Chapter 33 #2
The further we delved into the crypt, the quieter it got, all the joy and sorrow contained to the middle half.
Every now and then, a lone old person stood in one of the last rooms, drinking by themselves with a distant look on their faces.
My heart weeped for them. Loneliness was a heavy burden, even when surrounded by people. Perhaps especially more so then.
At the end of the hall, we made a sharp turn to the left.
A bare corridor greeted us, with a massive stone arch at the end. This one had been carved from red marble, with veins of purple stone spidering it. And they glowed.
The same shade of purple like the flashes that haunted me.
I froze, my gasp echoing around us.
“What’s wrong?” he asked instantly, freezing right alongside me.
“I–” It’s just stone. Weird stone. This whole crater is weird . “Nothing. It’s a strange place to be in as an outsider.”
What else could I say? I’m seeing strange lights that follow me and nobody else but a child noticed?
“Are you sure?” he asked after a beat. But his voice had changed.
Not tired, not cold.
Suspicious.
As if I had anything to hide.
As if I even could hide anything from those eyes of his, which I met head-on with my own stubborn gaze. “Yes.”
Yes, I was very sure I didn’t want to give him the true answer.
“Very well, then,” he said, sounding like he didn’t believe it.
We entered the final room in silence, a sudden tension dissipating the warmth which had been slowly building between us.
This space was one large oval, with an embossed sculpture of a fallen star leaving behind rays of rock carved right in the center of the wall.
Coffins lay in alcoves on its right and left, but these ones had statues of their occupants sculpted on the lids.
Some had been fierce warriors, clutching their mighty swords and shields even in the afterlife.
One had a newborn baby on her stomach and a crown of spikes on her head.
Another held a staff in his hands, his beard carved down to his toes.
We placed our candles on the massive stone table waiting in the center. It was carved out of the same veined stone as the arch, its middle raised in a perfect circle surrounded by a moat.
The Commander stopped in front of an alcove right behind it. A woman had been carved on top of it, long hair cascading down the sides of the coffin. She held a huge broadsword to her chest, covered by a huge wildflower bouquet. Softness and brutality intertwined.
She had a soft face with a slow smile, as if the statue was forming it now, ready to come back to life and greet us.
The Commander gave a low, respectful bow and placed his hand on top of hers. “Hello, mother. Meet my future wife.”
I blinked up at him, shocked. He wasn’t joking.
This was serious.
What did one say to their dead future mother-in-law, exactly?
“What was her name?” I whispered, feeling the weight of the moment–I hadn’t even met Waden’s parents before he’d betrayed me–but I couldn’t shy away from it.
I saw from the way his eyes lingered on me, determined and unsure at the same time, that this meant a lot to him.
“Mireya Greycrest of the Nochtvir Dynasty,” he said the name like a prayer.
I stepped closer to him, steps heavy like I was walking toward an altar. I bowed in front of the coffin, the same way he did. “It’s my pleasure, Lady Mireya. May your soul be happy and peaceful among the gods.”
I straightened with a smile the Commander mirrored.
“You know what’s funny?” I asked.
“Careful what you say in front of my mother. She was fiercely protective.”
I huffed a laugh. “I know her name, but don’t know yours.”
He blinked my way one time too many, as if caught off guard. “You’re right.”
“Always.” I laughed.
“I could have sworn I told you. It feels like we’re already so familiar, but that’s not the reality, is it?”
I shook my head. “We don’t know a lot about each other.”
“A lifetime to learn, right?” He sighed, but it didn’t sound sad or regretful. If anything, there was a wistfulness there. “I’m Ryker.”
A part of me hadn’t been expecting him to answer. Giving your real name to a Protectorate member was a sign of deep trust. Even more rattling after I detected that hint of suspicion from him.
Maybe I’d imagined it.
“Ryker,” I repeated. I liked the sound of it on my lips. Strong. Unflinching.
From the way his lips quirked, he’d liked it, too.
I tilted my head to the side, looking up at him. “Never would have pegged you for a Greycrest.”
It sounded wrong. Harsh in ways the Commander– Ryker –didn’t seem to be. It also sounded familiar.
“Then it’s lucky I’m not called that. Greycrest was my father’s name,” he barely tilted his chin in the direction of a lavish coffin with a tall, burly man resting on top of it, armed to the teeth.
The statue had a frowned brow ridge which I supposed had been meant to look fearsome, but instead came off as permanently unsatisfied.
If Ryker’s father had been the same during his life, I wouldn’t have wanted to meet him, anyway.
“I’m Ryker Nochtvir, after my mother. The throne was hers, then it passed down to me. ”
“I like Ryker Notchtvir much better, good choice. Greycrest is…” A memory of a spy whisper slashed through my mind. “Wait, Greycrest as in the Ashrift Clan?”
Few Clans in Mahaven were more secretive, yet still despised, like the Northern ones. They stuck to their icy side of the world and caused chaos all around them.
“You’ve never asked about the Northern Clans before,” he said slowly. Almost too slowly.
“Had other things on my mind until now, didn’t I? You’re related to Beren, of all heinous Clan leaders?”
“Yes,” was all he said, the word cutting.
I whistled. “So that’s where the frown comes from.”
He barked a laugh, but it sounded biting.
So that side of the family wasn’t all that loved, thank the gods.
I’d barely made peace with being related to the Blood Brotherhood–Evie had already signed the marriage contract, so it was truly inevitable at this point–I couldn’t imagine family reunions with the bleeding Northern Clans.
But the crater side seemed much better.
“She seemed like a lovely person.” I stared at her one more, only then noticing she also wore a baldric identical to his, only hers was filled with daggers, unlike his. I’d seen this design before, I could swear.
“She was. Taken too soon, sadly,” he said, drawing my attention back to him.
“What happened?” I asked. “If you want to talk about it, of course, I–”
“Her heart was too big for this world,” he said quickly, as if the words had been begging to be released.
“A few families got sick a few winters ago, we haven’t found from what even today.
The younglings suffered the worst. Their lungs hissed so loud, you could hear it through all the city.
We tried everything. Brought in healers from all around Malhaven, under threat of death if they revealed anything. We began losing younglings.”
I could see the story fracturing him as he told it and wondered if he’d ever truly revealed it to someone else. Guilt clung to every word and breath.
His stare glazed over as he kept staring at his mother’s statue.
“One of them suggested taking them to the icy Northern shores could help. They said the cold, salty breeze could held freeze the disease.” His tone tilted with an edge, the angles of his face tightening.
“I didn’t truly believe in it, but we were desperate.
My mother begged– begged –the Northern Clans to allow us access to their coast. We’d planned on taking an isolated caravan, wouldn’t have bothered anyone.
They refused. Said they didn’t want the disease to become their problem. ”
“Those bastards,” I muttered. Children. They’d said no to dying children.
“You know who did help?” He scoffed. “The Blood Brotherhood. After decades of animosity. After the Northern Old Guard tried to kill The Dragon when he was nothing but a babe out of sheer spite and revenge. When the prince’s spies told the queen about our situation, she sent supplies and allowed us passage to their shores.
Not as icy, but saltier. The Dragon himself came to escort us and stayed until most of them recovered.
But we lost too many. My mother among them.
She cared for those younglings as if they were her own and caught the disease herself.
Perhaps much earlier than I realized. She’d always been good at hiding what ailed her.
I didn’t notice until it was too late. And I lost her. ”
Ghosts were now strangling his voice. Before I could stop myself, I drew closer to him and laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. “It wasn’t your fault.”
He nodded and placed his own hand on top of mine, not taking his eyes off his mother’s grave.
The voices in the distance began to dissipate as the other families began exiting the crypt, which made this moment that much more intimate.
Ours.
“After she died, the light went out of my life, and I had to now run an entire Clan,” he said.
“But I knew I could never stand the Northern Clans again. My city is thriving, but we need allies. A lot of them. As long as I live, my people will want for nothing. So I pledged my allegiance to the ones who reached out to help even when we didn’t ask–the Blood Brotherhood.
Our life remains the same, we have our autonomy, and now we actually have the power to change something in Malhaven, not just pretend we can from our frozen thrones.
One of the best godsdamned decisions I ever made in my life. ”
“Very few Clan leaders would have done that.”
“Power is useless if you can’t help your people. A crown means responsibility, not free reign.”
“Exactly.” A warm feeling fluttered in my heart. “I’m sorry–”
“It’s not your fault.”
“Now who’s impatient?” I asked with a smirk. “I was about to say I’m sorry you never got a chance to see my father. He used to say the same thing.”
He tensed underneath my fingers so hard and fast, I clenched my fingers into his uniform on instinct, mind already racing.
A roar flooded my ears.
“Did you meet my father?” I asked.
He couldn’t have, my father would have told me. We hadn’t had direct contact with the Blood Brotherhood or the Northern Clan in ages.
“No,” he said slowly. Hesitantly. His gaze rose from his mother’s grave to meet mine. “But I saw him that day on Sanctua Sirena.”