43. Chapter 43
Chapter forty-three
Cyrus walked with Essandra through the stone gardens.
They’d spent the morning in bed, tangled in each other.
She’d run her fingers through his hair as he talked.
And he’d talked about everything—Etreus and Miriel, Gregor, Kord, Serra, Rael.
He’d talked about Norah. There was nothing he left out.
Not that he’d been keeping secrets, he just hadn’t shared the smaller details before.
He certainly hadn’t shared his worries, his fears.
He shared them now.
Cyrus didn’t like to talk, but now he couldn’t stop. And she’d only listened.
They’d eaten a late breakfast in the morning sun. Then he talked some more.
“She still hasn’t called me to return to her,” he said as they passed the center fountain. “I fear she won’t.”
Essandra walked with her arm looped through his. “Do you want my thoughts?” she asked finally.
“Of course I do.”
“I think she will call. I don’t think she’ll give up on you so easily, and you have to show her you’re worth not giving up on. You have to show her you can be civil, amicable, gentlemanly even.”
He snorted. “I’m none of those things.”
“You are when you want to be.” She pulled him to a stop and faced him. “What if…” She paused and pulled her bottom lip between her teeth. “What if you just entertained the idea of peace? It’s so obvious she wants it.”
He pulled back. “I’ll never have peace with the Shadow King.”
“Peace with her . She’s queen of the Shadowlands. She could influence change. Of course, I’m sure that would come with the requisite that you stop trying to kill her husband, but not killing someone is not the same as having a friendship with them.”
“Peace with her is the same as peace with the Shadow King,” he argued.
“Not exactly. And, Cyrus, this isn’t even the same king.”
“He’s the same as his father!” he snapped.
She quieted.
He sighed as he stared down at her. “Are you saying I’m wrong?” She was the only one he would hear it from right now.
“I’m saying everyone around you is not wrong. I don’t think Norah is wrong.”
The pull came so unexpectedly that it almost startled him, and he stilled.
Essandra’s brow creased, and her lips parted. “Cyrus?”
“She’s calling me.”
“Norah?”
He nodded.
“Now?”
He nodded again.
“Well… go!”
Yes, he had to go. Wait… He had to sit. He found a bench. “Will you stay with me?”
“Of course,” she promised. “I’ll be here. Go.” But then she gripped him. “Just… remember—civil, amicable, gentle. Gentlemanly. Don’t even talk about the Shadow King this time.”
Don’t even talk about the Shadow King.
He clutched her hand as he closed his eyes, letting his head drop, and traveled where his blood called him.
Norah sat in the stairwell again, but her mind wasn’t as it usually was. It was jagged and frayed.
Broken.
Cyrus knew grief when he saw it. He silently shifted through her mind and immediately saw what had happened.
Her grandmother had passed, the old queen regent.
This was what had kept her from calling him, and he eased. The worry he’d had faded.
Gentle , Essandra had told him.
“ I thought you might not invite me again. ” He spoke quietly in the darkness, simply letting her know he was there. “ I thought you might be angry ,” he confessed. “ But now… I see. I see your sorrow. ”
He drew down soft light around him and stepped in front of her at the bottom of the stairs. “ I’m sorry for your loss ,” he said.
Gentle. Cyrus offered her his hand. She stared at it for a moment, surprised, but she took it and stepped down off the stairs to his side.
Gentle. Gentlemanly. He pulled her hand into the fold of his arm and led her to walk with him. It seemed like a gentlemanly thing to do, and she let him.
She walked solemnly, but he could tell she was trying.
The fact she was so dedicated to this cause to still talk to him again despite her grief, and despite his last interaction with her, made him think he owed a little more effort himself.
He brought forward a field under the dark of night and filled it with fireflies.
She didn’t seem impressed, not that he was trying to impress her; he was trying only to lessen her sadness. He wasn’t sure why he thought fireflies would do that.
Perhaps they could just sit awhile.
Cyrus led her to a bench—the same bench that was in the stone gardens in Rael near the fountain, but beside it, he created a bubbling stream and pulled in the soft light of early morning.
Letting go of his arm, she sat, and he sat beside her.
“ I can’t believe she’s gone ,” she whispered.
Her words struck something within him that he hadn’t expected. He knew that disbelief.
“ How cruel death is. ” Her voice shook. “ I spoke harshly to her before, over something… so stupid, and I didn’t even get a chance to make it right. ” She wiped her nose. “ Death took the chance to tell her I was sorry, the chance to tell her goodbye. ”
Cyrus’s chest tightened. He knew that pain as well.
A tear spilled down her cheek. “ She looked so fragile in her bed ,” she told him. “ I tried to remember her as she was before, but even that seems to be taken from me. ”
That sparked a thought.
“ I can show her to you ,” he said softly. “ As she was. I can help you remember. ”
She shook her head. “ No. I would know it would be you under her face. ”
“ And if I stay right here? ” he asked. “ I can simply show her to you. ”
The corners of her eyes tightened. “ Like a vision, or a memory? ”
“ Something like that, yes. ”
She wanted to see her grandmother—the desperation was written all over her face, but he’d hurt her with the vision of Alexander. No doubt that was in her mind now. She needed this to be different. He hoped she’d let him give this to her. He wanted to give her something.
Finally, she nodded.
Cyrus called more light around them. He pulled every detail he could find from her mind. He didn’t remember much of the queen regent from when he was a child, but Norah knew every part of her, every line of her face. So Cyrus did too.
He brought the vision of the old woman just behind her. Norah turned to follow his gaze, and when she saw her grandmother, her breath caught. She glanced at Cyrus with her eyes wide, then back to her grandmother.
Cyrus pulled more power, and the vision of the old woman smiled warmly and held out her arms to Norah.
Norah glanced back at him, her breaths coming faster. “ It’s not a memory, it’s… ” She looked back to her grandmother. “ It’s like she’s there. ”
Cyrus would make her there. He’d done it before for Essandra. He could do it again. He willed her there. He summoned more power, pouring it into the vision. “ You can touch her ,” he said.
She reached out and gripped him tightly, like she didn’t dare to let herself believe it.
He gave her a reassuring nod. It was all the encouragement she needed. Norah staggered up from the bench and rushed to the old woman. She cried as her grandmother’s arms swept around her.
Warmth. He needed to give her warmth. Cyrus pulled more power, focusing. This—something so small—drained him almost as much as Soroya had when she’d fought him for Essandra. He opened himself to the Aether and drew even more power.
Norah clung to her grandmother.
He felt himself fading. He couldn’t hold the vision much longer. Cyrus pulled the old woman back and had her wipe a tear from Norah’s face. He drew the image forward to give her a kiss on her cheek, then, slowly, he released the vision back into the light.
Essandra’s worried voice cut through. “Cyrus!” She was calling him to come back, but he couldn’t leave yet.
Norah wept, smiling through her tears, still looking into the light long after her grandmother was gone. Finally, she turned back to him, but as her eyes landed on him, she gasped.
“ Lucien! ” she cried, and she ran to him. She dropped down onto the bench beside him and pulled him to look at her. “ Lucien, are you all right? ”
“Cyrus!” Essandra’s voice called again.
He had to focus to keep from slipping out of Norah’s mind.
“ I don’t have the strength to stay with you much longer ,” he said weakly.
“ It’s the seemingly simplest things that are sometimes the hardest. ” He gave a weak smile and squeezed her hand.
He couldn’t keep the vision of the garden around them any longer, and he let it fall away.
“ Lucien! Whatever you’re doing, you have to stop! Go. Rest. ”
“Cyrus!” Essandra called him, her voice sharper now, more urgent.
“ Will you call me back, Norah? ” he asked. He could barely get the words out, but he needed to make sure she’d call him back.
“ Yes, but go ,” she told him. “ You’re hurting yourself. ”
His vision began to unravel—white threads unspooling into black. A buzzing filled his ears. His hands felt distant, foreign.
“ I— ” he tried, but the words slipped from his lips before they formed.
Still, he managed the faintest smile before he let himself fall from her mind.
He woke with a jolt in the stone garden back in Rael.
Essandra clutched him, panic etched across her face. “Cyrus, look at me. Look at me.”
Blood ran freely from his nose, hot and thick. He tried to speak, but his throat was tight.
“I’m all right,” he rasped. He wiped the blood that ran into his mouth. “I’m all right,” he said again, but as he moved to stand, the world dipped sideways. His legs gave out underneath him.
Essandra tried to catch him. “Help me!” she cried out over her shoulder. Her voice broke in desperation.
But Cyrus didn’t see who she was yelling to. Darkness had already taken him.