35. Raithe
Raithe
“She’s coming,” Felaf announced as she unharnessed Echo across from Cobalt’s stall.
I stroked Cobalt’s neck in a soothing rhythm as Rahzlyn’s quick footsteps raced through the palace.
No longer did I have one terrible truth weighing on my shoulders, but now two. Both were necessary deeds that could bear unimaginable answers to the questions we all sought.
“I don’t like this, Raithe. What we just did…”
“Was necessary.” I turned to face Felaf. “Stick to our story until I say otherwise.”
Her shoulders drooped. “But we won’t be lying to only her. Gregorios should also—”
“He’ll learn of this eventually.” When the timing was right.
“And when he does?”
“I’ll bear the consequences.”
Felaf scoffed. “I’ll get in as much trouble as you.”
“It’s for the good of this queendom.”
“Your actions may very well keep this queendom cursed.” Rahzlyn’s frantic footsteps neared. Felaf blew out a breath before saying, “This will be fun.”
“Let me handle her.”
She shot me a dubious look. “You want to have an emotionally devastating conversation?”
I folded my arms across my chest. “Rahzlyn wanted me to protect her grandparents before I brought her here. If I’d listened sooner…” I gestured behind me. “Let me do this.”
“Scorpio be with you.” With a resigned sigh, she slipped out the back of the stables.
I braced myself as Rahzlyn flew around the corner with labored breaths. “Where are they?”
For a moment, it was all I could do but stare into her wide eyes, trapped in their hopeful abysm. My uniform stifled my chest from expanding. Confusion etched into her brows as she inspected my face, searching for emotion she would not find.
“There was an explosion.” I began with the facts. My voice—my tone—was off. “At your home. The apothecary.”
Shock parted her lips. “A what?”
“We believe it was an apostate attack due to the green flames.” I refused to mention how those flames had momentarily pinned me in place like a coward.
“Your grandparents…” Steeling myself against the dying hope in her eyes, I tried again.
“They both died. We tried our best. We couldn’t save them in time. ”
The partial lie rolled easily enough off my tongue. Regret lingered in its wake.
“No, that’s… they can’t be dead.”
“I’m sorry.”
She stumbled a few steps in retreat—away from me. “I don’t understand. Where are they now?”
“Lost to the fire, per your grandmother’s request. Both suffered irreversible damage. Your grandmother to her stomach, and your grandfather to his head.”
Through the open ceiling, crescent moonlight cast down on Rahzlyn’s dark locks and horror-stricken face. “No, they can’t be dead,” she croaked. Red splotches painted her cheeks. “I never got to… they can’t be…” She heaved, gasping for air. “I can’t, it’s too much—”
“Breathe.” I recognized the panic taking hold of her and moved closer. “Listen to my voice.”
Rahzlyn’s gasps grew violent. She couldn’t hear me. If she didn’t breathe properly soon, she was sure to pass out. Panic attacks themselves weren’t dangerous, but they were intrusively distressing. “Take one breath,” I instructed. “And hold it.”
“I can’t.” She collapsed to the ground. “I can’t do any of it without them.”
Fuck. I moved behind her and sank to my knees, bringing my chest flush to her back with my arms around hers. Not too tight, but enough to provide her with a sense of security. “Breathe with me. Now hold it.”
She did.
“Good. Now slowly release. Good, Rahzlyn,” I murmured. “That’s it. Now tell me three things you can feel. Three things, Rahzlyn, that’s all.”
“Y-you,” she stuttered.
“What about me do you feel?”
“Your body.” Her hands tentatively latched on to my forearms that braced her chest.
“Good. What else?”
She hiccupped. “The ground.”
“Give me one more.”
“My dress. Linen.”
“Now what do you smell?”
“Leather.” Her shaking subsided. “Sandalwood? And… Pegasus shit.”
I chuckled, even though all I smelled was the warmth of her violating my senses yet again. It was a scent that was becoming permanently ingrained in me deeper than any other guardian’s scent repertoire should allow.
When her breathing finally calmed, I said, “If you ever find that’s not enough, continue identifying three of each sense. Eventually you will ground yourself back to the present again.”
“Have you ever needed to do that?”
Her soft voice was filled with such vulnerability that I couldn’t help but meet hers with a little of my own. “I once suffered from many attacks like yours.”
“You?” Rahzlyn sniffled. “The perfectly unaffected Raithe?”
“We were forced into dangerous situations on the Martial Isles. Fire was the most triggering,” I admitted, surprised by my own honesty. I refrained from mentioning that the attacks started sooner than the Isles.
Her fingers curled deeper into my arm. “I’ve always been this way. Sometimes it feels like the world is collapsing on me. Only Basil can—could help me through it.”
“You didn’t need Basil just now.”
Neither of us moved, the moment too fragile. I couldn’t recall the last time I’d held someone like this—or at all.
“That was you in the road that day in Dioscuri, wasn’t it?” Rahzlyn whispered. “The one who saved Novah and me.”
“Ironically, since I was looking for you. What made you remember?”
“You used that same tactic on her.” She snorted, the sound watery. “I should have figured it out sooner. You were such a prick.”
My mouth twitched. “Why did you choose her name?”
“Seeing her reunite with her mother… It’s something I’ve dreamt about since I was a child. And now I’ll never know who my parents were.” Her body tensed. “Did they suffer?”
“No. It was quick for both of them.” Now was not the appropriate time to share her grandmother’s parting words. Nor the person I found at the scene. For now, I would spare her from the devastation of such truths—as well as my corresponding actions.
Rahzlyn’s chest shook. Her quiet tears morphed into powerful waves. “They’re dead because of me. All three of them.”
“Do not relieve those apostate bastards of their rightful blame. You didn’t blow apart your home.”
“I’ve been trying to keep everything together since learning of Basil’s death.” She craned her neck and sobbed into my chest. “I don’t know how to do this without them.”
I froze.
Embracing was one thing. I didn’t know how to comfort or soothe. No one had taught me such tenderness. But I could be a wall, a fortress to shelter her as she weathered her storm. I shifted her weight to curl my arms under her. She clung to me, trembling as I carried her into the palace.
The lingering scent of smoke and charred paper hit my nostrils as we ascended the staircase. My hold on Rahzlyn tightened in response to the alarming smell. Flashes of green assailed my vision before I reminded myself we weren’t in Gemini. We weren’t even in Pipirima, and I wasn’t a helpless boy.
I neared the small antechamber before the door to the queen’s rooms.
Rahzlyn rubbed her eyes. Her head lifted to peer at our surroundings. Then her gaze caressed mine. “I tried to stop her,” she murmured. “Chessah.”
My pulse intensified. Those books—Hector’s books—were gone. The smell and lingering black char told me everything I needed to know. What remained of his existence in this palace had been burnt to a crisp.
I didn’t need my intuition to tell me who was responsible. Everything else of his had been destroyed upon his death, and some of the pages here had contained trace amounts of his scent. It was like a part of him had still lived on by keeping them in the antechamber.
I should have known better than to keep them displayed here.
Better yet, I should have ensured they were destroyed with the rest of his things rather than clinging to his memory like a child.
I squeezed my eyes shut to fight the image of our last encounter over a year ago.
Sitting with a history book propped in his lap on the chair beside the bookshelf.
His big smile framed by years-earned laugh lines.
His graying hair slicked into a low bun.
A salute as I passed him on my way to my own chamber.
I should have said something. I should have told him what his guidance meant to me. I should have thanked him for his imparted wisdom.
But I couldn’t, because I didn’t know how.
The only person who had treated me with the decency my own fucking family should have… was gone.
Eviscerated.
Fuck. My chest throbbed in a way I couldn’t describe. I hadn’t been this close to needing a breathing technique from the Isles in years. I deserved whatever this tormented feeling was.
“Raithe?” Rahzlyn’s soft fingers touched my cheek. My eyes shot open to stare at her in my arms. “It’s okay to be sad.” Her lips quivered. “We can be sad together.”
I fixated on the swarming emotions in her eyes. Something in my chest cracked at her raspy, broken words.
Hector died not knowing what he meant to me because I was a messed-up prick. Somehow Maryn knew what Hector meant to me. Everyone knew before I realized it myself, nearly a year later and stars-damned too late.
“Where is our lovely princess this morning?” Maryn questioned the council room.
I schooled my features into neutrality despite my irritation.
“Sleeping,” Felaf confirmed beside me. It was the only reason she’d left her post in response to Maryn’s summons.
Maryn gestured toward the sunlight filtering into the otherwise somber room. “Still? It’s been days. What a lazy creature, hardly fit for a queen.”
It had been one week, to be exact, and I could still feel Rahzlyn in my arms. One week since I set her in bed, eased her under her covers, and she’d looked up at me with bleary, beautiful eyes. “Thank you,” she’d said, clinging to me before drifting off to sleep.
Thank you.
She repeated that sentiment every night after I helped calm her enough to sleep.
I didn’t deserve her gratitude. There was no logical explanation for why I did it, other than it felt right.
I liked being someone’s support: a strength someone needed.
Someone she needed. She’d been on my mind every waking hour since then.