Chapter 44 #2
“That’s why Caspar keeps Odette imprisoned.
Because he killed your father. It’s to stop you from coming after him.
You’re the eldest son of the murdered High Thane.
You have a legitimate claim to the throne that he never wants you to wield against him.
” He opens his mouth to speak but I keep going.
“You never told me what Reid was. What he was planning.”
“I didn’t know what he was planning until today, same as you.”
“Deacon, you said we were friends.” My voice cracks on the word and I hate myself for it.
I hate even more the way Deacon looks like I’ve just shoved one of my daggers through his spleen.
“You said we were friends, and you let me put my life on the line repeatedly for a man I didn’t really know at all.
You didn’t even tell me that the High Thane who exiled you to hell was your own fucking father.
I’ve been so blind. You only wanted to keep me alive so I could find Odette for you.
Did you ever even give a shit about me?”
“Vivienne…” He looks crushed.
“You, your brother, your uncle, your cousin, your dad…That whole bloodline is putrid. Liars and killers…And you’re no better than any of them.”
His lips press into a rigid line. “Now, let’s not say things we don’t mean.”
“What, are you going to hurt me, Deacon?” I stand from the couch, fists balled. “Do it. Hurt me.”
He’s still sitting as he watches me in silence.
“Do it.” I shove his shoulder with all of my hunter strength, and he careens off the ottoman and onto the floor.
“Easy, tiger,” he warns, standing and brushing dust from his pants. “I’m all for a little roughhousing, but—”
“You act like you’re so fine.” I shove him again.
He stays put this time, sturdy as a mountain.
“Like you don’t care about anything.” Another shove.
“Like nothing eats at you—” Tears have started to burn in my eyes again.
When I peer up at him—see the lethal calm on his face—I want to scream.
“You don’t sleep, Deacon. You were banished to hell and now you don’t sleep! ”
“I know,” he breathes. “You’re right.”
But it’s not enough. I drive my fists into his chest and his arms as the tears pour from me.
I don’t want to be alone anymore. Why should Deacon feel no pain and I be saddled with the lot of it?
I whale on him, punch after punch. Haymakers.
Everything I’ve got. My fury, my humiliation, my self-loathing.
I’d thought Reid and I were the same. I’d looked at a monster, a liar, a soul-taking, murderous traitor, and seen myself.
At some point I realize he’s not fighting back. This apex predator—the White Stag, the nightmare who haunts nightmares—and he’s just…not going to lay a hand on me.
And then only tears. No more fists.
I press my face into his chest and inhale in whimpering hiccups.
I have no regard for my dignity. I weep until my lungs ache.
Not just for Reid but for everything I’ve lost. My father, who I miss so damn much.
My shattered relationship with my mom. My sanity.
My freedom. All the people I can’t protect. All the horrors still to come.
Deacon moves us to the couch so we’re sitting side by side. He strokes my back with tenderness. I can’t remember the last time I allowed myself to feel so much. I’m practically waterlogged by the time I peel my face from his chest and scoot away, a little embarrassed.
“How did you even know I’d be here?” I wipe my face with the backs of my hands.
Wet splotches have been left on Deacon’s crumpled white tee. He says, a little hoarse, “Called Sophia.”
And she still told him where I was. Sophia trusts Deacon. Huh. “Did she yell at you?”
“Big-time.”
“Did you love it?”
He frowns in thought. “Kind of?”
A laugh. A miracle, it feels like. “Sick and twisted.”
“Always.”
My inhale is shaky, but somehow I’ve made it back on solid ground. “What a fucking day.”
“No kidding.” A strand of my hair has stuck to the tears on my cheek and Deacon leans forward to brush it away. We both still a little at the intimate gesture. It’s different, now that I’m not overcome with grief. “What’s the game plan now?”
I try to think my way through it all. Reid knows where the ring is and I don’t.
I’ll never find it before tomorrow. If the Elders don’t get me, something from Caspar’s wide-open Chasm surely will.
If Reid succeeds, I’ll go insane from this spell in my back in a world empty of deviants. Empty of Deacon.
“No game plan.” I settle back on the couch until I can see the bubblegum sky melt into a gloomy violet.
“The Elders will handle Reid and Caspar. Or let them kill each other and all of us.” Caspar, who believes in deviant supremacy, and Reid, who wants deviant extinction…
I shake my head. “Fiona told me not to get involved anymore, and for once I think I should listen to her.”
“That doesn’t sound like the Viv I know.”
“You don’t know a Viv. Only Vivienne, right?”
“You, Vivienne, are relentless. I know that. You have to have some idea of how to stop…” He frowns. “Everyone.”
“If I could find Ada, I could just kill her and myself,” I offer. I’m not trying to be dramatic. “No syrabraxa for Caspar to use, nothing for Reid to do, even if he finds the ring. I’d solve the Elders’ aeon issue too—my bloodline will die with me.”
Deacon looks grim. Like I’ve told a joke he doesn’t find remotely funny.
“I’m serious.”
“I can’t imagine something more tragically wasteful”—he nearly spits the words—“than the loss of your life.”
“Well, then.” I sigh. “My death better be worth something.”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”
We sit in silence for a beat.
“How did he figure out where the ring was?” he asks eventually.
I think of Fiona’s whimpers, and white-hot fury scorches through my back.
I take a sharp inhale through my nose. “He got something out of Fiona that even she doesn’t understand.
She said the Elders told her the Caspian Ring was buried in the tombs.
Reid looked like a light bulb had lit over his head. ”
Deacon’s eyes light and I want to knock myself in the jaw with my dad’s lacrosse stick. “Why is everyone making that face today?”
“She said buried?” he asks, scooting closer, wide arm on the back of the couch.
“Yes. Why?”
“And the Mer…they’d said the band—meaning the ring—lit the attic.”
“Yes,” I say very slowly.
“Remember what I told you? How before the Windsor was built in its place, Harker was kept through a gateway in a monastery? The nuns were all lymantrians, and they guarded the Citadel and Harker with as much devotion as any others might offer to their god. And below that monastery…”
I take a sharp inhale. “Catacombs.”
“Buried,” Deacon points out.
The band lights the attic.
“The attic…” Something I thought modern Asterans came up with as a nickname for the Windsor due to its dusty relics and ancient scrolls. But clearly the moniker’s been around much longer than that. “There are catacombs below the Windsor. And the ring is buried somewhere within them.”