Chapter 84
LUTHER
My Diem,
It has been three months since I last saw your face.
That’s not true. I see it everywhere now.
I look around at the palace, or what’s left of it, and I see you.
I see your scowl in the room where I tried to help you set my sister’s broken bone.
I see your flushed cheeks in the foyer where I searched you for weapons.
I see the tears in your eyes when you woke up beside me and realized I’d been cured from the godstone.
I see you in the ballroom where we danced and in the dungeon where we trained.
I see you in all the places where I fell in love with you.
But you’re no longer in them.
I have not spoken to anyone of what happened on the island. I can’t. I never will.
Auralie suggested I write you a letter to tell you how I’m feeling. She thought it might be easier if you’re the only one who hears my words. She’s certain you’re listening. I hope she’s wrong. I don’t want you to see what I’ve become.
I will tell you of the others instead. Taran and Zalaric are leading the efforts to restore the palace.
Zalaric asked for my blessing to make it a home for the children orphaned by the war.
They’re going to open a school, where mortal and Descended children can study side by side.
Taran wants to call it the Teller Institute for Talented Scholars.
Aemonn is helping them, if you can believe it. He has become a different man since Garath died in the palace attack. He and Taran still argue incessantly, but there’s no hatred in it anymore. Even Zalaric seems to be warming to him. He says they’ve bonded over their shared love of clothes.
Lily’s a full-time healer now. Maura says she’s as much a natural at it as you were.
She moved to Mortal City so she could be closer to the healers’ center.
Perhaps it’s also to keep a closer eye on me.
She and Maura used the blood you left behind to heal the soldiers wounded by godstone.
She wants to develop new methods to treat wounds of the spirit, since the war has left so many in Emarion who need it.
I suspect that might be for my benefit, too.
The council appointed Nidara and Lonard to share the title of High General. Though they are trying their best, Alixe’s shoes are hard to fill. They are not the peacemakers that she could so cleverly be. I confess, we feel her absence greatly.
And yours.
Runa and Enness resettled in Arboros. They’re restoring farmland for the medicinal herbs that will not grow in other realms. I was pleased to see that the group who joined them contained equal numbers of mortals and Descended. Your mother visited them not long ago, and I hear they’re doing well.
The other gryverns left once the war ended, but Sorae wouldn’t leave my side, and Tybold wouldn’t leave hers.
She insisted on lighting the pyre at your funeral.
Since the Everflame took your body, they burned some of your dresses.
Eleanor made sure they chose the ones you hated.
Taran told wild stories about you (none of them were true) and musicians sang songs of your beauty (all of them were true). I wore black.
I convinced Sorae to leave with Tybold the next day. I told her it’s what you would have wanted. I don’t know if I’ll ever see her again. I hope that wherever she is, she’s happy.
I hope that wherever you are, you’re happy, too.
You’d be so proud of Eleanor. She’s thriving in this strange new world.
She made arrangements for survivors who wished to return to their home realms, and she’s finding homes for those who chose to stay in Lumnos.
She’s working with Auralie to improve conditions in Mortal City, too. She is the leader that—
My hand stilled, ink spreading in a dark splotch across the paper.
She is the leader that you asked me to be.
I squeezed the quill so hard, its shaft snapped in my fingers. I threw it down, then smashed the journal closed and hurled it against the palace wall.
“I was going to say that I was glad you finally took my advice,” a voice said behind me, “but perhaps it wasn’t as helpful as I’d hoped.”
I set my elbows on my knees, hunching forward. “Is there something you need, Auralie?”
The sound of her footsteps grew louder, followed by the rustling of her clothes as she perched beside me on the bench. “It’s really something, isn’t it?”
“Looks nothing like her,” I muttered.
I briefly glanced up at the statue in front of us.
Zalaric had hired a Descended survivor from Montios to craft an alabaster effigy of Diem in her armor.
The man had never seen her himself, so the others had gathered around him while he worked, debating the width of her jaw, the straightness of her nose, whether the natural curl of her hair was loose or tight.
Every time they got it wrong, my temper had grown hotter.
How could the memory of her already be so faded in their minds when every time I closed my eyes, I saw her in perfect clarity?
Auralie gave a quiet hum. When they unveiled the final statue a few weeks ago, we’d both offered polite praise, but the look we’d shared revealed our mutual disappointment.
“She’s too serious,” Auralie said. “I know Zalaric wanted her to be remembered as a warrior, but I’d rather her be remembered for her smile.”
I grunted my agreement. Though Diem’s mood had been dark in those final weeks, when I thought about her life, it was her light that filled my mind.
“If you’d like it to accidentally fall over and shatter, say the word,” I mumbled. “I’ve been waiting for an excuse.”
Auralie gave a half-hearted laugh. “For someone who hates it so much, you spend a great deal of time here.”
I scraped my hands up and down my face, fighting an overpowering urge to walk away. “Is there something you need?” I repeated, more tersely.
“Many things.” She held up a finger. “I need the Lumnos farmers to stop refusing the Arboros survivors’ help.
The farmers don’t trust Descended magic to boost their crops, but they’re not growing enough on their own to meet the number of mouths we have to feed.
” She uncurled a second finger. “I need Marthe Hanoverre to stop hoarding homes in Lumnos City when there’s only a handful of Hanoverres left to fill them.
” She flipped out a third finger. “I need the Faunosians to go home. They’re recruiting all the animals in the forest to their menagerie.
There’s hardly any left for the mortals to hunt.
” She waved a fourth finger. “And I really, really need whoever is running things in Fortos to—”
“Auralie,” I interrupted, “if this is your way of asking for my help . . .”
“I’m perfectly capable of handling things on my own.” She paused. “But as King, if you wanted to help—”
“I’m not King. I was King Consort. Now I’m just . . .” I swallowed, not quite sure how to finish.
“Yes, well, about that.” She reached to her other side and grabbed a rectangular wooden chest that I hadn’t noticed her carry in.
“We sent a group to Sophos to survey the damage. They found this in the library and brought it back. There was a discussion in Mortal City, and it was decided that you should have it.”
“What is it?”
She placed it beside me. “I’ll have you know that I was opposed. It’s my opinion that Emarion has had enough of thrones. We have a council now. That’s where the power to govern belongs, and you’ll not see me waver on that. Not even for you.”
“Auralie . . . what’s in the box?”
She gave an exasperated sigh. “But I suppose I can concede that a highly respected ceremonial figurehead to enforce the council’s decisions could be useful.”
“Auralie—”
She shot me a look that said stop asking foolish questions before I stop being too kind to point it out.
I flipped the latch on the chest and carefully lifted the lid. Inside, on a bed of dark green velvet, sat a simple bronze crown, smooth and unadorned.
“It belonged to a mortal monarch,” she explained. “The other crowns from the mortal kings and queens were melted down and remade into jewelry for wealthy Descended. This one was plain enough to be forgotten, it seems.”
I shut the box. “That’s not for me.”
“The mortals want you to have it.”
“They want Diem to have it. They’re only giving it to me because she’s not here.”
“Then wear it for her.”
“I don’t—” I stopped, mouth clamping shut.
“You don’t want to?” Auralie guessed. “Or you don’t think you deserve to?”
I hunched forward again, forearms pressed against my thighs, head hanging.
My hair, messy and unwashed, fell around my face and the scraggly beard I didn’t care enough to shave.
I stared at my feet and realized I was wearing two different boots.
I dressed with my eyes closed these days, because I couldn’t bear seeing how the mating mark had turned dark on my skin.
Most days, getting up at all was a struggle.
“Both,” I whispered.
Auralie set the box on the ground and slid down the bench until she was lightly pressed against my side. She set a hand on my back and curled another around my arm.
“Good,” she said. “Never trust a leader who does.”
She leaned her head against mine, and we sat in miserable silence.
Her kindness shamed me. Auralie had lost her husband, her son, and her daughter, all in horribly violent ways. She’d lost countless colleagues from the Guardians, as well as several friends in Mortal City. Yet she had not fallen apart.
I knew she was grieving in private. I saw the way her eyes were red and a little swollen every morning, but when others were around, she was the embodiment of strength.
She, too, was everything I should have been.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I should be doing more to help.”
“You’re in mourning. It’s perfectly normal to need some time to adjust. Don’t judge yourself for that.” She gently squeezed my arm. “And you are helping. You’ve put in so much work building new homes in Mortal City. Because of you, houses are going up in half the time.”