32. Leah
Leah
“And no sign of trouble at the border, so it looks like the lords have no designs on Malice itself—they’re only interested in targeting you,” Viz says, rolling up a scroll and tucking it tight into his coat pocket.
We’ve been living in Strickland’s residence for a few days now, under the protection of his order.
It’s a huge house, but I suspect even if it was smaller, we’d hardly see the chief assemblyman.
He’s always out somewhere, attending long audiences with the Assembly or policy meetings with his staff.
I suppose it’s what you’d hope for in a leader—dedication and focus.
Which is exactly what I see in Syrus too.
He’s intent on starting negotiations with the demon lords as soon as possible.
It seems they’re still stonewalling any messages he’s trying to send to Infernum, though Viz thinks they’re trying to buy themselves time to agree on a strategy now Syrus has reached out.
When he’s not trying to organize a way to safely return to his realm, Syrus continues to run Malice from afar.
I only caught glimpses of this when they were in Luminis, but now I can really appreciate how much work it is—the hours of discussions and reading communications from Quill and studying reports.
People think being a lord is all shadows and soul snaring, but maybe admin is the real horror of running a demon domain.
“Well, if they could hurry up and work that out, that would be fabulous,” Aster says, pulling me into a hug.
“If I have to visit Baine one more time this week to try to get Lady Jing to return your letters, I’m officially resigning my role as best friend.
” She wrinkles her nose at Syrus. “It’s so hot and dry there. Terrible for the complexion.”
Rifts aren’t permitted on Assembly building grounds, and the runes required for them are closely guarded anyway, so Viz and Aster have to be escorted out of the residence by wardens before they can return to Infernum.
I watch them out the window as long as they’re in view, then turn to Syrus, who’s slumped in his chair, rubbing a hand across his forehead.
I study his features, now so familiar to me—the slant of his nose and set of his mouth.
I’ve run my fingers over the bridge of that nose so often, pressed my lips to that mouth a hundred times.
They’re starting to feel like they’re mine, that they belong to me, and maybe I’m allowed to claim them. It’s a wonderful revelation.
But once claimed, could I keep them? Keep him?
I can’t sit in the Assembly building forever any more than Syrus can.
He might not have made much progress so far, but soon enough something’s got to give—either the demon lords will open up communication, or our time in Strata will run out.
I have to start making decisions, and soon.
The problem is I might know I want Syrus in my future, but I have no idea what that future looks like.
“What is it?” he asks, feeling me watching him.
“You need a break,” I say, because it’s easier to focus on his struggles rather than my own. I cross behind him and slide a hand over his shoulders.
“I’m fine,” he says, but groans a little when I rub at a knot in his back.
“You said goodbye to Aster without making a single joke about looking for her replacement,” I say. “All of this—the lords, the deadline on our grace period—it’s exhausting you. Why don’t we go for a walk?”
“A walk?” he repeats disbelievingly.
“Yes,” I say, digging my fingers a little deeper and enjoying the low, appreciative noise he makes. “Or does the Lord of Malice not go for strolls?”
“I can think of something I’d enjoy more,” he says, reaching behind him to slide a hand up my side.
I slap it away playfully. We already enjoyed some slow, sleepy sex this morning when we woke up together.
By the time we were done, he was languid and loose and grinning.
Now it’s not even noon, and all the stress has cemented itself back into Syrus’s body.
“You need this more,” I say. “Come on. You’ve been back in Strata for days, and you haven’t really seen any of it yet. Aren’t you curious to experience it with your own eyes again?”
He stills under my touch, considering this. “It might be dangerous. The lords could be looking for a chance to ambush me.”
“So we’ll be discreet,” I say. “And you said yourself the lords will respect Strickland’s order. We have the Concords on our side.”
He takes hold of my arm and pulls me into his lap. “All right, vulture, I give in. I should know better than to try to resist you.”
He doesn’t admit it, but I think now that I’ve brought it up, Syrus finds it hard to resist the pull of seeing Pax properly.
He has a fresh supply of lake water from Viz, so once we’ve donned some long traveling cloaks and I’ve pulled on a cap to hide my red hair, there’s nothing about us that should attract notice.
Nor do the wardens on duty pass any comment when we slip out of the assemblyman’s residence.
Their job is to keep undesirable people out, not us in.
It happens to be a glorious day. Syrus uncurls like a plant stretching toward the sun, the tension melting off him as he basks in its glow. He’s waited for this for so many years, and I love watching him soak it in, the light warming him right down to his core.
We wander to the river with no particular destination in mind, and eventually Syrus gets his bearings, using the curves of the Sideris to place his memories onto the new version of the city.
“There used to be a huge dock here,” he says, stretching his hands out across a dry bank that’s filled with warehouse pallets now.
“And the barge folk would all moor here during the harvest season. They were from other kingdoms, mostly—Velta and Dulisland—but they’d come for our harvest festival because it was the best.”
His eyes are shining with the memory, as if he can really see the boats in front of him now.
“They were artists and musicians and fortune tellers, and they’d put on shows and sell things. You just had to hop from one boat to the next to discover something new and amazing.”
“That sounds wonderful,” I say. Travel to Pax is pretty limited to armistice days now—those brief periods when people can safely cross the plains without fear of getting caught up in a battle.
It occurs to me now that we’ve bought safety inside the walls at the price of freedom in the world beyond them.
“It was,” he agrees, watching the water lap low at the edge of the bank.
“Sid’s birthday was during the harvest festival.
One year, she said her birthday wish was that I and all my friends would jump off the barges and into the river with her,” he smiles, shaking his head.
“The witch tricked us. She had a bet with her friends, and she was the only one of us who didn’t jump.
So we all went home wet and stinking of river scum while the pretty noblemen’s daughters laughed at us. ”
“I wish I could’ve met her,” I say, hoping it doesn’t sound hollow. What good is it to wish for something like that? Everyone he knew back then is long dead.
I knew this would be bittersweet, but as we move along the river, I try to find ways to keep things light, to stop the memories from overwhelming him.
I show him a couple of my old haunts—a bar I’d sneak Hodges into before he came of age, the bend in the river where flotsam always washes up, allowing me to collect enough driftwood to make my raft.
I decide I’ll try to go see Hodges and Filippa tomorrow. If she hasn’t heard about the coup yet, she needs to be warned.
“It’s nice to think that my kingdom isn’t truly gone,” Syrus says after the morning has slipped into the afternoon, and we’re watching some fisherman on the other side of the river.
“It just became something else. There’s still people living and thriving in this city because I helped protect it all those years ago.
If I hadn’t, who knows what would be here now?
Probably just a barren land, laid to waste by war. ”
“Probably,” I agree. It’s obvious how important it is to Syrus, knowing that he did right by his people—that he was a good leader.
He presses a thumb to his wrist, where Ajax’s rune for “home” was once carved.
“That’s why it managed to keep you out,” I say, nodding at the spot. “Because a part of you still belongs to this realm, even while you were in Infernum. Pax is your legacy as much as Malice.”
He drops his hand and wraps his fingers around my wrist instead.
“What about you?” he says, looking back out across the water, his tone light. “Where is your home?”
I know he’s trying to sound casual, but I can feel the tension lying beneath the words. This is the question that’s been holding me back, the answer preventing me from diving all in with Syrus.
“Right now, I don’t really know where I belong,” I say.
It’s an honest answer. I feel lost, and the only thing anchoring me anywhere at the moment is Syrus.
Evie has her own life now, and staying close to her would only put her in danger.
As far as I know, I’m a wanted fugitive with the ephilium. Whereas with Infernum…
I was happy there, for a time. Maybe I could be again.
But it’s a big maybe, considering what I am.
I wish I was braver. Simpler. That I knew exactly what I wanted without question or doubt.
There’s some certainty: my love for Syrus is an unwavering guiding light in the middle of a stormy sea.
But things were so much more straightforward in Aradis.
There, my path was fixed, mapped out for me by a set of circumstances way beyond my control.
Every day I woke and knew what I had to do. Get stronger. Pass the trials. Survive.