24. Dimitri
Chapter 24
Dimitri
T he hours passed slowly. Painfully slowly. It seemed like days, not hours, since Rosalie had left.
He had paid the triplets a pouch of gold each to stay with Rosalie the whole time she was gone, but he still worried constantly. He would have had her surrounded by a squad of armed guards if that wouldn’t have risked disrupting the Legacy.
They were so close to the finish line, and Dimitri knew he only needed to endure for a few more hours, but it was still hard to bear. He roamed from room to room, but everything he saw reminded him of her. He hadn’t been thinking of the future when he’d made memories of Rosalie in every room of the manor. Enduring her absence was going to be unbearable.
When it was time for the evening meal, his steps took him to the dining room. He wasn’t there to eat—how could he sit down to a meal when Rosalie might be in danger?—but it was what the two of them had always done at that time.
“Are you well?” a kind voice asked, and he remembered with a start that he wasn’t quite alone in the manor yet.
“Do you think Rosalie is well?” he asked and heard the rustle of Daphne moving closer in response.
A cool hand that he couldn’t see was placed against his forehead. “I’ve been watching you today,” she said. “You seem fevered. I thought the Legacy wasn’t supposed to start attacking you until after Rosalie’s appointed time away?”
Dimitri sank into a chair, placing his head in his hands. “I can’t even tell any more,” he said hoarsely, strangely glad to have someone to unburden himself to, even if he didn’t know Daphne well. “All I can think about is Rosalie. I go straight from happy memories to terrifying images of her hurt and hurting—and then back again. My stomach is churning too much to eat, and I can’t stay still for more than a minute at a time.” He looked up, forgetting for a moment that he couldn’t see her. “I’m exhausted, but there’s no way I’m going to be able to sleep.”
He looked back down at the table. “Do you think…do you think all that is the Legacy? Is it messing with my head—making me desperate without her because I’m a Beast and she’s my merchant’s daughter?”
With a soft sigh, Daphne pulled out the chair next to him and sat down.
“Does it matter what I think? What do you think? Do you think the Legacy can reach into your mind and place thoughts there?”
Dimitri frowned. Did he think the feelings he had for Rosalie were false ones created by the Legacy?
He rejected the thought immediately. He had recognized Rosalie’s fire from the first moment of their meeting, and she had followed that up by proving herself intelligent, brave, active, and kind.
“Of all people, Rosalie doesn’t need the help of the Legacy to win people over,” he said.
Daphne laughed. “There are some who might disagree with you, but I’m glad you see her that way.”
“I don’t love Rosalie because of the Legacy,” he said, and Daphne gasped at the word love.
He hadn’t meant to say it. It had slipped out naturally. Rosalie had worked her way too far into his heart to use any other word. But, even so, the intensity of the feelings that had been consuming him since her departure were another matter. He was less certain those were natural.
Despite her gasp, Daphne didn’t comment at his choice of words, so after a pause, he continued.
“This reaction,”—he gestured toward himself—“I’m less sure about.”
“I don’t believe the Legacy can control your thoughts,” Daphne said thoughtfully. “But in this situation, with all the power it’s pouring into you two, I’m sure it can give you a fever. And the fever might be enough to induce the frenetic intensity.”
She hesitated before adding softly, “It worries me, though. If you’re reacting this badly this quickly, you might go downhill very fast tomorrow.”
“That doesn’t matter,” he said with utter faith. “Rosalie will come. She’ll come and then the Legacy will reverse whatever it’s done to make me sick.”
“Yes,” Daphne said, but he was glad he couldn’t see her face because she didn’t sound sure.
But he trusted Rosalie completely. Regardless of how she felt about him, she was too kindhearted to put him at risk. He also didn’t think he’d imagined the connection that had grown up between them in their weeks together. Rosalie would return to him, at least for long enough to satisfy the Legacy.
Pain pierced him at the idea that afterward he might have to live without her. The prospect of day after day like the one he had just endured gave him his first insight into his mother’s mindset. Could he trust himself to be more sensible than she had been in the same circumstances? He was no longer as sure as he used to be.
What would he do if he knew he had already seen Rosalie for the last time?
He drew a deep breath and leaped to his feet. He had to move. He had to move his body or something inside him would break. He paced the length of the room once, twice, three times and then headed for the door.
A pulling at his sleeve made him stop.
“I’m not sure constant motion is a good idea for the sickness,” Daphne said. “You’ll make the fever worse.”
“I’m sorry.” He looked apologetically down at where he thought she must be. “But I have no choice. I have to move.”
She gave another soft sigh. “Why do I have such a bad feeling about this?” she murmured.
“Don’t worry.” He gently removed his sleeve from her grasp. “It’s part of the story, remember? Things have to look bleak right before everything is fixed.”
“In the histories, yes,” she said in a worried tone. “But remember there’s no guarantee the Legacy will see the story all the way through. That’s why we’ve had to be so careful to keep feeding it. You aren’t the first ones to attempt this.”
Her final line made him freeze with one foot already out the door. He turned back to stare in the direction of her voice.
“Excuse me?” he asked.
“Since the Legacy keeps the manor clean, I’ve had some spare time since I got here,” she said. “I’ve been using some of it to do research in your library. You’re not the first ones to try this. It’s not surprising, really. It’s unusual for circumstances to align as perfectly as they did in your case, but the Legacy is influencing details all over the kingdom, so it’s bound to happen from time to time. And given the potential wealth on offer, some people have gone out of their way to help create the right scenario.”
“And all those people tried to act out the whole story like we’ve done?” Dimitri asked.
“Not all of them. But some have tried it—either in an attempt to gain the wealth or to free themselves from the form of a Beast.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?” he asked.
“There’s a reason it’s not tried more often,” she said softly. “Many of the attempts didn’t end well. But I didn’t discover that until after we’d begun, and there didn’t seem much point telling everyone at that stage.”
“I see.” He wasn’t sure what else to say. Even now—even knowing it might end in disaster—if he could go back, he would make the suggestion just the same.
“On a more positive note, you seem to have a very mild case in terms of your transformation,” she said, clearly trying to lift his spirits. “I think that means the Legacy recognized you’re more purehearted than most who make the attempt.”
“Thank you?” he said, wondering what greater discomforts the other Beasts had suffered but glad he didn’t know at the same time.
“And you said you love her,” Daphne said softly. “I think that will help as well. It’s not just playacting now. You really did fall in love.” The silence lengthened, and she finally continued. “I know my friend. She’ll return tomorrow…if she possibly can.”
Dimitri’s feet started moving again before he realized he was back in motion, carrying him out of the dining room and toward the entryway. If she possibly can. The words rang in his mind, repeated on a loop that threatened to drive him mad. He had been worried about Jace, but should he be worrying about the Legacy instead? Would it conspire against them to keep them apart?
He had trusted her brothers to watch over her, but what could they do against the Legacy? He would just go and check on her…
He wrenched himself to a stop with his hand on the front door handle. The Legacy was working against them—it had sent a fever to confuse him. If he left the manor grounds, their story would be broken.
Rosalie was counting on him to do his part. He had to prove he was stronger than the Legacy’s wiles. If it wanted to test their resolve, it wouldn’t find him lacking.
“I will wait for you, Rosalie,” he said, each word pulled out of him with great effort. Sweat beaded on his forehead as he pried his hand off the door, finger by finger.
When he succeeded, he felt as weary as if he’d fought and won a great battle. But the restlessness lodged beneath his skin wouldn’t fade. He strode toward the stairs, beginning another circuit of the manor.
H e had intended to at least lie down once night fell, even if he already knew sleep was unlikely. But the agony of inaction made it impossible. Instead, he paced the manor in the moonlight with the same confident steps he’d used during the day. He knew the building well enough now to need little light to guide him.
When dawn finally sent its creeping fingers over the horizon and through the windows, he could wait no longer. He refused to let the Legacy break him, but Rosalie might arrive at any moment. If he couldn’t go to her, he could at least ensure there wasn’t a moment’s delay to their meeting. He would pace the manor’s gardens instead of its rooms.
But Rosalie didn’t appear. Time had passed slowly the day before, but it was nothing to the agony of each tick of the clock after dawn. Every minute must surely be an hour, and every hour a time too long to fathom. The sun kept climbing, and he felt the same urge to move, but his body was no longer obeying his commands.
His arms and legs were weak, and he staggered more than walked. At one point he thought he heard someone calling his name with concern, but it wasn’t her voice, and he couldn’t make out the words.
Eventually he staggered hard enough to fall, and he couldn’t get back up. A cool hand pressed against his forehead, but it wasn’t her hand. He didn’t have to open his eyes to know that.
He couldn’t open his eyes. For the first time he realized deep in his bones that he might never open his eyes again. He hadn’t broken, but the Legacy might still defeat them. Many of the attempts hadn’t ended well.