Chapter 39
Cyra
Back in our room I made for the bed to lay down again, but I stopped halfway there and bent my head to sniff myself. The sharp odor of sweat, dirt, and sex assailed my nose, and I flushed to think Phaedrus might’ve been able to smell this. Gods above, I reeked.
Bressen and I hadn’t bathed after our night at the pleasure house before we’d fallen into bed, and then we’d been called to witness the fight between Samhail and Talyn.
Suddenly my skin felt tight with the salt of dried sweat, and I knew the remnants of Bressen’s seed still crusted the insides of my thighs.
Several coats of it, in fact. Then, over all that was a layer of dust from the training yard as well as some blood under my fingernails I hadn’t quite gotten out when I’d washed my hands after healing Talyn and Samhail.
I veered away from the bed and headed toward the closet to get my nightgown and robe. It wasn’t that late yet, but I planned to bathe, fall back into bed, and sleep for the next twelve hours at least.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out the small wallet that contained the paper butterfly that had been part of Aramis. Phaedrus had said butterflies were symbols of metamorphosis, and that was fitting for what I’d done to my father’s body.
I now regretted transforming Clarice the same way. She hadn’t deserved to be made into something beautiful as Aramis had. I should’ve turned her body to sand or dust motes or maybe a pile of shit.
I opened the wallet and took out the butterfly, and a pang of grief hit me.
I thought about asking Praya again to reform Aramis, but I dismissed it almost immediately.
As she’d said, it would only be his body.
His spirit was already gone, and without that, the body would just be an empty shell.
If there was also a way to recall his soul, then that might…
I went still as pieces clicked into place in my head, and I held the paper butterfly in the palm of a trembling hand.
I did have access to Aramis’s soul. I had spirit anchor power. What had Praya said? Spirit anchors could see and communicate with the dead when they were in close proximity to the person’s body or an object that was important to them.
I had a piece of Aramis’s body right here in my hand.
My heart thundered as the possibility of seeing Aramis again took hold. Not only could I use this butterfly to have Praya recreate his body, I could summon his spirit back and – maybe – put it back in that body.
I clutched the butterfly in my hand, trying not to crumple it too badly.
My father. I could bring back my father.
I didn’t know how I’d called those spirits before on the battlefield, but I’d figure it out now. I held the hand with the butterfly against my heart and concentrated as hard as I could on thoughts of Aramis.
“Aramis,” I whispered. “Please. I need to see you.”
I opened my eyes and looked desperately around the room, but there was nothing. I must be doing it wrong.
Gods damn it. Why hadn’t I asked Praya how this power worked?
I closed my eyes and tried again as I let my power reach out to…to wherever Aramis might be. I hoped he was in one of the three heavens, but there was no way to know for sure.
“Cyra?”
I stopped breathing at the sound of the voice. I tried to open my eyes, but fear kept them locked shut, fear that I wasn’t actually going to see what – or who – I so desperately wanted to see when I opened them.
I forced myself to open my eyes at the same moment I inhaled sharply, and a rush of adrenaline hit me that nearly buckled my knees.
Aramis stood several feet from me, looking confused. His body was barely transparent, so I could see parts of the room behind him if I looked carefully. I hadn’t noticed that about the spirits back on the battlefield, but I’d been too shocked by their appearance to take in the details.
“Aramis?” My voice was a croak as I managed to get the words past the massive knot in my throat. “Is…that really you?”
Aramis stood still for a moment before he smiled sadly. “It’s me,” he said. “Or at least a remnant of me.”
I let out a sob and willed my legs to hold me. I wanted to rush to him, to embrace him, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to touch him.
I opened my mouth to speak, but suddenly, I didn’t know what to say. For weeks I’d imagined what I might say to my father if I ever got the chance to see him again, but now my mind was blank.
Then a knife twisted in my gut as I remembered.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry. I…killed you. I thought Magdalene had done it, but she said it was my lightning. I was so stupid. If I’d just had better control of myself…” Another sob ripped up my throat. “You’d still be alive. We’d still be together.”
Aramis looked at me sadly. If I’d been hoping he’d contradict Magdalene, insist she was lying, I was sorely disappointed, and the knife in my gut twisted even more.
“I understand,” he said after five of the longest seconds of my life. “I understand how you felt. I wanted to burn the world down when your mother died. You thought you’d lost Bressen.”
Tears rolled down my cheeks, and I didn’t try to stop them. “Instead, I lost you,” I said. “I’ll never forgive myself.”
“Yes, you will,” Aramis said. “You’ll forgive yourself because I’m asking you to. You’ll forgive yourself because I forgive you.”
I let out a wail and fell to my knees as tears blurred my eyes so badly I couldn’t see. Far from being comforting, Aramis’s forgiveness was yet another twist of the knife.
No, it was a broadsword in my gut ringed by arrows.
“Cyra,” Aramis said, and I sobbed all the harder.
Across the bedroom, the door slammed open as Bressen rushed in with a sword in his hand. He didn’t normally wear one around the house, so I could only assume he’d had it stashed in his study somewhere.
He looked around the room wildly, searching for a threat. “Cyra, what’s wrong?” he asked when he didn’t find one. He rushed to me and dropped to one knee to gather me against him. His other arm still held the sword ready.
“Aramis,” I whispered. “He’s here.”
Bressen’s body tensed. “What?”
I pointed to where the spectral form of Aramis stood. Bressen looked, but his eyes darted around as his gaze found nothing solid to land on.
“Cyra, I don’t-”
“I summoned him with my spirit anchor power,” I said through hiccupping sobs. I held up the butterfly in a trembling hand.
“Oh, Cyra,” Bressen said as his arm tightened around my shoulders. He sighed. “Up now.” He rose, pulling me with him and holding me up. My feet touched the floor, but to say I was standing would be an overstatement. I wrapped a hand over his shoulder to help steady myself.
I looked back at Aramis, afraid he might be gone, but he stood there patiently.
“I can bring you back,” I told Aramis. “I have someone who can recreate your body from this piece of you.” I held out the butterfly. “Then you can just…go back in.”
“Cyra, no!” Bressen had been trying to focus where I was looking, but his attention snapped back to me. “You can’t do that.”
“Praya can do it,” I told him. “I can convince her. I can-”
“Cyra, I’m not coming back,” Aramis said quietly.
I looked at him, not sure I’d heard right.
“What’s he saying?” Bressen asked.
I ignored him. “But we didn’t get a chance to be a family,” I argued. “I know that’s my fault, but we have a second chance now. We have-”
“I don’t belong here anymore,” Aramis interrupted again. His expression told me his heart was breaking as much as mine was right now.
Bressen’s mind pressed at mine, a request to let him hear what I was hearing, and I granted it.
“I wish we’d had more time as well,” Aramis said. “I wish I could’ve been more of a father to you. Fate was cruel to you and I in this world, but this isn’t goodbye. We’ll be reunited again. I promise.”
My tears flowed in a torrent. “Please,” I sobbed. “Please don’t go.” I wiped at my nose as mucus joined the tears running down my face.
“You shouldn’t call me again,” Aramis said. “As much as I love seeing you, this…this is too hard for both of us.”
His own voice broke, and that only made me sob harder as I gripped Bressen’s jacket so severely my nails would likely tear the fabric.
I jolted as Bressen’s sword hit the floor, and he wrapped his other arm around me. He laid his head on top of mine.
“Cyra,” he whispered soothingly. “It will be okay.”
Aramis smiled sadly. “I always knew I was leaving you in good hands. Tell Lord Bressen I’m grateful you have him to take care of you.”
Bressen lifted his head. “Thank you for trusting me with your daughter,” he said, proof he could hear Aramis through me. “I hope we meet again in the next world, my friend.”
“I don’t doubt we will,” Aramis said with a smile. He looked at me again. “There’s one thing I should tell you before I go.”
My breath hitched in ragged gasps, and I tried to get myself under control long enough to listen to Aramis. “What is it?”
“I didn’t choose your parents by accident,” he said. “The winemaker and his wife. I was drawn to that vineyard when I was looking for someone to take you.”
I lifted my head off Bressen’s shoulder. Aramis had my full attention.
“As a healer, I can sense other perimortals,” he said. “I sensed a half perimortal there. The first one I’d encountered for dozens of miles.”
“What?” I asked, my eyes wide now. “Who?”
Aramis had Bressen’s full attention as well.
“I couldn’t tell for sure if it was your mother or your father without doing an actual examination,” Aramis said. “All I know is at least one of your grandparents from that family was perimortal.”
My mouth hung slack as my mind struggled to take in this news.
“Could you tell what power it was?” Bressen asked.
“No, and I didn’t ask,” Aramis answered.
Bressen nodded his understanding.
Aramis looked back to me. “I need to go now, but I’m glad we at least got to say goodbye this time. For now.”
I shook my head. “Can’t you stay a little longer. Please.”
“I can’t,” he said. “Just know that I love you more than anything, and I’m grateful for the brief time we had together.”
Another sob tried to work its way up my throat, but I swallowed it down. There was one thing I had to say before I lost Aramis again.
“I love you,” I said to him. The words came out in a rush of air, as if they’d been under pressure, as if I’d finally turned a release valve.
I’d held them back so long there was no keeping them in anymore.
“I love you so much, and I should’ve told you long before now.
Back when I could’ve…when I could’ve hugged you too. ”
Tears filled my eyes again and ran down my cheeks. It wasn’t fair.
My father smiled, and this time it lit his face. “I know,” he said. “You didn’t need to say it for me to know it. I knew. And I love you too.”
More sobs burst free, and I buried my face in Bressen’s chest.
“Goodbye, my beautiful little girl,” I heard Aramis say, and I pulled my head away from Bressen in time to see Aramis dissolve into nothing.
“No!” I screamed and tried to lunge toward where he’d been, but Bressen held me fast.
“Goodbye, Father,” I whispered before I burst into desolate, anguished tears.
Tandem Read: Go to Clash of Stone and Steel (Bk 3), Chapter 50-Epilogue