Chapter Thirty-One #2
“Oh, don’t start this again,” says Seth, picking at his nails. “I’m a fire-born. I’m not made for digging. Besides, it wasn’t your ancestors we had to grave rob. That was very traumatic for me, you know.”
“Grave robbing?” says Quinn.
“Can we go somewhere quieter to talk?” says Ronan, looking around the inn nervously. “Taran, was I seen?”
“Possibly,” he says, shifting into guard mode. “Let’s go back to the cottages.”
The rest of our crew has been staying in Castle Pyka since they returned from their latest journey.
Typhon is still there, going through orders and plans with Karis, but it’s probably for the best. I didn’t truly want everyone to know about the relics or our tomb-robbing plans, but I guess I’ve given myself little choice in the matter now.
We enter the larger cottage where Seth and Taran are staying. Taran wanted Ronan and I to have it, of course, but Seth insisted that they needed the separate bedrooms, and I went along with that, hoping it was true.
Unlike our cottage, there’s room for everyone at their dining table. I retrieve the torch from our living room and place it in a groove in the table so it stands upright. Ronan places the sickle next to it, and suddenly the light in the room changes completely.
The torchlight reflects off of the sickle, and the strange shadows resolve into symbols. It’s a script in the same language carved into the handle of the torch.
“Are those words?” asks Quinn. “Someone tell me what the hell this is.”
I fill everyone in on what we’ve learned so far about the relics, the Shadowbound Prophecy, and our strange dreams. “None of you can read the text either?”
“It’s not Orsan,” says Taran. “Or Serican,” he adds with a blush.
Seth scowls at the mention of Serica. Although he dislikes everyone on principle, he’s taken a particular disliking to Xu Fushi.
“It’s not Brakkari or Parthian,” says Ronan. “Not Epiran or Gallic. It’s nothing I recognize.”
Seth huffs at Ronan’s knowledge of languages.
“Great,” says Quinn. “So you have no idea what these things do, except that they feel like you, and they seem to want you to go to a door in a cave that you think is a tomb to fulfill some kind of destiny you don’t understand to obtain some kind of extraordinary power that is so secret it’s literally been wiped from the face of the earth. ”
“Well, when you put it like that,” I say, scowling at her. “That’s why it’s Plan B. I don’t think it’s going to help us defeat Adria, but I’m not sure we can ignore it even if we wanted to. Whatever this is, whatever is between us feels…” I turn to Ronan for help. “Predetermined? Inevitable?”
“Like fate,” he says. “It’s a prophecy, after all. Can prophecies be stopped once they’re set in motion? If the gods are real, can their plans be denied?”
“If the gods are real? Aren’t you supposed to be a god?” asks Seth. “You’re telling me you don’t believe in yourself?”
“I’m not a god,” says Ronan with more conviction than I expected. I didn’t know he’d become so certain of it. “If I were, if I had a divine right to rule, it doesn’t seem like I would have lost my crown.”
“You’re still the God-King, Ronan,” says Quinn. She has always been his number one believer. “You’re just in exile.”
“The church crowned Adria. The Temple of Vayla, even,” says Ronan. We’d heard the news a few months earlier, just after the new year.
“What choice did they have? She took the city by force. They had no armies to defeat her. She can put a crown on her head as much as she wants, but it doesn’t make her queen.”
Ronan holds up his hand to quiet her, not wanting to have this argument right now. “It doesn’t matter. Sylvie and I have to go to Avaris on the way to Faros. Maybe what we find there will be the miracle we need to take back the city without any bloodshed.”
“Or maybe you’ll both die if you go there. It’s a tomb, Ronan. Why don’t you just go after we retake Faros if you really feel like you have to? Or let us go for you. Seth and Taran were able to find the sickle. Let us go check out the tomb for you.”
I shake my head. “It has to be us.” I don’t know how I know that, but I do, somewhere deep in my bones. The torch hums at me that we should go right now. “But it will have to wait,” I tell it.
“Because there’s a wedding to plan between now and then, and weddings need a torch.”
The day of our wedding is drizzly and cool, the first rainy day in over a week.
Quinn paces about the cottage I share with Ronan, dashing from the window to the small dresser where I sit with her cane while Octavia braids my hair, giving minute by minute updates on the rate of the downpour.
“It’s stopping,” she says with a sigh of relief.
“Are you sure? Don’t you think you should check again?” calls Octavia. She smiles at me in the looking glass, her eyes flashing mischievously.
“We’ll be under the trees anyway,” I say. “A little rain never hurt anybody.”
Truthfully, I’m not disappointed at all. I love the way the forest looks after the rain—the deep colors painting the bark of the trees, the lushness of the drenched understory. The way the sunlight filters through the branches and catches on the water droplets.
And the smell of it, the rich, earthy odor mixing with the fragrant scent of spring flowers.
It’s magical.
Quinn finally abandons her quest to will the weather into behaving and comes to help me dress.
Octavia has worked miracles on my hair. A pair of perfect braids cascades from my face like a waterfall, leaving most of my dark waves free.
It’s nicely done, but the incredible part is the flowers, delicate white and blue buds which she has woven into the braid in a way that looks completely organic, like they grew there on their own.
My makeup has been simply done: a sweep of kohl around my eyes, a light peachy blush, and a brush of a pink balm on my lips.
It’s not unlike the look Hilaria helped me with the night that Ronan crowned me the Champion of the Bow. My heart aches as I wonder what has happened to her. Is she still in the palace? Could she be serving my sister, taming her blonde hair?
Or has the worst happened to her and all the others?
So many were lost in the fall of Faros. And with the city under Adria’s control, we’ve had little opportunity to find out who remains, relying on rumors and information gleaned from refugees who have made it to Pyka.
“You look far too sad for a bride on her wedding day,” says Octavia as she and Quinn help me into my dress.
It’s a gown Quinn found from a trader in cream-colored silk that sweeps off my shoulders and drapes around my waist, with sleeves and an underskirt of hand-crafted lace gifted by Karis in congratulations.
“I was just thinking of someone in the palace. And all the people who can’t be here today.”
I catch myself in the looking glass as Quinn ties the laces.
It’s impossible not to see my mother in my appearance.
And I know I’ll see my father in Seth as he leads me from the cottage.
The thought of them fills me with a mixture of longing and guilt.
A wish that they could be here followed by relief that they can’t, knowing they wouldn’t approve.
Octavia pulls me into a hug. “You carry them with you.”
I’m not the only one who will be missing their parents today. Ronan will stand up at the altar alone, with only Quinn and Taran beside him. At least I have Seth and Larus to give me away. Ronan has no one.
No one but the family we have made.
“Don’t worry,” says Quinn, handing me the veil made from matching lace. It has been dyed a golden hue, the traditional color to honor Kerensa. “We’ll do this all again in a couple of months with everyone from the palace.”
I wish I shared her certainty. But as difficult as it is to put it from my mind, I know I must. Our families are gone, and though they may not have approved, our lives are ours to live. I have no doubt about my choice.
And as for the people in the palace, there’s nothing we can do for them right now. We will help them, and soon. Our plans are sound. It has taken longer than anyone wanted, but we’re nearly ready.
Today can be what I want it to be. A moment to delight in the love we share with each other in private. In secret. In the shadows of the woods, the shadows of the place where I grew up.
And then we’ll step back into the light, taking our place in the world once more.
Seth and Larus arrive then. Larus smiles widely when he sees me, looking away and coughing to hide his tears.
He’s dressed in Enezian finery but Nithyrian colors: a tailcoat in deep blue with golden buttons.
A gift from his mother for keeping Octavia safe.
Octavia fusses over him, admiring the golden trim of the fabric as Quinn eyes Seth in shameless appreciation.
Seth is wearing a formal doublet in silver-lined green velvet, an outfit of his own that he retrieved from Kalla on one of his and Taran’s trips. Risking capture to retrieve clothing had been a sore subject between them, but I’m certain Seth considers it worth it.
He does look nice, I must admit. He doesn’t favor Father as much as I expected. There’s too much of Mother in his wry expression, especially now that he’s clean-shaven.
“Sister,” he says, his expression carefully neutral. “You look lovely for someone who has lost her mind.”
“Seth,” hisses Larus.
“Oh, here we go,” says Quinn.
Octavia just shakes her head.
I hold up my hand to stop them. “I’m sure what Seth means to say is that though he may not approve of my choice of partner, he can see that I’m happy, and his very being here is proof that he does care something about my happiness, or he wouldn’t have shown up at all.
Is that about right? Does that spare us the argument? ”
“I would have had more digs in there about Ronan—”
“We know,” says Quinn. “Gods, give it a rest already.”
Seth glares at her, continuing. “And I would have said that although Mother and Father will probably haunt you for the rest of their endless days in the underworld for this choice—”