CHAPTER 22 #2
Somehow, he loaded a lot of meaning into my name. Was I reading too much into this?
“I know of a boy who woke up in a burning house to the shouts of his enemies in the courtyard.”
It was one of those random Latour scenes. No hint when or where it took place. No names. No explanation as to why it was in the narrative. It was just there to drive the fandom out of their minds with speculation.
“The house was engulfed in flames. He couldn’t get to the window, so he hugged his puppy and ran into the hallway through the fire.
The burning boards collapsed under him. He fell three floors, all the way into the stone cellar, landed badly, and passed out from pain and smoke.
Two days later, when the knights who’d set his home on fire were long gone, a man rode up to the still-smoking ruin.
He searched through the wreckage and found the boy in the cellar.
The boy’s legs were broken, but he’d kept the puppy safe in the fall.
The man took the boy and his dog with him because he was the child of a woman the man once loved, and he raised the boy as his own son. ”
Reynald pondered the statue. “Do you think the boy was Mirabor Savaric?”
“I don’t know. I can’t say either way. But he could’ve been.”
That was my personal pet theory. It would so much more interesting if Ralinbor’s son survived.
“Who was the man, do you think?” Reynald asked.
“It’s hard to say. Aelis Savaric was supposed to be so beautiful, her smile could stop a heart. Many people were in love with her.”
The sun broke through the clouds, and I turned my face to the warm sunshine.
“Are your parents alive?” he asked.
“Yes.” Somewhere. “Yours?”
“Dead. My father was killed, and my mother died on the battlefield two years later.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Thank you.”
Suddenly I missed my parents so much, it hurt.
“What does your father do?” Reynald asked. “He must be retired from the army by now.”
How to explain a civil engineer?
“Yes. He earned our country’s version of the Green Purse and then became a kind of architect.”
“So you are from a scholar family?”
“I suppose. You could say I was a scholar.”
“What did you study?” he asked.
“Power. How to acquire it, how to keep it, how not to abuse it. How to exercise it for the greater good of as many people as possible.”
“Fitting,” he murmured.
“What about your father? What kind of man was he?”
“Kind.” He sighed, looking at the trees across the path. “Many people feared him, but he was a good father. He loved my mother, and he loved me. I wish we’d had more time.”
There was a world of pain and regret in those words.
“I need to be there when you take the Butcher down,” I said.
“You’re not a trained fighter, Maggie,” he said gently.
“And yet, of all of us, I’m the most likely to survive that fight. I will come back to life. I’m Maggie the Undying.”
“I don’t want you to be hurt.”
“I won’t be.”
“‘Dying horribly and then waking up in a lot of pain,’” he quoted.
“Do you remember everything?”
“Only the important things.”
He wasn’t going to derail me. I needed to see this through. “I cried when you died, Reynald.”
I could feel the tears building now, a wet frustrated heat just behind my eyes. I’d spent the last week worrying and going over every possibility, every contingency, and the pressure cooker of it finally broke me.
“I . . . witnessed it happen many times, and I cried every time.”
I had read about it, not witnessed it directly, but I wasn’t ready to tell him that.
“I wanted so much for you to succeed, to save your son, and get far away from Kair Toren. You must survive. I cannot come here to bury you. I can’t have you turn into one of those wooden plaques hanging off the branches. I can’t do it. It will destroy me.”
I’d said too much.
A warm hand closed over mine. The words died in my mouth. Suddenly we were connected. Everything else disappeared. It was me and him, and he was holding my hand in his.
“I won’t let him kill me.” He swore it like it was an oath.
It felt so reassuring and safe and so achingly right.
I wanted him to wrap his arm around me, pull me close, and tell me that it would be fine.
I wanted to keep touching, to feel him, to kiss him.
I craved it. I required it. It wasn’t just a need; it was as if I were in pain and only he could make it better.
I wanted Reynald.
Holding on to him was a colossal breach of etiquette. I had to let go.
I looked at him and forgot to breathe. His eyes were hot and green, and he looked at me like he wanted me. He was all in. There was no way I was misinterpreting that. The densest woman in the world would’ve known exactly what was going through his head.
This man had already lost so much. His parents were dead, his wife had been murdered, and his son had been kidnapped. And here I was, lying to him.
I had been lied to before by someone I loved. I had moved on, but it still hurt years later. And my lie wasn’t the ordinary kind. No, it was huge.
I’m not from Rellas. In my world, you’re a character in a book, but here you are, real and alive, and I don’t know how that’s possible.
I don’t know what brought me here or why.
I don’t understand why I can’t die. I don’t know if there is a magic counter that keeps ticking every time someone kills me and if one day I might run out of lives.
I don’t know how much time I have in this world. I don’t know if I have a future here.
I knew how Reynald thought. He’d witnessed me dying and coming back to life, and it had disturbed him so much, he’d made it his mission to make sure I didn’t die again.
Right now, we both felt the beginning of something, but if I kissed him, there would be no going back.
I wouldn’t be able to let go, and his eyes told me he wouldn’t want to.
If we got together, and then I died and didn’t come back to life, it would rip him apart. He would blame himself for failing to keep me safe.
If whatever weird force that had thrown me into Rellas yanked me back out without warning, he would look for me. Finding me would become his life’s goal, just like saving Matheo was a goal, except he would never find me no matter how hard he tried. He would never know what had happened.
And even if none of this came to pass, even if I kept resurrecting and stayed in Rellas, I couldn’t offer him honesty.
I knew this world was real. I felt it. But if I stopped lying, I would have to tell him how I knew the things I knew.
He would have to wonder if his life was just a book.
What would it do to a person if they were to find out that they were a figment of someone’s imagination?
If that was true, the woman Reynald loved and cherished had died for the sake of emotional impact and their son was kidnapped to raise the stakes.
His life and death would become just someone’s idea of entertainment.
And I’d had a front-row seat to all of it.
I’d been in his head. I knew his inner thoughts and doubts, things that were so deeply private he never told anyone about them.
Sharing those things should’ve been his choice, but the book had robbed him of that right.
I knew his weaknesses and how to manipulate him.
It would never be a relationship on equal terms.
He was a very smart man. He would see all of the pitfalls.
I would give anything to kiss Reynald Karis right now. But he deserved a peaceful, happy life.
I gently freed my hand.
Oh, I was so, so stupid. Letting go hurt.
Reynald drew back ever so slightly, making a minute adjustment to his pose and expression.
I wasn’t sure how he managed it, but everything about him was suddenly aboveboard.
Without saying a single word, he had surrendered control of the space between us to me, and his expression reassured me that I owned it and could do with it whatever I wanted. He wouldn’t invade my space again.
“I need to be there when you take down the Butcher,” I said. “I will do everything the way you tell me to, but I need to be there. You can’t keep me from coming with you.”
He sighed and looked at the sky.
Birds sang in the branches. The dursan glared at us with its vicious eyes.
“If I were to foolishly agree to this, you would have to follow my orders exactly.”
My pulse sped up. “I promise.”
“No noble sacrifices for the greater good.”
“None.”
“Good. I’ve watched you die, too.” Reynald’s eyes turned hard. “I never want to see it again.”
“I can’t promise that.”
“You don’t have to promise anything,” he said. “As long as I am by your side, I will make sure you don’t die again.”
We fell silent, sitting side by side, looking at the gardens around us.
I reached into my sleeve, pulled Everard’s den out of the pocket, and put it in his hand.
“Your lucky coin?”
“Please carry it with you tonight.”
“Thank you,” he said. “I’ll give it back to you when it’s over.”
Kaiden came striding down the path. His eyes were red. He handed the empty canteen to Reynald and hugged me. He didn’t say anything. He just hugged me, quickly and quietly, and then we set off back to our home.