Chapter Eighteen
Two days.
It’s been an infuriating two days of waiting since sending that damn letter.
With no response from Sabien or the vampire court, there’s little I can do.
I have to wait. Hanging on the response of a temperamental vampire has thrown open a door, one my unkind mind is eager to explore.
It’s left me toiling and ruminating in the darkness of both the past and what’s to come.
If I’ve missed this opportunity—if I’m unable to reach Ylara…
I don’t know what I’m going to do.
No, that’s a lie.
I know exactly what I’m going to do.
I’m going to hunt a necromancer. Somehow.
Lilith ventured close to requiring one this morning.
Her life teetered dangerously near ending when she stormed my quarters before dawn. Sweeping her bright and singsong self through the room, she threw back curtains while going on about adventuring through Ollora together.
Had Ryc not already been up and gone for the day, I doubt she would have dared enter. Even so, she skirted around me like she knew her life depended upon staying out of reach.
I would have strangled her otherwise.
Sleep these last few weeks is a rare commodity and I cannot bargain for enough.
Burying myself beneath blankets was a mistake.
It prompted her to climb over me, pinning my arms at my sides.
Giggling and laughing like a godsdamned dolt, she prattled on about shopping.
I admit, it took my slow-to-wake brain longer than it should to fully understand the tittering words spilling from her mouth.
Shopping in Ollora for a gift of silver.
A couple of hours later and we’re still stalking the cold streets of the city when I’d much rather be curled up in the comfort of the castle.
Peeking up at the cloudy sky, I strain my eyes as the sun high overhead, blazes through the fluffy white. We’ve burned away most of the morning with this outing, having visited more jewelers than I care to remember.
Naturally, Lilith found her gift for Fenryn with ease—discovered it in the second shop we visited.
A stunning ring with a band of aquamarine gems encircling its center.
It’s a ring I can envision Fenryn wearing.
Right now, it sits in a small wooden box tucked away in the pocket of her dark green cloak.
“Familiar, comforting, safe,” Lilith repeats the three words I used earlier to describe the way my bond with Ryc feels.
Apparently, that’s how an appropriate gift of silver is found. Chapter Two of The Joining details the process of reflecting upon the bond and what it means. My failure to read the book became keenly obvious to Lilith within the first ten minutes of our venture.
Rather than let it go, I endured Lilith’s lilting lecture—insisting I reflect upon the bond in her company. Begrudgingly, I listened and offered the three words if only to silence her.
In that silence, I still continued to reflect.
The gift has to remind me of Ryc.
It has to feel like him.
I don’t quite understand how silver can feel like a person.
“I can see all of those things,” Lilith interrupts my thoughts again, beaming a smile at me as we walk. “It’s like he’s compelled to protect. And I’m sure I didn’t help matters.” She turns her face forward, into the cold wind.
I don’t know enough of the history between Lilith and Ryc aside from what he’s shared recently regarding his ascension. In that small glimpse, he protected her—from the council and a demon-bound king.
Finishing the last of my raspberry and lemon tart, I shove my fingers into a pocket as I sip at my now cold tea.
It was warm.
Roughly an hour ago.
I neglected drinking it then in favor of using it as a source of warmth. I should have worn gloves. Lesson learned.
My fingers are frozen.
My face is frozen.
I am frozen.
And winter has yet to officially arrive.
“There’s bound to be a piece that speaks to you,” Lilith says as she lifts her lidded cup of hot chocolate to her lips.
Perhaps it’s simply chocolate now.
It would be impossible for it to still be hot.
She sips. “It might take time, but I’m confident we’ll find it.”
“I’m still struggling with understanding how a ring will feel like Ryc,” I reply.
The whole notion is ridiculous.
A ring is a ring.
A person is a person.
“You’ll see,” Lilith quips gleefully. “When you find it, you’ll know. Enjoy the process, the hunt,” she laughs.
This is unlike any hunt I’ve participated in.
“There’s nothing enjoyable about this,” I reply, bristling against the cold. “I cannot feel my fingers, my toes, nor my face.”
Lilith’s golden laughter floats through the sparsely crowded street.
“Then let us travel to Solis,” she replies, her rosy nature unmarred by my less than sunny disposition. “We can shop there. The winters are milder.”
And be forced to listen to her and Fenryn?
In the same company?
I think not.
“Is it wise for me to miss yet another day of lessons?” I ask, daring to peek left, up at her. Lilith, while not as tall as Eve, is still taller than me.
Her hazel eyes fly to mine as she scoffs a bewildered laugh. “Vestaris Moonshadow,” she trills. “Are you suggesting you would rather sit through lectures—than go shopping with me and Fenryn?”
“I’ve said no such thing,” I reply, trying to smother the creeping smirk on my face. “But you’re entitled to arrive at your own conclusions.”
She bubbles with laughter. “Who doesn’t like shopping?”
“Shopping implies making a purchase,” I counter, dropping my empty, paper cup into a trash bin as we walk past.
“You’ve bought tea and a tart. You’re shopping,” she quips, laughing. Her hazel eyes sparkle with amusement. “If you’d rather, Eve can come along. Fenryn can stay at home.”
That… sounds worse.
Spending time with Lilith and Eve has taken on the same feel as spending time with Vaelyn and Ylara. They tolerate one another on my account. Barely.
It’s a gap I’m not sure how to bridge.
I never figured it out between Vaelyn and Ylara either.
“I’ll consider it,” I relent, for no other reason than to placate the fae walking beside me.
Lilith, the delighted and ever shining creature she is, pops a small, excited skip into her step. With a grin, she snatches my hand, giving it an eager squeeze. Her touch is surprisingly warm despite her lack of gloves.
She lifts my hand, drawing it closer to admire the ring on my finger.
“Ryc did a wonderful job,” she says, her voice filled with awe. “I’d forgotten all about this until I saw it on you.”
He did say he had the ring for some time.
“When we returned from the war, he threw himself into forging this,” she says, shaking her head with a small laugh. “I didn’t understand it at first. Until I did. He spent weeks working with a renowned silversmith.” She tilts my hand—a streak of iridescent blue flashes across the moonstone.
My brows furrow.
Returned home from war?
My knowledge regarding the spats of mortals is admittedly lacking—but I’m confident there hasn’t been a war recently. Netharis would have celebrated it.
Releasing me, she turns her face into the wind once again. It tugs at her raised hood and the few loose tendrils of crimson hair framing her face. Castle Erus comes into view as we round a bend in the street, the bridge crossing the Daxing ahead on our right.
“Lilith, what war are you talking about?” I ask, confused.
Her eyes swing to me. “The Dividing War.”
Flashes of his face, his downturned piercing stare as a blade grows still against my throat, too easily work themselves to the forefront of my mind.
“He told me he found you then. I didn’t believe him at the time. Thought it impossible—delirium manifesting in strange ways upon losing his brother,” Lilith says with a soft smile. “Then… a century later, I found your ring on his desk.”
As we cross the bridge, she snags my arm, gripping me tight by the elbow. I halt and swing to her.
“Ves, Nektos doesn’t always get it right,” she says, her voice quiet, barely audible over the wind. “But I’m so, so grateful she did for Ryc. For you. You’re a blessing, despite what you think.”
A blessing?
My eyes race to her cup. “Is there liquor in your chocolate?” I ask and she laughs.
Her smile becomes softer. “I mean it. If it weren’t for you, Thalion would still be alive.”
Well… if he weren’t contracted, it would be possible.
She releases my arm yet holds my stare. “But I don’t think I would be.”
Turning, she steps up to the parapet balustrade of the bridge, resting her hands and cup upon the stone. I join her, studying her as she stares out over the river.
“He never meant it. Until he did,” she says, her stare growing distant. “And the contract, it made him worse—made everything worse. There was nothing I could do—nothing Ryc could do—to stop him.”
I remain silent, staring at the Olloran skyline.
“If what I suffered is a glimpse of how demons treat one another in the hells, I cannot and do not want to imagine the horrors you’ve survived,” she says and my chest tightens. “I’m glad you’re here. Not only for Ryc, but for you.”
Everything I know about the Sovereign Queen Emeritus emerges beneath a different spectrum of light—one revealing tucked away truths.
Her radiant nature.
Carefree spirit.
Musical laugh.
All of it meticulously curated and worn like her favorite forest green cloak.
“Thalion was a stain upon the Witherhorn name,” she says and scoffs a small laugh. “It brings me peace knowing he’s right where he belongs.”
In a cold, unyielding instant, Lilith’s words are quick to remind me how I could never be a blessing.
?????????????
Remaining in the cold to collect and clear my scattered thoughts feels a lot like self-inflicted punishment. And perhaps it is.
Lilith has long since retreated to the castle, leaving me to linger upon the parapet, feet dangling over the water. With the wind at my back and my hood raised, the cold is tolerable enough.