Chapter 13 Lily #2
I rose to my feet to greet her, not as a fellow ruler, but as her niece.
I hugged her tightly and felt her hug me even tighter.
When I stepped away, she did the same with Hawk.
She wasn’t our aunt by blood but marriage, but she always felt like a blood relative.
She and my father had a strong friendship that was independent of my mother’s familial relation to her, so she’d always been special.
I remembered visiting Riviana Star as a child and thinking she was the most beautiful person I’d ever seen.
Now that I was an adult, I watched my father interact with her, and while every other man, and even most women, appeared to be hypnotized by my aunt’s beauty, my father seemed completely immune to it.
Aunt Eldinar greeted Steward Eliam with a nod before she took a seat. “The steward and I haven’t spoken since we sent your father back to the Southern Isles. What news do you bring, Queen Lily Rothschild?”
I would never get used to people calling me that, especially my own aunt. I relayed to her everything I just shared with Steward Eliam. Shared my experiences at the Empire Colonies and the Brigandine Empire.
“You believe we can trust the word of pirates?” Steward Eliam asked.
“I fought alongside pirates decades ago,” Aunt Eldinar said.
“They kept their word then. They were loyal to Talon, and I’m sure they are now loyal to Lily based on the tale you just told us.
I’m more worried about King Ithaca,” she said.
“He hasn’t committed treason or anything egregious, but he sounds dishonorable. ”
“I agree,” I said, not surprised that Aunt Eldinar would see the truth so quickly.
“We need allies, but a questionable ally is basically an enemy,” she said. “Perhaps I should speak with him.”
“No,” Hawk said. “We can’t undermine Lily’s authority to anyone. It will only hurt her reputation and our cause.”
I felt a warmth in my chest when I listened to my brother advocate for me like I was truly his queen.
“Then we need to hope for the best but expect the worst,” Queen Eldinar said. “And in the meantime, it’s imperative that we heal your father before the battle commences. I have no doubt in your abilities, Lily. But your father has fought in many wars in his lifetime. His experience is invaluable.”
“I agree.” I didn’t care about my father taking back the title I’d recently claimed. I just wanted him there with us, to grip me by the shoulder the way he used to, to look at me like I was the greatest thing that had ever happened to him. “But I don’t have any leads for a cure, do you?”
She gave a slight shake of her head. “Riviana Star has always been isolated from the rest of the world. We don’t have allies or friends outside the trees intentionally. Unfortunately, I have no one to ask.” She turned to Steward Eliam. “What about you, Steward?”
“I do not,” he said. “The only idea that comes to mind is the black diamonds in the desert, but we haven’t mined those in decades.”
A rush surged through my heart. “The black diamonds… My father always said they were powerful.”
Callum spoke up from the corner. I’d forgotten he was there until his voice filled the room. “I don’t think that will be the solution. Black diamonds are used to store energy. They’re simply vessels. I doubt they will contain the healing properties that you seek.”
“I believe we still have some stored in our vault,” Steward Eliam said. “You can take a look.”
“How would you administer it?” Queen Eldinar asked me, like I had the answer.
“I—I don’t know.” The golden blades destroyed the body’s ability to heal once they sank beneath the flesh. How would an antidote be administered? By putting bits into the wound? By ingesting it? My eyes immediately lifted to Callum like he might have the answer.
He answered me. “I suspect it needs to be applied directly to the wound, where the curse has been placed.”
“All things fade over time,” Queen Eldinar said. “Perhaps the potency of the curse will dwindle with time. All the dragons need to do is keep your father alive long enough for the poison or whatever it is to disappear.”
“Yeah, maybe,” I said noncommittally. “But we can’t wait around for that.”
“Then I’ll retrieve the black diamonds from the vault for your use,” Steward Eliam said. “And I’ll prepare our army to launch at your command, Queen Lily Rothschild.”
My aunt stared at me, her striking blue eyes identical to the color of the ocean against the sand at our private beach. The stare remained, hard and interrogating, but with a subtle look of affection. “Yes, we all serve the Death Queen.”
When Aunt Eldinar walked at my side down the hallway toward the bedchambers that Steward Eliam had prepared for us, I knew what would come next.
An interrogation so sharp her words would feel like the tips of her blades.
But now, I heard nothing but the sound of our steps through the hallway over the long mahogany carpet that covered the wooden floorboards.
She came to a stop in front of the double doors that led to her room for the evening. “May I speak with you in private, Lily?”
I stopped and faced her, feeling my heart doing a somersault the way my stomach did when Zehemoth executed a flip in midair.
As a grown adult and queen of a nation, I didn’t have to subject myself to any conversation that didn’t interest me.
But I also knew her concern would never fade, and she would try to corner me until she got the answers she wanted.
I knew she asked as a concerned aunt, caring for me out of love for both of my parents and out of the love she felt for me in her own heart.
I finally gave a nod in agreement.
She opened the door and entered the living room, the fire in the hearth already burning because the servants made it homely before her arrival. There was also a tray that contained tea leaves and a warm kettle.
In the same armor and cape, she took a seat on the couch, her back straighter than the edge of a blade, like she was about to hold court in her own realm. She crossed her ankles and rested her joined hands on her lap.
I absent-mindedly pulled my cape to the side before I took a seat in the armchair across from her, the fire at our sides.
My hands rested in my lap, and I waited for her to press her curiosity against my flesh like a dagger to my throat.
But the questions never came, and the silence carried on for so long I wondered if she’d spoken and I somehow hadn’t heard her.
I watched her across from me, watched her stare at me like she could see straight through me.
It made my heart race like it was in a sprint to stay alive, somehow worse than an actual question.
I forced my voice to be strong when it only felt weak.
“You asked to speak with me, aunt? It’s late, and I’m weary from the long journey. ”
“I hoped you would share your story with me freely, but you’re as guarded now as you were in Riviana Star. That tells me you have something to hide—or you feel great shame.”
I couldn’t see Callum in the room, but I knew he was there, watching my aunt try to dig a hole in my flesh with a blunt shovel.
“I feel no shame.” My relationship with Callum was complicated with no future in sight, but I felt the same sense of loyalty toward him that I did toward my own family.
I trusted his word without question. Trusted him in his absence, even though I knew I would never know how he spent his time when we were apart.
I would even consider doing this for the rest of my life because he was worth it.
“Then what do you feel?”
The shaky breath I took was involuntary, because what I felt couldn’t be spoken aloud.
It was just too raw, too painful, too real.
The realest thing I’d ever felt in my life.
It felt exactly the same as a dagger between the ribs, just inches from the heart.
“I meant what I said before. The god of the underworld has a vested interest in the defeat of the Barbarians.” Me.
I was the vested interest. “We’re simply allies with the same goal.
He granted me these gifts because he can’t interfere with the living, and he believes I’m the one who can defeat this enemy. ”
She didn’t blink as she listened to all of that, analyzing every word, every syllable.
“The god of the underworld can’t interfere with the living.
Granting the ability to command death is a mighty gift.
But your strength is greater than kings, generals, and soldiers.
It’s akin to the might of a dragon. How did he bestow this upon you? ”
I felt cornered, unsure how to answer the question. I wished Callum would advise me like he had in the past, but he continued to refrain. Perhaps because Queen Eldinar was my aunt and this conversation was between family, not rulers.
Her eyes narrowed like she figured it out on her own. “Or is it his own strength that’s been granted to you…the strength of a god.”
I hated how fucking smart she was. When I was a child, she told me she was older than most of the ancient trees in Riviana Star, that she watched them grow from saplings to mighty adults. All that life experience gave her a wisdom that could puncture holes in any tale.
“That is a different kind of gift—because it does interfere with the living. A queen who can command the dead from land and sea, who is stronger than any opponent who could ever challenge her. You’re a living god, Lily Rothschild.”
Bumps immediately broke out over my skin underneath my armor. I couldn’t see them, but I could certainly feel them travel down my legs and arms, making my hair stand on end. I didn’t understand the depth of what he’d given me until my aunt phrased it that way.
“A god only cares about the events of the mortal world if there’s a mortal he cares for. So if these gifts truly came freely, then we can assume that a living person is more important to him than his oath to the Covenant that he serves. And that can only mean—”
“I ask you to keep this to yourself, Aunt Eldinar.” If she dug her shovel into the ground once more, she would unearth a secret that I was unwilling to share.
An open secret that Callum and I kept from each other, at least verbally.
My mother might understand, but my father’s rage would make the cliffs of the Southern Isles collapse into the sea. “I will tell my mother…when I’m ready.”
The harshness in her stare immediately evaporated once she received confirmation of her suspicions.
And there seemed to be pity in her gaze, like she understood the endless complexities of such a doomed relationship.
“I’ve lived many mortal lifetimes, knew of Bahamut’s predecessor before he was ejected by the Covenant, and they’re all the same.
Corrupted by malice and despair and evil.
Be careful, Lily. It might seem real to you but could be a ploy of deception by a demon—”
“It’s not a ploy. It’s real.” I believed it from my heart to the marrow in my bones.
“And he’s not a demon. He’s a man with a heart and a soul who’s been condemned to eternal servitude.
Even if I begged him to take my soul, he never would.
” I focused on my hands in my lap so I wouldn’t collapse in a flood of tears.
The knowledge of his suffering was like a thousand cuts from broken glass.
“You give me your word that you’ll keep this to yourself? ”
Aunt Eldinar didn’t speak.
I lifted my chin to look at her again, knowing she wouldn’t make a promise to me then break it.
“I won’t have to, Lily. Your mother is distracted by your father’s illness and that will buy you time, but the moment your father is cured, he’ll piece it together quicker than I have.
And Lily…” She paused, staring me down like what she would say next carried the weight of the world.
“You will meet a version of your father you’ve never seen before.
A version I haven’t seen in over twenty years. ”
I showered then towel-dried my hair before I put on the thick cotton robe that had been hanging from a hook in the bathroom. When I stepped into my bedchambers, the cold fireplace was now set ablaze.
I knew who’d started it.
My eyes moved to the armchair in the sitting room, and I found him seated there, shirtless and in his trousers, his dark eyes taking me in with a distinct sheen of melancholy.
I climbed on top of him and sat across his thighs, his arm supporting my back as I rested my head on his shoulder, immediately warmed by his hot skin. My damp hair spilled down his arm, and I knew it would dry just from being near him.
We didn’t talk about the conversation with my aunt.
Didn’t talk about anything.
After a length of time passed, he turned his head into me and pressed a kiss to my hairline. “I came to say goodnight.”
I turned to look up at him, the disappointment like poison in my body.
“You’ve lost too much sleep over me. You need to rest.”
“I’d gladly be exhausted every day to spend every night with you.”
His eyes bored into mine for a heavy pause, and then he slid his big hand into my hair. He cradled my face before he pressed a soft kiss to my lips. “Xivin.” He said the name against my lips before he kissed me again. “Not tonight.”
“Please, I don’t want you to go.” Every night felt like our last. I’d never been in a committed relationship before, and I’d always imagined I would be calm and collected and laid-back, but I was desperate and clingy and obsessed. I would be embarrassed if I had room to feel anything else.
He stared into my eyes for a while. “I’ll stay only if you sleep.”
I wanted all of him like always, but I could read the sternness in his eyes, see the fact that he wouldn’t change his mind with any level of persuasion. So I conceded and gave a nod.
He scooped his arms underneath me and carried me to bed before he gently laid me down. He pulled the cinched tie around my waist free and then helped me get out of the robe before he slid into bed beside me.
I was naked and he still wore his trousers, but the second my head hit the pillow, I felt the fatigue like a fog.
I could hear the fire gently crackle in the hearth on the other side of the room.
Feel the heat from Callum’s body like my own personal flames.
Sense all the muscles in my body relax as sleep gently rolled over me like an incoming tide.
I felt his hand slide into my hair and cup my cheek. Without opening my eyes, I moved my hand over his arm, wanting to feel his touch as he touched me, wanting to have as much of him as I could take.
Because I didn’t know how long this would last.