me and smiled faintly. “Of course. She would have loved you.”
That ache became daggers.
I didn’t want her to love me. Her son couldn’t.
Inside the house, everything was covered in a layer of dust, but otherwise seemingly untouched. On the right side of the room, a multitude of paintings and sketchpads were scattered over every surface: the tables, chairs, easels, even propped on the windowsill. Canvas after ancient canvas was painted with faces or landscapes. Some even held fruit. The large one reclining on the glass panes held a single fruit tree—an apple tree, dotted with red that had faded to pink.
I found another and another, all depicting a similar tree in different angles. I peeked out the window to find the apple tree behind the house, already speckled with shiny, ripe fruit.
Is this why Wryn had bought the apple orchard? For his mother?
I inhaled a shaky breath, feeling my restraint slip bit by bit as I edged closer to a depiction of a young boy, eyes silver and hair brown, holding the hand of a short woman. I ran my fingers over her, down her blonde hair to the hand that held his, leaving a trail in the dust.
Wryn must have gotten his appreciation for art from her.
My eyes welled with tears. When one broke free to slide down my cheek, I blinked them back and wiped the moisture away, inhaling a shaky breath before turning to find Alden in the kitchen.
He stared at a dead potted plant sitting beneath a different window. Nothing remained but a clump of brown sticks, the dirt dried and cracked.
He lifted a finger to brush a branch, and it practically turned to dust under his light touch. His breath hitched, his chest heaving until his knees caved. He hit the ground, and I didn’t move. I didn’t run to him or speak or offer condolences, because he didn’t need that. He didn’t need me. He needed his mate, his love, the mother of his child.
A tear slipped from his eye. “I was waiting on the day you’d grow tired of me.”
Silence followed, and he nodded faintly, another tear falling. When he rose to his feet, I swiveled and averted my gaze.
He cleared his throat. “I’m going to stay at the inn in the village we passed through. It’s not far, so if you need anything at all, please come find me.”
I nodded, unsure what to say, and his footsteps grew distant. He opened the door and chuckled, but it sounded broken, mangled.
“The garden out back seems to be flourishing without its gardener. Take whatever you desire, but if you’d like meat or flour or anything else, there’s a shop in town. Just tell them to add the items to my account, and I’ll pay before we leave.”
“Come back tomorrow?” I asked in a rush but regretted it the moment the question left my lips. Something told me he needed help, though, encouragement or a friend—some reason to come back here.
He paused, clearly torn and disinclined.
“Please?”
He exhaled slowly before answering, “Sure.”
With that, the soft click of the door closing echoed through the silence, and I shattered right where I was, my heartbreak the only thing I could hear, see, or feel as I collapsed to the floor.
The second my knees hit wood, I dropped my face to my hands and screamed.
I screamed and screamed and screamed. Until my throat shredded and the taste of blood met the back of my tongue. Until my voice was gone and no sound would come. Until I shook with exhaustion. Until the physical pain drowned out the intangible agony.
Sleep never came.
I shook out the dusty blankets before crawling into the decrepit bed. It creaked and shifted like it might fall out beneath me, but I couldn’t be bothered to care. Pulling the blankets up over my shoulders, I laid my head on the rolled-up coat I used as a pillow and stared.
My eyes burned from hours of crying and lack of rest. They begged to be closed, but even when I did, sleep was evasive.
When the sun started to rise, its soft rays of yellow were framed beautifully by the window I stared out of. It lit the ocean beneath it, painting the turquoise water in various shades of yellow, followed by orange and pink, and then the sky and waves were bright blue once again.
I smiled faintly, cuddling under the comforter. No wonder Ara had this bed facing the window. I could imagine no better way to wake than with the rainbow of sunrise.
My poor throat, though, was raw. I could feel my breath sliding in and out, and I feared how it would feel to try to speak. Even a yawn felt like it was splitting my esophagus open.
After crawling out of bed, I pulled on my coat as I found my shoes and tugged them on, stumbling toward the back door as I did so.
The doorknob stuck slightly, and I had to jiggle the door to pull it open, but as soon as I did, crisp air wafted in, bringing the scent of early morning ocean and greenery. I closed my eyes and inhaled slowly, ignoring the ever-present burn in my throat.
I stepped out, closing the door behind me, and wrapped my arms around myself as I sat in a metal chair. Stones had been laid together to make a patio of sorts with several paths branching off to wind through the garden. Closest to the house were flowers but farther out were the fruit trees, bordering the normal tree line. It looked like fruit had fallen to the ground, spread by nature, and sprouted up over the years, so dozens of trees had grown to create a fruit forest—oranges, lemons, and apples.
My heart clenched. So many apples.
I could make an apple pie while we were here. I wondered if Alden would like that.
My eyes closed as I took another slow breath. Why had I asked him to come back? I always, always grieved alone.
Footsteps sounded from the right side of the house, and my face whipped in their direction. Alden poked his head around the corner and offered a nervous smile.
He lifted a brown paper sack. “I brought breakfast.”
When he came around the corner, I noticed two mugs in his free hand and a kettle tucked in the crook of his elbow, so I hopped up to grab them.
“Th—” I dropped a mug to grab my neck as liquid fire spread through my throat. I would’ve screamed if that wouldn’t have killed me on the spot.
The mug rolled onto the dirt but didn’t shatter—thank Goddess. I picked it up and offered Alden an apologetic look, but his eyes were wide and full of concern.
“Are you all right?” he asked, motioning to the seats.
I nodded as we sat and placed everything on the metal table.
“Are you getting sick? Do you need a healer?”
I shook my head and dropped my gaze to the table. He rested a hand over mine as I started to fidget with the cups.
I glanced up reluctantly.
“You…did this, didn’t you?” he asked, his eyes boring into mine. “You screamed?”
I wanted to pull away. I wanted to avert my gaze and run and hide. I wanted to force a smile on my face and shake my head no.
But he looked at me like he understood, like he didn’t want to be alone in his grief.
So, I nodded once. Just once.
My first admission to another that I still grieved, even if Alden didn’t know who it was for. I had never told Alivia or Godrick or Emma, because I didn’t want them to hurt for me, so I dealt with it in solitude.
“I’ve done that before,” he muttered and grabbed the kettle. He slowly poured two cups, steam swirling in the cool air between us. “Marshmallow root and white willow bark. Iaso gave me a few bags, told me you may need it.”
My eyes bulged, flitting between him and the cups. How had she known? I looped my finger through the mug handle and brought it to my lips, blowing the steam away. I took a hesitant sip, closing my eyes as the warm liquid soothed my throat.
It was Iaso, though. Would I expect anything less? She somehow knew what everyone needed all the time. I just hoped someone did the same for her, provided what she needed. Perhaps Ewan was her person.
I took another long sip and made a mental note to be another one of her people. She needed care as much as the rest of us, even if she would never admit it.
She liked lemons, that much I knew from our trip to the market, but she didn’t have a tree in her garden. I lifted my gaze to the fruit trees, counting the lemon ones in particular. With four full trees, there were enough lemons to fill an entire backpack full, which I would do, but there, just beneath one, was also a sapling.
I smiled to myself. There had to be a shovel and a pot somewhere among the gardening supplies. We would bring Iaso back a lemon tree for her greenhouse, and I could even make her a lemon custard or perhaps a cake or?—
Alden held a cinnamon roll out, taking a bite of his own.
“These were her favorite,” he mumbled.
I took it gratefully, stifling a wince as I bit and swallowed. If these were her favorite and he was willing to share with me, then I’d be damned if I didn’t eat one with him, for her.
“Can…” I croaked, barely audible despite maximum effort, essentially screaming to make any noise at all, and Goddess be damned, it was painful as hell. “Can you…tell me…about her?”
He looked scared. More than scared—terrified, frozen, torn between bolting or outright telling me no.
I shook my head, ready to say never mind, when he exhaled audibly, his entire body slouching.
“She was…everything. I can’t remember what my life was like before her, if it was a life at all, but then she found me. She smiled and I was lost. I would’ve done anything she asked, and I did most days, mind you.” He chuckled, staring over the sea as he took another sip. “She liked to garden and paint, as you can see. She owned this place long before we met. It was her special place… Our special place when she finally let me move in. This is where Vaelor was born all those eons ago.”
Alden started, and he didn’t stop. We eventually smiled, even laughed, as he told me story after story. Ara was kind, much like Alden and Wryn. She enjoyed painting more than sketching, but the ocean was Alden’s thing. They both grew up in Nautia, but somehow missed each other for far too long until she saw him entering that very inn we’d visited.
She followed him, grabbed his arm, and swirled him around. He’d been angry at first, caught off guard by the suddenness, but when he turned to find a five-foot-nothing blonde with one green eye and one blue eye smirking up at him, he’d melted on the spot.
“Well, damn it all, I thought I’d never find you,”she’d scolded, and he fawned like they were the best words he’d ever heard.
I snorted into my hand as he poured me my third cup of tea, now cooled but still soothing. “Sounds…lovely.”
He smiled at me, truly, revealing endearingly crooked teeth—much like Wryn’s. “She was. I’ve never met another like her, but I…I can see why Vaelor took to you.” My smile faltered, and I fidgeted with my cup. “You have the same energy as her, the same…hope, the same smile. Not the look per se, but the same infectiousness. Well, hers was. Yours is.” He ran his thumb over the rim of his mug. His next words were quiet, vulnerable, and I had to lean forward to hear them. “I haven’t talked about her like this since she died.”
My lips parted. “Thank you…for telling…me.”
He nodded, sniffling when his breath hitched. “She deserves to be talked about, to be shared, but it…hurts, for a lack of a better word, and then I avoided her for so long that I started to feel…”
“Guilty?” I offered, because I knew that feeling too well, and it was heavy, all-consuming.
He met my gaze. “Yes, guilty. Would she feel forgotten? Would she be hurt to know I hadn’t said her name aloud in almost a hundred and ninety-seven long years? Would she be disappointed in me?”
His chest rose and fell quickly, his words growing breathless, and I reached a hand over to place atop his.
I shook my head, my lips pressed into a thin line. “Proud.” Whatever remained of my voice faded away, and I mouthed the last few words slowly. “She would be proud of you. For living. For telling me. For loving her.”
His throat bobbed as he nodded, and he flipped his hand over to hold mine.
I gave him a quick squeeze. “What would you say to her now, if she were here?”
“That I love her.” He turned to her garden. “I love you, Ara. I’ve loved you since the moment we met, and that has never wavered. I love you as much today as I did then, and I will until my last breath, your name the final word on my lips. Then, I’ll see your beautiful face and never let you go again.”
What would I tell my parents? Anything at all? What I would do when I saw them on the other side of the veil…
My smile fell, along with my gaze and heart.
Tears welled in my eyes, because when I finally made it to the other side, I wouldn’t recognize them. I wouldn’t see their faces and take off running. They would be strangers.
I need to be alone. I was supposed to be alone.
I slid my hand back from Alden, but he tightened his grip, refusing to release me. My gaze snapped to his, my brows knitted together.
He leaned over the table a few inches, wrapping his other hand around mine as he said, “You may not be ready yet, but you grieve too. I see it on your face, in your eyes, hear it in your voice, and as you are the adopted princess of Godrick, it’s not hard to deduce you mourn your parents.”
I shook my head, attempting to force a smile on my face, but my lips trembled. A tear escaped to roll down my cheek—a traitorous tear, one for me and my parents, not Alden—and I quickly wiped it away. He released my hand when I jerked it this time, harder.
I stood and strode to the door, my hand on the knob when he said, “I may not have known your parents, but I’m a parent myself, and I can tell you they’re proud of you. If you were my child, I know I would be.”
My reflection in the window broke me—my mouth hanging open, lips cracked, my eyes red and swollen, brimming with unshed tears and lined by dark circles, my hair knotted in a bun atop my head. I looked like pain, like unhealed grief, and I hated it.
I reared back and punched the glass. It cracked and shattered beneath my knuckles, slicing into my skin, and I gasped—not for me or the blood trickling down the shards, but for Alden, for his mate, for the door they would have opened and closed together so many times.
My cheeks burned, my hands hovering over the broken panes. What have I done?
I dropped to the ground to lift the pieces, stacking three in my palm as red dripped onto the stones. What have I done? What have I done?
I placed a large piece back where it would go and held it there while I placed another one on top of it. I braced them with my left hand while I picked up another shard with my right. The sharp edge sliced my finger, but I lifted it anyway. More red fell. More red coated the beautiful glass sparkling beneath the morning sun.
More red, more tears.
My legs shook, and I fell to one knee. My entire body shook: my hands, my chest heaving for air, even my eyes. Fuck, why can’t I see?
My vision was blurred, but I had to fix this damned door.
I lifted another piece, but it slipped from my hand and hit the ground, where it shattered into a hundred tiny, irreparable pieces.
A choked sound left me followed by a cry that ricocheted through my chest and echoed off every facet of my heart, and then I was sobbing. My arms wound around my torso as I fell back, hitting my ass on the stone.
An arm wrapped around my shoulders. He turned and pressed me into his front side, but I didn’t release myself. If I did, I feared my heart would break into pieces on the ground. It would join the broken shards—as it should.
His body was wracked with his own cries, but I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t soothe him or hug him or do anything. I was useless, because I couldn’t stop the emotion pouring out of me, no matter how much I wanted to.
I’m sorry.I shook my head, burying my face in his chest. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.
The floodgates had opened on twenty-two years of isolated pain. I had finally found a friend who shared that same hurt, and it wanted to be heard, to be seen, to be felt, to be shared.
“It was just glass, Elora. Just glass.”
Memories. His memories, and I shattered them.
“The door can be replaced.” He sat back and lifted my hand to inspect the injuries. “You cannot be.”