68. Krait
Chapter 68
Krait
12 Years Later
O ur trunks were packed and piled by the Egress, ready for our journey back to the Sahlms, where we would spend the winter. Asterie and Fenris would have a good handle on affairs here in the Central Corridor in our absence.
Walking into the Luz Palace’s main hall, I found Sybilla loitering, looking up at two bronze statues displayed between the grand staircase. She leaned down to light a candle at their feet. Hundreds were scattered around them in varying colors. We held open hours for those who wished to come and celebrate the fallen rulers of Phynx.
Sybilla had convinced me that Ryn and Freya’s memorial belonged in Luz, just miles from the ruins of their ancestral city. Some days, it still pained me to look at their faces. But most days, there in the hall, with sunlight spreading rays across them, the memories I had of my late wife and her brother shifted to brighter moments—their smiles, their laughter. They were not ghosts here.
It had taken time to settle the unease in the realms. Now that the crops were bountiful everywhere, all seemed at peace.
The corridors were adapting to the presence of Source magic in Henosis. Bringham remained a thorn in our side, as he still outlawed its use in the West Corridor. Luckily, he only had a small landholding, which didn’t impact most trade. Amara spent her time in the South Corridor, helping to prepare Sheffield’s young nephew for the throne and keeping the isles in order.
The way Sybilla looked wistfully up at Ryn and Freya made my heart swell. She wore a rust-colored satin dress with the Sahlmsaran crest embroidered on each shoulder. Her curls were pulled back in a Luz-blue ribbon. Some silver threads of hair poked out in unruly protest—she blamed me for them.
Sybilla liked to point out every wrinkle and slight change that occurred in my face as though my aging was some grand experiment to her. She’d touched the corners of my cheeks last night and whispered, “Are these smile lines? You better be careful—someone might think you are friendly.”
My mouth curved up at the thought. We faced an inevitable fight against Caym, but even if the next thirteen years didn’t yield the results we wanted, I looked forward to each moment spent with her, no matter the task. We hadn’t yet found the remaining two relics. Sybilla had returned to taking garrot root; it seemed to be the only remedy that kept her inflammation at bay, but with it her power was also stifled.
“Papa! Which texts do I need to bring?” Lark called over the balcony railing, and my attention snapped away from her mother.
Larkspur had turned ten a few months ago and was growing awkwardly lanky. She had Sybilla’s eyes—bright green and expressive—and had been graced with her mother’s curls, though they were dusty brown. She’d inherited my darker complexion, but I was glad that was the only quality I’d gifted her; she was her mother’s daughter through and through.
“ All of them, Larkspur,” I grated out. I’d told her that four times already.
Our daughter’s head lived in the clouds. She didn’t fully grasp how to keep others’ thoughts and emotions out. We’d had to teach all those closest to us how to ward against her Reverist abilities. There were some things a young girl didn’t need to reckon with just yet—despite the weight of the realms she would one day hold on her shoulders.
“Right!” Lark said and clattered back to her bedchamber.
When I looked at my wife, she caught my gaze. She smirked before she approached me. “Have patience with her,” she warned.
“I am patient,” I ground out. Sybilla let out a knowing huff of laughter which made me smirk too. We both knew I was far from a patient parent. Neither of us was.
But we were trying.
On our worst days, there was the beauty of Lark’s five aunts to help us—she was surrounded by enchantresses willing to teach her, guide her, love her.
We were having a bad month. Nightmares had visited Lark for weeks, and though she was far too old to be crawling into bed with her parents, it was hard to deny her when we knew the real nightmares she would face. That soft spot in my resolve meant Sybilla and I were never alone, even when our work for the day had concluded.
Neither of us had been ready when Lark graced us. We’d been carefully taking tonics, waiting until we were both sure. But, like her mother, Lark had had her own plans.
I wrapped a hand around Sybilla’s hip and pulled her to me, stealing a kiss. Sybilla sank into me, hungrily capturing my bottom lip between her teeth, with a desperate groan.
It had been over a month since I’d felt all of her, been inside of her, heard her gasp out my name.
“My King and Queen, care to get a room? Some of us have work to do.”
Elsedora approached from the entry. Yet again, we’d been interrupted. El wiped a bead of sweat and dust from her brow. She wore fitted breeches, and a tunic cropped at the stomach, and she was heavily armed with throwing daggers strapped at her waist. Her boots were muddied. Judging by the bags beneath her eyes, she hadn’t slept in days. She looked like shit.
“Before you harp at me—Hurley is fine alone in Sahlmsara for a few nights. He can’t do that much damage in a short time,” El argued.
She frequently visited the Sahlms, helping Hurley learn his role as my newest officer of Sahlmsara. With the help of the young Water-wielder, the Sahlms no longer struggled with droughts.
Sybilla had negotiated to seat us as interim rulers of the North Corridor while Mattock remained in his cursed slumber. Only when he awoke would we revisit the arrangement. It had brought me great satisfaction to have been able to see the ensuing tantrum from Bringham.
“I didn’t say anything. He’s doing well. You’re doing well with his training. Did you find anything?”
Her sour expression and piss-poor mood told me all I needed to know. “The tomb was dripping with traps from the moment I entered. I got through them all for nothing except this gaudy thing...” She dropped a necklace with many dangling iridescent beads into my palm. It glistened in a curious way.
“It could be something,” I said. “Why don’t you bring Fen or Hurley next time? It worries me that you keep at this alone.”
“Pfft…They always just end up slowing me down.”
Since discovering her Source power, Elsedora spent much of her time following the wind to ancient ruins and tombs. There, she hoped to find relics to help us defeat Caym. So far, to her dismay, all she’d been able to find in the last twelve years was an ancient mirror that seemingly had no purpose.
Larkspur tiresomely begged to go with her aunt every time El left.
In her off time, Elsedora visited us here or stayed at her estate in the North Corridor. El was Lark’s favorite person in the realms. Aside from us—for now. We’d see what her formative teen years handed us.
I was a moment away from letting my daughter go with El next time, just for a minute alone with my wife. In truth, I was at least six years away from letting her go tomb raiding.
Ryn’s death had impacted us all. It had made El’s drive for vengeance against Caym ravenous. It was as though she never stopped moving. I’d asked her once if Ryn had been her Source Match—she’d thrown one of her daggers at my head.
Sybilla took the necklace from my fingers and held it up before she handed it back to El. “It looks like these are moonstone beads. Give it to Asterie to inspect when she returns from the cabin this afternoon.”
“Aunty Lora!” Our daughter’s voice burst from over the balcony. Lark had created the nickname when she’d been too young to pronounce Elsedora and had jumbled her name together into something new.
Lark sprang down the stairs and into El’s outstretched arms. In a blink, Elsedora went from looking exhausted and pissed off to melting like putty in the girl’s grip, as she usually did. She lifted Lark and spun her around twice. “Hello, little troublemaker. Gah! You’re getting way too big for this. Can you stop growing?”
“No! I need to grow so I can come with you to the catacombs! I asked for throwing knives for my next birthday so I’ll be ready.”
Elsedora laughed. “Why don’t we go for a walk in the gardens while your parents finish…packing?” Elsedora gave Sybilla a not-so-subtle wink before setting Lark on her feet.
Lark squealed, “Let’s go!” and then dragged El by the arm, sprinting toward the back doors that led to the garden.
“Alright, alright,” El said as she was dragged away by our spitfire, our whole heart.
I’d been pretending not to notice that Elsedora had been allowing our daughter to visit Emmerick’s chamber with her. Sybilla wouldn’t approve, but I thought it wise that Lark saw the realities of the world as it had been. She needed to see the consequences of things she would later face.
Still, it was difficult to be so harsh on Lark about her studies and training. El offered her childish games, silly faces and the fun a child needed, and I couldn’t be more grateful to her for that.
Sybilla’s voice interrupted that thought. “I think Elsedora might be my favorite person today.” She touched my abs and pushed me back toward the steps. She glanced at the maids, who were dusting the main hall. “Asha, Lex—leave us. Please.”
I smirked as Sybilla grabbed me by the collar and claimed my mouth. The staff knew very well from the early days of our marriage what “leave us” meant. Get out of the room or prepare to get a show.
The Luz maids scurried out of the room.
I knew well, too, and my length already pressed against the seam of my breeches as her fingers found the buttons. She pushed me further toward the staircase. She had my waistband pushed down and my length freed before my ankles even hit the first stair.
We were not going to make it to the bedchamber.
I hissed when my bare ass landed on one of the marble steps, and I ran my hands under her dress, delighted to realize she was wearing nothing beneath the skirts. When she straddled me, and I pushed deep into her welcoming warmth, I groaned between our lips.
This was what eternity felt like.
None of it had been perfect. We’d loved and lost and still stood to lose so much more.
Yet every time a muscle ached or a joint cracked in a way it never had before, I realized that growing old with her might be the best form of forever I could have imagined.