Chapter 38 Meryn
MERYN
It takes begging, and a little bit of humiliation for all of us, to get Lucien to accept Noemi’s apology. Eventually, he relents and sends us all off to bed. I can tell he’s going to hold this one over me, though.
He seems like the kind of person who enjoys having an upper hand.
Stark and I collapse into the bed in my room, and I expect sleep to take me quickly after all the events of the day.
It doesn’t, though. There’s too much on my mind.
The thrall bracelet and everything I’ve learned about the Siphons. The possible alliance with Astreona, and what Lucien might gain from it. The Tears.
My thoughts keep returning to the Goddess Tears. How did Lucien and I end up with matching jewels in our crowns? Something about it feels very much by design.
And then back to Killian.
I’m going to need all the power I can get if I’m going up against him, if Alistair is as strong as Lucien claims.
Which then brings me full circle back to the Tears, and the one hanging around my sister’s neck.
At some point, the sun rises, and I’ve still barely slept. A finger traces my jaw.
“Something is bothering you,” Stark says.
How long has he been watching over me as I tossed and turned? I curl closer to him.
“I think I need the Tear that Saela is wearing,” I whisper.
I wish I could bottle the peace of this moment, vulnerable but safe in his arms. “The Tear in my crown made me so much more powerful on the battlefield, and when I put the necklace on for that brief moment at the war camp, I felt it amplifying my power, too. But…”
“It’s protecting Saela,” Stark supplies.
I fiddle with the button on his shirt. “I can’t let Killian’s influence reach her, but I need that power if we’re going to defeat him. Before we left the front, Ruby said there were ways to block the sire bond.”
Stark’s brow just barely tightens. “There is one person here who might have some answers for you.”
I roll over onto my back with a groan. “I know, I was thinking the same. But I’m not sure how eager he’ll be to help us this morning after we just tried to assassinate him last night.”
We both contemplate the absurdity of that statement for a moment.
“He let Noemi live,” Stark points out. “He made you grovel for it, the bastard, but still. That’s not the action of a monarch who’s willing to walk away from this peace negotiation.”
I turn that over in my mind. “You’re right,” I admit. “He’s been insufferable and insulting, but he’s actually been fairly cooperative so far. Ugh, I was really hoping to go a few more hours without seeing his dumb face.”
Stark gets out of bed, and I follow him reluctantly, throwing on a set of clean clothes.
I need to talk to Saela. She should be the first to know what I’m thinking since the necklace is in her possession—and keeping her safe.
My eyes are bleary from lack of sleep as I push open the door to our shared living room and then stop dead in my tracks.
Saela and Venna sit on the couch, speaking slowly but conversantly in sign language. Saela looks so comfortable—or at least she did until I arrived.
I didn’t realize she learned so much sign language, and so quickly. Then again, she’s always picked things up fast.
“Good morning, you two.” I try to remember the signs I saw before they cut off their conversation, but there were too many words I didn’t recognize.
Saela looks up at me, blushing.
She’s clearly hiding something, but for the life of me, I don’t know what it is. What were she and Venna talking about?
Venna rises. “I’ll let you two get ready for the day,” she says, moving to leave.
“Wait. Venna, can we talk first?” I say. “Walk with me?”
She nods and follows me away from my sister’s prying ears, into the palace corridor. I aimlessly turn us left.
“What was that? Is Saela okay?” I blurt out. “It felt like she was hiding something from me just now.” I glance sidelong at Venna’s face as we walk.
Venna presses her lips together, inhaling deeply. “That’s between the two of you, Meryn,” she says. “I don’t want to get in the middle of this.”
I stop short. So I am missing something here, after all. “If she has something she needs to talk about, she should talk to me. I’m her sister! She shouldn’t sneak around, keeping secrets by using a language I can barely understand.”
Venna sighs in obvious irritation and turns to me, eyebrows raised. “Well, Meryn, whose fault is it that you haven’t moved past basic signs yet?”
I bite my lip and pivot to look out the window behind me, studying the courtyard just beyond. My body burns with shame. I know she’s right. It’s not something I’ve prioritized enough, not like I should have.
“Look,” Venna says from behind me, voice kinder than I deserve. “Saela is going through some things that she feels like only I will understand.”
My eyes flood with tears unexpectedly, and I blink rapidly to clear them. “What things?! She should know that she can always talk to me about anything!”
“Can she? Be honest with yourself, Meryn.” Venna puts a hand on my shoulder, and I turn to meet her gaze.
The look she gives me is piercing, but not unkind.
“Do you know what it feels like to be marked by difference? To be made to feel like some essential part of you is unwanted? Can you put yourself in that perspective?”
I swallow down the lump in my throat.
Venna lets her hand drop from my shoulder, taking a step back. When she speaks again, her voice is weary.
“Saela is excited to be in a place where she fits in, where she’s not seen as a problem but as something common. And she doesn’t know how you’d take that.”
It stings. I’m such a fucking asshole.
I’ve been holding so tight to the idea of the future that I’d imagined for us, one where we grow old together. One where we pass through all of life’s important moments at each other’s sides.
It’s everything I strived for with the Trials. Finding my sister and returning our lives to normalcy.
But Saela’s normal has changed. And instead of accepting that, I rejected her new existence. Over and over and over again.
Venna turns back toward our rooms, then looks over her shoulder to see if I’m coming. “I’m always happy to talk, Meryn. But if you want to hear more from your sister, you need to have that conversation with her yourself and be open to her. See her for who she is, not who you want her to be.”
Goddess, I hope I can heal our relationship. That she’ll forgive me and learn to trust me again.
“Understood,” I say.
Venna stops dead in her tracks, and spins back toward me. “Wait, before we’re in front of innocent ears… you and Stark? I know you didn’t cut yourself out of your dress last night.”
My face heats. I didn’t tell Venna about what happened between Stark and me outside of Grunfall, or everything afterward. It felt like it would betray him to gossip about it, at least until he’d decided one way or another.
Well, his decision is made.
“Yep,” I say. “That’s happening.”
Venna smirks. “Nice one.”
I pat her on the back. “Thanks, that means a lot coming from the Kryptos Killer.”
Venna and Saela both want to come with me to ask Lucien about how to block Saela’s sire bond. It doesn’t surprise me: They’re alike in many ways, including their desire to learn everything they can.
I could probably benefit from being more like them.
Stark is torn between joining us and staying with Noemi, who is still recovering from her adventures of the previous night. I assure him that we’ll be safe without him and that I’ll call him mentally if we sense the slightest bit of trouble.
I’m glad when he acquiesces. Something tells me we’ll get more out of King Lucien without him there.
Saela’s interest turns to full-on excitement when we hear where the king is spending his morning: the Astreonan Royal Library. I smile, watching her light up at the news, but I can’t shake my undercurrent of guilt and sadness, too.
When it comes to Saela, all I’ve done lately is make mistake after mistake. What would it look like to get it right?
Felippe shows us the way to the library and throws open the massive wooden doors with exaggerated pompousness.
My amusement is cut short, though, when I see the room beyond the doors.
Calling this a library seems like an understatement. It’s a damn temple to books. Saela gasps next to me as she leans back to take it in.
There are multiple stories of books and scrolls—connected to one another by tall, narrow spiral staircases—all packed into shelves carved right out of the castle’s pale stone.
The massive space is ingeniously lit, with high windows above the books.
Then lower, where exposure to sun would tarnish the pages, a system of mirrors has been set up to reflect off one another, bouncing light around the space in a way that protects the books but still floods the rooms with sunlight.
Lucien’s earrings glint in that light as he leans over the large, polished wooden table at the center of the room. Old books and scrolls are laid out before him.
“I didn’t take you for the studious type,” I comment as we step close enough for his proximity to start to drain my joy.
His smirk holds strong. “Normally, I’m not. After all, what else is there to learn after a millennium?” He sighs and slides a book toward me. Saela leans in with me to study the sweeping handwriting while Venna just studies him, frowning.
“These are documents about the creation of thrall bracelets. I’ve been attempting to determine why yours works so differently.”
“And?” I ask.
He caresses a page lightly. “The answer still evades me. I suspect it may have something to do with your direwolf bond. These have only ever been tested on humans. Or perhaps he designed it in some way I don’t understand, with the intention of targeting your powers.”
“So there is something you don’t know,” Venna says lightly.
“Ha,” he says, shooting her a look before turning his intense gaze back to me and my sister.