28. Rae
RAE
Kian’s strong arms held me as I wept. I’d held it together for so long, revelation after revelation. But this single piece had been too much.
A mother who didn’t love me. Who only wanted to use me.
I tried to control the tears, tried to rein them in. The last thing I needed in this world was to show weakness. It was clear that every creature here would take advantage of it.
But I couldn’t stop.
Kian muttered a curse and swept me up into his arms. I didn’t have an ounce of fight left in me to argue the matter. I didn’t care if he was planning on hurling me off the side of this floating mountain or slicing my jugular on some sacrificial altar.
But he did neither.
Instead, Kian lowered us to a stone bench in a far corner of the garden, and he…rocked me. Back and forth like I was an infant he was trying to soothe. His heart beat at that rapid pace against my cheek, the rhythm and tempo comforting along with the rocking.
I didn’t fight the fact that just having contact with him helped. I wanted to rail against that. To fight it. Because it shouldn’t have been possible: this stranger giving me the comfort my own parent couldn’t.
He whispered nonsensical words into my hair as his lips brushed across the strands. Slowly, the tears lessened and then stopped altogether. But Kian didn’t let me go. He held on.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispered against my hair.
“I can’t take any more,” I croaked.
“I know.” His thumb traced the edge of my jaw. Back and forth. Back and forth. “I’d do anything to shield you from it.”
Somehow, I believed him.
“She doesn’t love me.” I spoke the words more for myself, as if I were trying to make peace with them.
Kian’s muscles tensed. “She loves you in her way. It’s just that way is toxic.”
I mulled that over for a moment. “You knew.”
His thumb picked up its tracing movement again. “She’s always been a hard woman. An exacting one. I saw it even when we were children. But as I grew up, I saw just how manipulative and cruel she was. To Imogen, her daughters are chess pieces.”
My stomach twisted, but I felt the rightness of his words. I was a pawn to be used or sacrificed.
“She only got pregnant again after you were taken. It was as though she needed to replace her lost piece,” Kian went on, a sadness reverberating in his words.
Poor Kyrie. I wondered if my younger sister felt that or if she was oblivious to it all. I hoped for the latter because no one should have to live with that knowledge.
“I don’t know who to trust. Don’t know who to believe.” The words tumbled from my mouth without permission. The ultimate truth.
Kian pulled back, his violet eyes searching mine. “You can trust me.” I opened my mouth to speak, but he squeezed my hip. “I know you don’t yet. And that’s okay. But I will prove it to you. Over and over. As long as it takes.”
I stared up into a face that felt like a long-lost treasure. A faded photo that I was trying to fill in the blank spots for. And I found that I wanted to trust him. I just couldn’t yet.
A throat cleared.
My head jerked up, and my cheeks flamed as I took in Olympia. My grandmother. The woman who had conspired with Rhys to get me out of Lumaria.
She beamed at Kian and me, no signs of disapproval in her expression.
I was still getting used to the fact that people didn’t age normally around here.
It seemed the Nocturnae didn’t progress past something that looked like their mid-twenties or early thirties.
The Luminaries, however, were different.
Olympia showed signs of age, but they were minimal. She had hair of pure silver and smile lines around her eyes, but her fair skin was glowing, and the way she moved was like a much younger woman. I needed to find time to ask Kian what it all meant.
“My girl,” Olympia said softly. “It’s good to see you finding your partners.”
I quickly slid off Kian’s lap and was sure my face was the shade of a tomato. I nearly fell clean off the bench and onto the ground, but he saved me at the last moment, easing me back onto the seat with a soft chuckle. “No need for head injuries on top of it all.”
I winced. “Maybe if I hit my head, I’d forget again.”
Olympia’s expression fell.
“Sorry,” I mumbled, staring down at my hands. I laced my fingers as though doing so would hold me together.
A rustling sounded, and a second later, Olympia was crouching before me. She laid her hands over mine. “I’m so sorry for the pain I’ve caused you. Please know if there had been any other way, I would’ve taken it.”
I forced my gaze to her face, taking in the pain and regret I saw there, but also the determination. It was in her hands, too. There were nicks and scars, calluses and sunspots. They were hands that had lived.
“I feel like someone spun me around on a rope swing, and I’m so dizzy I can’t get my feet under me,” I admitted.
Olympia patted my hands. “Understandable. But there’s one thing I’m certain of. You will find your way. You’re already doing it, my sweet girl. You’ve found two of your four fated. You’re calling your mother on her bullshit. And you’re still standing.”
Something about her words made me feel stronger. Reassured. I could feel her belief in me swirl around us as if it were a palpable thing.
“To be fair, I almost bit it just trying to sit,” I muttered.
Olympia let out a cackling laugh. “There’s my girl.”
I stared at her for a moment, trying to reach for memories of her. I only got flickers. Baking something that looked like a cross between a cookie and a candy bar. Planting flowers in a cottage garden. Making sparks of light fly around as we danced.
They were good memories. I could feel that she had made magic fun.
“What do I do now?” I whispered. I so badly wanted an answer. For someone to tell me without me having to figure it out on my own.
She patted my hands one more time and then pushed to standing. “You take it one step at a time. But I think you will find more answers as you find more of your fated.”
My stomach pitched. More strangers whose lives were tied to mine. Awesome.
“I see that look, Rae. But you will find more pieces of yourself with them, too. Not because you aren’t complete without them, but because they will help you know yourself on the deepest possible levels and will bring out the best in you.”
I made a face. I couldn’t imagine grumpy-ass Rhys bringing out the best in anyone. But I did like the way Olympia viewed the fated. It seemed different than how Lyra had talked about it. I hoped Olympia had a deeper understanding of it all.
“What?” she prodded.
“You talk about it like you know.”
A wistful smile spread across Olympia’s face. “I was fated to my Misha for centuries before I lost him.” Somehow, her words held both profound pain and deep joy at the same time.
I didn’t look away from either emotion. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s incredible that Olympia made it through that to stay with us,” Kian said quietly. “It shows just how strong she is.”
She smoothed a hand over her skirts. “I had a lot to fight for.”
Two figures crossed the length of the gardens, and I stiffened as I recognized Rhys and Pax. But as I watched the way Rhys moved, I found I couldn’t take my gaze off him. Each stride ate up the ground, his powerful thighs bunching beneath that black denim.
My gaze trailed up to the worn tee he wore under the leather jacket. I could just make out the ridges of tightly formed abdominals beneath the soft cotton. I had the bizarre urge to run my fingers over them, as if I knew they would create a vibration all their own.
When I reached his shoulders, a buzzing sensation lit beneath my skin. Broad and muscular beneath supple leather. The perfect shoulders for gripping as he—nope, nope, nope. I couldn’t go there.
But as my eyes locked with Rhys’s, I found I couldn’t look away. Even though that familiar fury radiated through his expression, I was hypnotized. The scruff-covered jaw. The blazing gold irises.
Kian coughed next to me, the noise somehow sounding amused.
I jerked my gaze away from Rhys, my cheeks flaming again.
“I think those bonds are alive and well,” Olympia said with glee.
“Stupid free will–hijacking bonds,” I muttered, making Kian laugh.
Rhys scowled at him. “I hardly think it’s time for laughter.”
Kian just rolled his eyes. “Oh, take the stick out of your ass for a second. I think we can use all the laughter we can get.”
I bit the inside of my cheek. “Did something else go wrong?”
Rhys shifted, his glare finding my face. “Did you need something else to go wrong?”
“Oh, no. I’m good without another nervous breakdown, please and thank you.”
Pax chuckled softly. “We’ll try to keep those to a minimum.”
Rhys sent him a scathing look and then turned back to Kian and me. “It’s time to find your other fated. They would have received their marks when we did. But we can’t risk a kingdom-wide announcement, lest anyone fake a mark.”
I muttered a curse. “Then how will it work?”
“We will inquire about those with new marks. They will have to match theirs to yours. Until then, you’ll need to keep yours covered,” Rhys informed me.
I glanced down at myself as I tried to remember who’d truly seen the marks. Just Lyra. A liaison of the gods seemed trustworthy, but in this world, I couldn’t be sure. My dress covered the marks in the divots between my shoulders and collarbones, and the long sleeves hid my wrists.
“Where do you suggest we start?” Kian asked, pushing to his feet.
Rhys’s jaw clenched. “We’ll go to the House of Firelight first. I have some business to attend to there anyway.”
Kian scoffed. “You mean you need to try to stop your brother from staging a coup?”
Rhys’s amber eyes narrowed on him. “My House’s business is none of yours.”
“Unless it puts Rae at risk. Then, it certainly is,” Kian clipped.
Rhys shrugged. “Stick as close to her as you like.” He turned to me. “Try not to get dead.”