Chapter 20 #2
“Oh, believe me,” she countered with matching emphasis, “I really do.”
He arched a brow at her, silently imploring her she doesn’t. Still, he released a slow, theatrical sigh. “A graveyard.”
Suzumi’s brows shot up. “What?”
“Told you that you didn’t want to know,” he chided with a small amount of smugness.
Her head tilted even further, and she blinked at him. “How does such a thing even happen?”
Draven considered whether or not to tell her the story.
Yet she already knew of his brotherhood with Finlay and Kiran through their many conversations, and she already knew his deepest secret—words offered on the very spot they sit upon now.
So, he figured, why not share this formative detail with her, too?
He wasn’t going to lose anything by telling someone.
“My brother, Finlay…when his mother died, all the Great Houses attended her death ceremony to pay our respects to House Fjolla losing its Lady. The ceremony was located in the northern borders of Erandor, where Aderwynn Castle resides. House Fjolla presides over a small village surrounding the castle, and the people there loved their Lady. Begrudgingly, Lord Fjolla allowed them to watch from a distance, but some of the villagers slipped through the cracks. There was a girl with stark white hair and chilly eyes who kept inching near me. I noticed her immediately, but I couldn’t place her—which I remember thinking was odd. ”
Draven paused as the colors of that buried memory bled back into his mind. Arctic blues and crystal whites. Ice sculptures and snowflakes. Charcoal-lined eyes and haunting laments. The girl who smelled of evergreen and spices.
He continued with his story. “Finlay was devastated, and seeing him like that… it tore at something in me. He was a mess, so I was a mess in turn. That’s when the girl approached me.
My eyes were so filled with tears, I couldn’t even see my own hand in front of my face.
I bumped into her, and she told me she could help me feel better.
” A tiny knot formed in Draven’s throat, but he ignored it.
“She escorted me into House Fjolla’s family graveyard where their ancestors are laid to rest. It was there, under a frosty tree covered with thick, thick snow that she pressed me into the bark and kissed me. ”
Suzumi was quiet. “How old were you?” she finally asked, her voice a low rasp.
“Nine,” he answered, meek and quiet, staring at his knees.
“The girl was fifteen. I guess her father thought sending his eldest daughter to comfort the Dalmar Heir and his youngest to attend to the grieving Fjolla Heir would benefit him in some way. Finlay didn’t leave his father’s side, so the young one couldn’t get to him, but me… ” He shrugged.
As if only just now catching himself and realizing the sudden heaviness sitting in the air, Draven cleared his throat, shaking his head and sitting up straighter. “Anyway, that was my first kiss. Honestly, it wasn’t that bad. The snow made everything pretty, even.”
“Draven, I—”
“—don’t,” he said quickly, lifting a silencing hand. “Don’t feel sorry for me. She…she faced her own hell in the end, once my father found out.”
Suzumi tugged at her brows. “What does that—”
Before she could finish, a glowing golden light appeared in the distance. It was soaring through the sky like a star on fire, racing directly toward them. They both stilled, marveling for just a heartbeat at the sight.
Draven was half right, he soon realized.
For that was no star soaring toward them, but it was certainly fire. A blazing ball of golden, vermillion flames.
“Look out!” Draven shouted, throwing his body over Suzumi while covering them in a dome of darkness. The fireball clipped the left side of the bookshop, and bricks and glass clattered loudly all around them.
He dropped his magic, chest heaving as he tried to figure out what was going on. The left side of the bookshop was practically decimated—the roof gone with it. Including the latch door.
“Draven?” Suzumi asked, her words shakier than the crumbling rubble beneath their feet. “What is going on?”
He shook his head, eyes wide as they scanned the scene, looking for any bit of evidence. “I—I don’t know.”
A shrill, female scream pierced the night air, and Draven ran to the most stable part of the roof, nearly throwing himself over the edge to get a better look.
Three cloaked figures were stepping through the opening where a large, rectangular window used to be.
He gritted his teeth at the sight, cursing his current positioning.
He needed to get down there, and quickly.
He could already smell the growing smoke.
A girl screamed again.
“Rhea!” Suzumi tentatively approached the space where the latched door had once been, looking for any way to get back inside the bookshop. Both her voice and movements were frantic—filled with an unmaskable panic. “Rhea, I’m coming. Hold on. Hold on!”
Draven was making to turn from the roof’s edge to join her in her search when a gray vapor caught his eye. With a sinking feeling that could only be described as utter, terrible dread filling his stomach, Draven glanced back to look.
Two hooded figures were strolling up to the crumbling bookshop, as if they were walking through nothing more than a pretty garden on a sunny day. The vapor was streaming from the figure on the right’s gloved hands, and Draven felt all the blood leave his face.
He knew that magic. He knew those gloved hands.
He certainly knew the black panther brooch clasping the figure on the left’s cloak together.
They both stopped just short of where Draven was staring at them from above. Hatred burned in his eyes, and he hoped through the now glowing flames, they both could see it as he glared at them.
With slow, meticulous precision, the figure on the left dropped his hood. Draven was met with a cold, vile smile. Though, a delighted smile it still was nonetheless.
“Hello, my son,” his father purred, not even bothering to raise his voice.
Somehow, Draven could still hear him perfectly. Because of course he could.
His father’s smile broadened. There wasn’t a trace of humanity behind it. He watched Draven for a long, heart-stuttering moment. “I have come to bring you home.”
A dull, yet achingly sharp sensation suddenly filled his body, and he felt a pang right at the base of his head.
From somewhere, he could still hear Suzumi shouting, Rhea!
Father! It was so odd to reconcile that only moments ago her voice was tender, filled with the breathlessness of a girl who had just had her first kiss.
Draven had four heartbeats to have four final thoughts: How did he find them? Where was his mother? Were Suzumi, Atlas, and Rhea going to be alright? What was his father going to do with them?
Everything went black.