Chapter 45
Vera
Iwake as a cold hand leaves my neck, my body beginning to thaw with a rush of painful tingles as if it were a solid block of ice—so cold it burns through my veins.
My head bounces, and it’s difficult to draw breath as I force my frozen lids open.
All I get is an eyeful of black cloak and swirling gloam.
“She’s waking,” says a gritty voice to my right.
Waking? It takes only a moment to realize I’m currently thrown over the shoulder of a large gloam master, and my wrists are wrapped with…
rope. They swing uncomfortably above my head, and my shoulders ache.
Other boots trudge along in my line of vision, but I can’t tell how many are here.
I try to shift and find a large arm holds me firm around my thighs.
I jerk and fight, hitting my fists against his back and hating how weak I feel.
“Put me down, you brute,” I mumble with lips that move too slowly from the chill.
Other than a chuckle from one of them, I’m promptly ignored.
I decide to save my energy and focus on paying attention to the details around me.
I still can’t see much with the cloak in my face, but I hear noises around us.
Not only the deep voices of men, but also roaring and screeching of creatures I can’t identify and that are too far for me to see.
We pass tents staked into the dirt, and smoke from smoldering fires burns my eyes.
I turn my head to find groups of men who become silent as we walk by, watching as we pass.
It’s eerie. Signs of life are here, but why does it feel so dead?
I pound the brute’s back a few more times, but it elicits no reaction.
Then, without warning, the man ducks through a doorway, walks down a short hallway, enters another room, and I’m flying off his shoulder, tossed onto a pile of animal pelts that are thrown over one of two surprisingly springy beds, which cushions my fall.
I can’t help the yelp that escapes my lips at the abrupt action.
I awkwardly make my way to my knees, hands still tied, when a man with long dark hair lowers enough to put his face level with mine.
He lifts a gentle finger and brushes stray hairs away from my face as if I’m a delicate treasure. “Careful with my queen.”
I forget to jerk away when I meet eyes a shade of blue that my body reacts to. My mind wants to linger there. Why are they achingly familiar? Do I know him? My thoughts churn in a frozen whirl that remains just out of reach. And did he say queen?
“I’m no queen,” I say bluntly.
I mean, it couldn’t be more obvious, but I’ll say it anyway. I may not remember much at this moment, but I am one hundred percent certain I am not, and never have been, a queen.
“Oh, but you will be.” He smiles in a way that should annoy me with its cocky tilt, but instead, my heart stutters at how handsome he is.
What’s wrong with me? Apparently, my brain is still a block of ice.
This guy emanates darkness—literally. I eye the way gloam whispers out around him, and I don’t know if it’s coming from within or emanating from without.
Either way, I’d consider that a red flag.
It’s strange and slightly hypnotizing to watch its movement.
I look to the tall soldiers who have backed away, but stand silently around the room, watching.
Gloam clings to them as well, but perhaps not as strongly as it does to the man before me. Gloam everywhere.
“Do you often lock up the women you plan to marry?” I lift an eyebrow and my cuffed hands simultaneously.
All the attitude fizzles out as quick as a pot of water douses the flame of a matchstick. Blood. Caked onto the skin of my hands like it’s been there for days. In the creases. My fingernails. Little bits have even flaked off and dust the fabric of my trousers.
“What…?” My breaths begin to come too fast as I stare at the evidence of violence I don’t remember.
The visual of my hands triggers memories that claw their way to the frozen surface of my mind and begin to assault me as the room around me blurs into the background.
The man before me says something I don’t hear for the roar filling my ears, then suddenly the rope is removed from my wrists.
I spread my hands slowly before me in horror and see them begin to shake as if I float above my body.
My breath comes too quickly to inhale properly.
I try to think back, to remember. It takes so much effort that my eyes squeeze shut.
The man mutters something about frail lucent users and shock, but I pay no mind because all I see right now is an image of Ikar above me, looking more handsome than ever.
Then a succession of images flashes through my mind.
The arrow… the stab wound… Ikar’s pulse slowing beneath my fingertips.
Me trying to heal him while waiting for us both to die.
Then everything froze. I know I didn’t have time to finish healing him. I don’t even know if I helped.
“Avenara,” the man nearly shouts. He sounds frustrated, as if he’s called my name several times already, but it slices through the fog, and my head snaps up.
“How do you know my name?” I whisper.
Fear and anger and sorrow whirl around me, this man at the center of it all.
A level of hatred I’ve never experienced burns in my core as I stare at him with ringing in my ears, loathing the blue of his eyes.
It’s as if he killed Ikar and stole them only to taunt me with them as his own—a sort of torture created just for me.
He stands. “It appears you need some time to… clean up and calm yourself. I’ve brought along someone to help you.”
“How do you know my name?” I grind out, still on my knees.
I don’t like the position, having him tower over me as if he owns me.
I move so quickly it feels as if my cold limbs will crack like the icicles I used to break off the slanted roof of my childhood home in the winter.
I awkwardly make my way off the bed and stumble when my feet hit the floor.
The man reaches out to steady me, but I slap his hand away with a feral snarl that matches the state of my clothing and hair.
He pulls his hand away with a gentlemanly nod, but I find his lack of reaction irritates me further.
I narrow my eyes at him, waiting. I will chase him out of this place like the wild animal I look like if he doesn’t answer me. No one knows my name except Mr. Edierren and the Tulips. How far did he dig into my life?
“It wasn’t that hard to track each of you down.” He smiles as if he finds my anger humorous. He moves toward the door.
“Wait!” I impulsively grab his sleeve. He looks down at my grip with a pleased grin that I hate, but I don’t let go. “The others… they’re here too?” I hate that my voice sounds so panicked.
“Only one, but if you’d like me to capture another to keep you company…” He lifts a brow as if it would be as easy as snapping his fingers.
“No! No.” I pull my hand away as if singed, and step back in alarm.
“Good. I’ll send her to… help you.” He eyes my hair as if he spots something living in it, and I resist the urge to check.
Who did he find? I nearly groan as I picture each of the Tulips.
It’s likely not Fina; she’s usually not even on the continent unless there’s a Tulip meeting.
The others… practically helpless in self-defense…
or escape. It’s hard enough to escape alone, probably impossible with another helpless Tulip in tow.
I may not relate well to most of my high-born Tulip sisters, but my loyalty runs deep, and we are bonded by magic.
I’m not heartless; I wouldn’t be able to leave one behind.
Concern and dread battle with soul-deep sorrow for the forefront of my mind as I watch him walk out.
The guards follow him one by one before they close the door that swings so silently on its hinges it’s hardly a whisper.
The lock turns with a distinct click, then the cracks of the door disappear, leaving only a wall with a handle covered with moving gloam that I assume is meant to seal me in.
At least two soldiers are outside, if I count the muffled voices correctly, but I can’t see them.
I stare at the wall with pursed lips. I warrant two giant sword-wielding guards and a gloam-sealed prison?
I scoff. For acting like he knows so much about me, the supposed king apparently knows nothing.
I’m as harmless as Rupi, maybe even less.
Rupi. Last I saw her was with Ikar… I can only hope she’s found her way back to Mama Tina, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t wish she was here with me.
I sit on the edge of the bed, exhausted.
A headache throbs at the base of my head—and I’m about to reach back to massage it out, but then I catch sight of my hands again.
Concern for my fellow captured Tulip is overtaken by sorrow that rises like a swelling ocean wave as I stare at them for a long time.
Silent tears fill my eyes, then track down my filthy cheeks.
Ikar is too strong to be dead, too capable.
He’s larger than life… unbeatable. But he’s also mortal.
Staring at them sucks me back into the blurry void where nothing around me exists.
The image of Ikar dying beneath me drives a knife through my soul, leaving an open wound I fear will never heal.
The first sob feels painful. The second comes more easily. And then I lose count.
My tears fall to my hands, turning the dried blood into pools of red in my palms that only make me cry harder with the visible evidence that he’s likely gone.
I continue to swing violently between sorrow and denial for hours.
Eventually, I find myself sitting in numb silence, shivering every once in a while, whether from the cool air or shock, I don’t know.
Thoughts of hope sneak like tempting demons through the numb wall in my mind, reminding me that Darvy showed up before I was taken.
He might have been able to help, if the gloam masters didn’t kill him and his soldiers too…
and they had an originator… but I’m doubtful their originator would have been able to pull enough lucent to heal injuries such as those with the state of lucent.
I lie back, getting lost in thoughts and memories of Ikar’s grin. The way his lips felt on mine… how he shoved his hands through his hair when he was upset… the way he rescued me from the shift king… how he had to pull me out from under the tent and unstick the animal heads.
I let out a watery laugh, trying to ingrain everything to memory so I’ll never forget. I recall his delicious scent, his muscular frame, and while I’d like to linger on that, my thoughts automatically shift to the mark that stains it. Or, I guess I should say, stained.
I squeeze my swollen eyes shut. I had no idea he was a king. It still shocks me. I’m not even happy he’s no longer a danger to me or my Tulip sisters. I sit there hour upon hour upon hour, unmoving, knowing deep down that he never really was.
Add to that the immense amount of guilt I feel for how I reacted and behaved since I found out Ikar was the king.
Would he be alive if I had followed my gut instead of the fear others instilled in me?
It’s a sobering thought. I know Tatania meant well, but after everything I’ve seen these past weeks, the man I know Ikar was… I should have trusted myself.
So what happens to Moneyre now? Ikar doesn’t have an heir.
Does Lucentia have a plan B in case something like this happens?
Something tells me no. I should feel terrified right now, but I’m numb again.
Freezing on the outside, already frozen on the inside.
A sense of soul-deep mourning, the kind that feels all encompassing, heavy, and everlasting knits into my soul in a way that makes me wonder if I’ll ever be free.
Somehow, in this moment, for the first time in my life, I can’t make myself care what happens to me.
The thought prompts more tears, then I embrace numbness like a blanket that protects me from the excruciating feelings of loss I’m drowning in.
I welcome it as it settles into every crack in my heart, and I drift off.
Ikar stands before me, my favorite half-smile on his lips.
I drink up his blue eyes that always look so serious.
Wind ruffles his hair, and he looks healthy and strong as ever.
Relief washes over me in tingles that rush through my body as my eyes devour his presence.
There’s a path behind him, and he reaches for my hand as if to pull me along as he traverses it.
His warmth calls to me, even from here, and it feels as if my soul begins to thaw simply being in his presence.
I stretch my hand out to grasp his, wanting more than anything to feel his hand in mine, but he’s just out of reach.
I take a step, and another, and another, but no matter how many I take, I never get any closer. Tears begin to track down my cheeks as the look of frustration and confusion on his face deepens.
“I don’t know what’s happening…” His voice is distant, muted.
I’m not ruining this dream by telling him he’s dead. I let my hand fall to my side and quit trying to reach him. He turns to look over his shoulder at the path.
“Don’t do it,” I instinctively say, stepping forward even though it doesn’t bring me any closer.
I don’t know what that path means or where it goes, but I fear if he traverses it without me, I won’t ever see him again. Even if the only time I’ll ever see him is in my dreams, I’m selfish enough to ask him to stay.
I’m not one to beg, but I’ll drop to my knees if I have to. “Stay with me.”
His blue eyes delve into mine, and the half-smile returns. “Always.”