Chapter 27 #2
“It should have been me, Lily. Teller had to make a horrible choice and sacrifice Perthe to save my life. He and I had to watch Perthe die, knowing we were to blame. We both have to live with that forever.” Lily looked horrified, her lashes growing wet.
“You have no duty to take him back out of pity. I only want you to know that he is paying a price for his choices. Even if you cannot forgive him . . . be gentle, sister. He is hurting, too, and he could sorely use a friend.”
She turned quiet. Her gaze drifted back to the auburn-haired man sitting in a defeated slump by the campfire.
I tugged her into my side. “But if he hurts you again, say the word and I’ll feed him to Tybold.”
She let out a half-hearted laugh. “I’ll think about it.”
We embraced, and she slowly walked the path to the palace.
At the edge of the camp, she paused and looked back toward the fire, worrying her lower lip between her teeth.
Finally, she reversed course and went to stand in front of Teller.
Though she said nothing, her chin indignantly high, she looked at the books and held out her hands.
Teller popped to his feet. I watched as he held up each book, animatedly flipping through them to point out illustrations or slips of paper he’d used to mark pages of note. The longer he talked, the more Lily’s anger collapsed, her fierce expression turning fond.
He gathered up the stack and gestured to the palace as if offering to carry them inside. When she shook her head, I felt my own shoulders sink along with Teller’s, but the small smile she flashed after taking them from his hands made me believe there was hope for them yet.
“Another night on guard duty?”
Even before she appeared at my side, I recognized Auralie’s voice. I gave a noncommittal grunt in response. I’d spent every night since Diem’s return sleeping just outside the canvas flap of her tent, and I knew her mother had noticed.
I must have looked like an overprotective loon, but it had little to do with keeping Diem safe. There wasn’t much I could do to protect her that she couldn’t do far more impressively herself. The real reason I kept close was something Diem would never want me to admit.
Stay with me?
That was the question she’d asked me the day she returned, in her rawest and most vulnerable state. In that moment, I’d realized her time on the island was not the bleak nightmare I’d feared. It was far, far worse.
Always, I’d promised.
And I was a man of my word.
Auralie held out a tied-up bedroll topped with a quilt. “Here. If you’re going to sleep outside, might as well be comfortable.”
I took it with a murmured thanks and laid it out on the grass, hoping it might satisfy her enough to send her away, but she continued to linger.
“I heard you told everyone about your mother,” she said. “I’m sure that wasn’t easy.”
“No,” I admitted, “but I’m glad for it. I’m not ashamed of who she was.”
Auralie smiled. “What was she like?”
I frowned as I realized how much of her had been stolen from my memory by the ruthless thief of time. Her hair—was it curly, or just a gentle wave? Were her eyes a golden bronze, or more like the wood of a Lumnos oak?
“She was quiet,” I said, seizing on the bits of her that remained.
“She didn’t speak much. She sang, though.
I would sit for hours and listen to her.
After she died, I used to hide near open windows in Mortal City at night, listening to women sing lullabies to their children. It reminded me of her.”
I bristled, surprised at how much I’d just revealed.
Auralie gave a thoughtful nod. “Sometimes I sit by the training rings while people are sparring. If I close my eyes, I can still hear my Andrei in the front yard, teaching our children to fight.”
We both fell quiet, understanding each other in the worst of ways.
“She must have loved you very much,” Auralie said softly, “to have fought so hard to get back to you after Remis sent her away.” She laid a hand on my arm. “I have no doubt she is impressed with the man you grew up to be.”
I didn’t respond—couldn’t, over the fire in my throat.
Her eyes returned to the tent. “I wish Diem could have known her. Perhaps she would have been a better example of what a mother should be.”
“Give yourself more credit, Auralie. You raised the strongest woman I know.”
Her expression was troubled, unconvinced.
“Diem and I used to talk every day. She would tell me about all the things that filled her life, good and bad. Now, she gives me one-word answers. She swears that all is fine, when anyone can see it isn’t.
” She glanced at me. “And I think I’m not the only one she’s pushed away. ”
Though I confessed nothing, the truth lay in my silence—and the single bedroll at my feet.
“I was not an easy woman to love,” Auralie said. “Old Gods know I gave Andrei every reason to walk away. He never did. That’s the kind of love she deserves.” Her hand tightened on my arm. “Don’t give up on her, Luther.”
“Never,” I growled. I laid my palm on my heart. “This belongs to Diem. If she chooses to refuse it, that’s her decision, but mine is already made.”
My words seemed to give Auralie some comfort. With one last pat on my arm, she said good night. I drew in a steadying breath and stepped inside the tent.
It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. Diem’s lantern was unlit and her Crown had been tucked away. Even her eyes had lost their magic-fueled glow. Her silhouette knelt in the center of the murky shadows.
I conjured a small orb of light and let it hover above her. She was naked, hunched, and shivering, her arms wrapped across her chest. If she heard me enter, she gave no sign, her vacant stare fixed on the empty darkness.
“Diem?”
No answer.
“Diem.”
Silence.
My voice turned softer. “My heart.”
She flinched, then slightly turned her head—as much of a greeting as I would get.
I set down her sword and harness, then gripped the back of my sweater and dragged it over my head. I knelt before her. “Lift your arms.”
Her eyelids fluttered as her steel-grey gaze paused on my bare chest and the spot where my scar wreathed my heart.
“You should go.” Her words were dandelions in the wind. So terribly fragile, one breath from ruin.
I kept my face still, refusing to burden her with the evidence of how her dismissal wrecked me. “Not yet.” I held the sweater over her head. “Lift your arms,” I said again, more gently.
She stared up at the open hem, yet she made no move to take it. Her grip tightened on her chest, her fingernails clawing for purchase against her skin.
“We agreed, remember?” I said. “When we’re alone, there’s no Queen or Prince. Only us. Equals. And that means sometimes you answer to me.” I lowered my chin, trying to catch her eye with my smirk. “You seemed to enjoy taking my orders in Sophos.”
My heart cracked when my words provoked no answering smile, no heat from those intimate memories, no response at all.
Her stare fell again to my chest, hovering at my heart before dropping to where she covered her own.
She shifted to force the hair on her shoulders to fall forward and further curtain her from my view.