Chapter 31
Days passed in a blur.
I didn’t remember any of it. Not changing my clothes or bathing or leaving Draig Hearth. I didn’t remember Iaso erasing Vaelor’s mark from my neck with one of her Goddess-forsaken medicines, but I felt it—or the lack thereof, replaced by a deep, deep ache in my chest, drowned in numbness. I didn’t remember crossing the border with Alden or sleeping or eating, but we were here, standing hand in hand outside of Godrick’s castle.
Why is Alden here? How is he here?
He should be curled into a ball. He should be unreachable, like me. His words fell on deaf ears, his comfort, his panic techniques, all useless.
Nothing would ease this ache.
Nothing would fill the emptiness in my chest.
I hadn’t smiled since Vaelor smiled back at me. I hadn’t taken an easy breath or had a thought that didn’t contain his face, bleeding and pale and dead.
He was dead.
Dead.The word echoed in my skull every day, all day, every night, in every nightmare, in every cry. I thought those might be the only three words I knew anymore: Vaelor is dead.
Three words that had single-handedly shattered my entire person.
There was nothing left, and I finally understood Alden. Maybe that was why he helped me, because when he looked in my eyes, he saw his reflection.
He’d placed a glamour over his Fae ears, leaving him seemingly human, and I didn’t like it, but I didn’t like a lot of things any longer. What was the point?
Everyone dies, right? Everything and everyone?
Everyone fucking dies.
Truer words had never been spoken, and that was only confirmed when I walked in through the front door alone. I didn’t look back to wave at Alden as he watched from afar. I didn’t say goodbye or hug him or offer him a smile.
I did nothing, because I could do nothing. Merely walking took every ounce of energy I had.
As I entered, the guards’ faces fell in shock, but they waved me forward, their eyes dropping to my feet.
Barefoot.
I hadn’t put on a pair of shoes since Vaelor died. I’d felt his blood beneath these feet.
Now, I needed every texture, every ground, every floor to grate that warm, wet feeling from my memory. Nothing had worked so far—not grass, gravel, tile, hot coals, or forest floor—and I was losing hope anything ever would.
I followed the directions of guards, making it all the way to a…funeral before I realized anything was different.
Black was everywhere: black flowers, black banners, black rugs. Candles were lit on every surface, benches on either side of the long, dark carpet leading to the casket.
Alivia and Godrick leaned over whoever lay inside.
I walked forward on numb legs, and they turned when gasps rippled through the mourning crowd. Alivia found me first, her face swollen and blotchy, clutching a wet handkerchief in her gloved hand. My feet stopped when she sprinted. She collided with me in a tight embrace, nearly knocking us both to the ground.
She sobbed into my shoulder. “M-mother. She…She died. She’s dead. A sickness.”
I didn’t return the hug. I didn’t speak. I just stared at the casket. l could barely make out Mother’s profile, pale and dead.
Dead.
Everyone dies.
Alivia’s breath hitched as she pulled back and led me forward. Godrick’s face looked…blank, absent, and I knew he understood too.
He knew this pain, felt it, lived it, drowned in it.
We would drown together.