Kyzen #3
“Oh my goodness,” Willow breathes from beside us. I didn’t even hear the two of them join us. “You both are gorgeous.”
Just like Draken, she has no reservations whatsoever about approaching our Veilatara. They have no reluctance in leaning their foreheads to hers and allowing her to embrace them.
“Yeah, and what about her?” I ask V.
“She is something else.”
A warm hand slides into mine, and I peer down at Thayla. The shock on her face matches my own, and a smile curves my lips when she mouths, “What the fuck?” to me.
“You annoying, selfish owl. Their arrival is why you told us to guard the herd and not let anyone close to the hot spring,” Seismet chuffs, shaking his head when V lands on top of him.
“Glad to know the bird bothers everyone and it wasn’t a me thing,” Caspian grumbles.
“It was most certainly a you thing, Shadow God.”
The lack of offence in V’s tone loosens the tight grip Thayla put on my fingers. Obviously, V’s prior relationship with Caspian was one of mutual pestering and not true dislike.
“Come on, little wanderer. Let me and Riven race. Him and his Veilatara against me,” Draken begs, pressing his hands together and all.
“Ah, fuck yes. I’m so down. Verlet?” Riven wraps his arms around Verlet’s neck in a hug as he neighs, and I run my hand across my mouth to stop myself from laughing.
That truly would be a sight to see.
The gods and ungodly beings would go fucking crazy if they saw a dragon in the sky.
“Draken.” Willow chuckles, shaking her head as she runs her hands across the contraptions strapped to both Veilatara. “I told you before we came that was a no go. You and the Veilatara aren’t the only beings here with wings, remember?”
Other than small creatures, the only powerful ones are…oh.
Willow’s eyes meet mine and she gives me a tight smile.
Fuck. Apparently, my thoughts aren’t safe from her either.
“One day, hopefully, you can race across the skies of Elementra. Today isn’t that day, though. It’s time for us to go.”
“Go? You just got here and you…”
Thayla’s words fade as if she changed her mind about asking. She wouldn’t have to finish that statement, though, for us all to be wondering the same thing.
Willow nods. She tears her gaze from Thayla’s, blinking up at the clouds as if she’s looking for an answer.
“I haven’t given you any helpful information. I know.” Her tone is calm, unguarded in a way that’s opposite to the way her men, besides Draken, have spoken. Even though Tillman was calm, he watched the way and what he said.
“And I also know you’ve been thinking this whole time that I was testing you, and that my men were testing yours, but it wasn’t a test. It was just my way of getting an understanding of you.”
“Did you get an understanding?” Thayla asks.
“I did. Seeing you here”—she taps two fingers against her temple before locking her gaze back onto Thayla’s—“and seeing you in the flesh are two very different experiences. This was…it was a hard reminder.”
“A hard reminder of what?”
Thayla doesn’t bother hiding the edge in her voice. I can’t blame her. She’s been patient longer than most would be after everything that’s already happened today.
Willow doesn’t flinch. If anything, something in her softens. Her expression gentles in a way that isn’t pity, but…acknowledgment.
“Of what it was like to be surrounded by questions no one would answer. To be given pieces instead of the whole and told that it’d make sense soon.
The cryptic guidance. The sacrifices. The obstacles that didn’t make sense until long after you’d survived them.
And the battles—Elementra, the bloodshed. ”
Her gaze drifts for a heartbeat to her men, then beyond them. Not unfocused, but distant.
“It’s been a long time since I had to move forward without knowing whether the ground would hold beneath my feet.”
Something shifts in her.
Her body language is subtle, but her men’s isn’t as they move as one toward her. Their formation has Verlet and Seismet moving and aligning themselves with us. They watch, and so do we as the energy in the air changes. Pressure builds in the distance between us and them.
Willow straightens as her attention snaps fully back to Thayla, and there’s a resolve there now that’s both unsettling and…settling at the same time.
“I thought I could keep this simple. Say what I was supposed to say, do what I was supposed to, and help you move forward without weighing you down with more questions that you don’t have answers to.”
Her eyes flick briefly to the space around us, to my brothers, then me. Her gaze holds mine long enough that I hold my breath, then she focuses back on Thayla.
“I’ve tried over the years not to dwell on the what-ifs, but that’s easier said than done.
I can’t help but ask, if someone had just given me answers when I asked, what could I have prevented?
It’s a dangerous slope to go down. Listening to you, I remembered what it cost me to be left in the dark for so long. ”
She takes a deep breath, leaning into Corentin as he wraps his hand around her bicep. She holds Thayla’s gaze, unblinking.
“And I won’t let that happen to you.”