Chapter 38
Deep Wounds Are Slow to Heal
ANNA
Istood abruptly but didn’t move.
I was feverish, and shivering, and nothing was connecting. I didn’t know what to do. Did I run to him? Did I yell at him? Should I leave?
I couldn’t breathe and the previous warmth and comfortable chatter had been sucked out of the room.
Blake was like a statue. He was looking at me but I felt nothing. He was closed off from me with his everi locked up tight. He looked the same, dressed in his usual elegant black and gray attire. His eyes were different, though. Weary. Forlorn. Troubled.
“I came to see you,” Blake said, looking at Ash. “I can come back.”
He turned to leave but Ash’s voice broke the stillness of the group.
“No,” he said. “The others will go.”
He looked at Riya, Eli and Isabella and gave them a gentle nod.
They understood without another word. Isabella glanced at me, giving me a quick smile, and followed the others out.
Caelan gave a false cough and slipped out behind them, shutting the door and leaving Roslyn, Ash and me alone with Blake.
He sighed and came into the room and faced me, but staying several paces away.
“Anna,” he said softly.
My heart swelled like it might burst and I rushed into his arms. He received me with a tight embrace, but he did not pull me in like he once did.
“I am sorry for leaving,” he whispered, gently pulling away from me.
I looked up at him, trying to restrain the tears that threatened to fall.
“We will talk later,” he said, releasing me.
“I’m not leaving,” I said firmly, glancing at Ash.
He was watching us intently with a mixture of surprise and concern. He nodded, indicating for me to stay. I breathed in relief, staying near Blake.
I nodded, and he turned to Roslyn and Ash, who were still seated but watching Blake with a grim alertness in their stoic expressions.
“How are you?” Roslyn asked quietly.
Blake sat down opposite them. I slowly backed up and sat in the armchair, but on the edge, watching him carefully.
“I have not awakened the blood affinity,” he said.
There was a noticeable decline in tension after that. It was like there was oxygen in the air again.
“But I can feel it calling to me,” he said softly.
Pain knotted in my chest. Calling to him? What did that mean?
Ash and Blake were locked in an intense moment, a weight bearing down on them with Blake’s admission.
“I’m more aware of its existence now, when I was not before,” he said. “Of the potential there is in taking someone’s life essence.”
Everything was tearing at whatever hope I still had that everything would be okay.
What was life essence? A euphemism for blood?
And aware? What did that mean? How could you suddenly become aware of that?
I didn’t ask, not sure I wanted to know the answer, and Roslyn and Ash shared a nervous glance.
They knew.
Roslyn shifted and took a deep breath.
“Did you see Grandmother?” she asked.
Blake nodded. “There is a tear in the sky—near the Void.”
“What?” Ash exclaimed.
Blake sat still; stiller than I’d ever seen anyone.
“It is small, but it is pulling the Realm into it, slowly,” he said. “It is ‘irreparable’.”
“But how?” Ash asked. “What has been done to patch it?”
“Everything.”
An ominous cloud of disbelief settled over us.
“I saw it myself,” Blake said. “Everyone is involved. It absorbed the everi used to attempt to mend the split in the protective layer around the Realm. It will only spread. For now, special teams from all the relevant guilds are assigned there to contain it.”
Roslyn was crestfallen, and Blake looked at her like he had caused it. His eyes were misted over, his brows furrowed.
“I will help you, Roslyn,” he said. “I did not take you seriously before, but I will now.”
Her features lifted, her shock evident. Ash surveyed her with interest, watching her reaction. A tear slipped down her cheek that she quickly wiped away, and she gave Blake a quick nod.
“Good,” she said, a small, but genuine smile crossing her lips.
“Grandmother told me to tell you to hurry up because your father was irritating her,” Blake said.
Roslyn laughed, wiping away another tear.
“Oh, I almost forgot that you two are cousins,” I said.
Blake nodded. “Unfortunately.”
Roslyn wore a comical look of disdain and smacked his arm.
I shook my head, glancing between them, and confirmed what first popped into my head. “You guys look nothing alike.”
Blake laughed, but Roslyn snorted and said, “Thank goodness. The world needs more red curls. Could you imagine if I had black hair like the Evertine side?”
“If you did, you would look like your mother,” Blake said quietly, looking at her with a gentle fondness in his eyes.
Ash smiled, looking at Roslyn with both apprehension and softness.
“He is right,” Ash said.
Roslyn’s expression eased, a wistful mood playing on her features amidst her shifting emotions. “I could never match her beauty.”
“Nonsense,” Ash said. “You already have.”
I had to agree. I’d never seen a photo of Roslyn’s mom but it’d be hard to imagine someone who surpassed Roslyn’s beauty, even if she were her mom.
Roslyn said nothing but I could tell it’d caught her off guard. She idly traced the threadwork of her gown, avoiding the somber tone that fell over us. Ash seemed to notice as well, his body leaning forward and shifting to angle toward her.
“Do you remember that evening playing by the fountain? Lord Talonhart was angry with us that night. Lady Sera and Lady Elena would always defend us, and Lord Talonhart would turn as red as a bloodberry,” Ash said.
Roslyn smiled, glancing up at Blake.
“Yes, I do. Blake pushed me into the fountain that night,” Roslyn said. “Ruined my new gown. My father was so mad that he made me walk around in it wet before my mother finally dried it for me.”
Blake’s lips were tugging at the corner, a twitching smirk in play.
“That was during the Lunar Trinity,” Blake said.
Ash nodded. “We could not have been older than six or seven.”
“What is the Lunar Trinity?” I asked.
“The Realm had three moons in its sky before the Fall of the Great City,” Blake said.
“Even though the sky is now a facade, the tradition continues every three years when all three moons can be seen in the night sky. It was considered a night of good fortune when the Gods would send gifts from the celestial bodies above.”
“My mother took me to every festival before she died,” Roslyn said.
“Do they still do it?” I asked.
“Yes,” Ash said. “Every three years, Roran, the capital of Celestia, hosts foreign dignitaries, and the entire city celebrates for three nights—the entire duration of the celestial event—The Festival of the Moons.”
“That was a fun night,” Roslyn said, a dreamy smile on her face. “I remember you chasing after Blake for pushing me into the fountain and running right into Grandmother. She was none too pleased.”
“What? No, I did not,” he said. “I avoid Madame Evertine like a Griffin avoids water.”
“No, you did smack right into her, but not because you ran into her,” Blake said. “It was because I tripped you.”
Ash spied Blake with an accusatory look. “That is right, now I remember.”
I laughed, amused at their childish banter. It was refreshing. “When’s the next one?”
“Later this year,” Ash said. “I have not been to one for a while now.”
I glanced at Blake, testing his reaction.
“I am sure Roslyn and Ash will take you,” he said.
I looked at Roslyn and noticed a similar expression to his.
“What’s wrong? Why can’t you go?” I asked.
“It has been a long time since I was welcome in Roran,” Blake said.
Ash glanced at me, indecision on his lips, before he faced Blake.
“It has been a long time since you showed any desire to come,” Ash said, his voice more tense than before.
“Perhaps if His Royal Highness did not blame me for things completely out of my control, I would show some desire,” Blake spat.
“I never did blame you,” Ash said.
The pleasant air of their childhood memory was gone. What were they arguing about?
“Prince Asher Rometheus Saint,” Blake sneered, standing up and beginning to pace. “Denier of responsibility and solver of no one’s problems, including his own.”
“You have never given me the chance to solve anything. You shut us out,” Ash snapped, standing up as well.
I felt Ash’s everi, a burning yet controlled fierceness. I couldn’t believe how powerful he was. How was he keeping that under control?
“That’s enough,” Roslyn said, her voice soft but firm.
His everi withdrew at Roslyn’s command, and the tension amongst the group was still palpable.
Blake shifted. “I am done here.”
“Blake,” Roslyn called, getting up from the sofa. Blake stopped, and Roslyn’s voice softened, “Please.”
Blake cast her a dark glare. “Sonya kai evanti ni.”
He spoke quickly and with such a thick accent that I couldn’t understand what he said.
Roslyn’s expression faltered as she turned her attention to Ash whose demeanor had shifted into tension.
It was as if it were only Blake and him in the room now.
After several long moments of tense silence, Blake broke their gaze and threw the door open so hard it slammed against the wall as he left.
I stared at the space, not recalling how I’d jumped up, stunned into silence.
“Why couldn’t you let it rest?” Roslyn snapped. “There was your chance! After years of complaining that he never tries, this is his fault—there it was! And what did you do with it? Nothing! Will this feud never end?”
Ash growled, his flaming hot everi flashing intensely as he disappeared up a stairwell.
“What happened?” I whispered.
Roslyn wiped tears from her eyes using the lower part of her palm and wiped her hand on her dress vigorously as if to hide the evidence of her distress.
“Nothing new,” she said bitterly. “We should probably get back.”
I followed her to the door when a thought struck me.
“I’m going to take a walk,” I said. “Try to process all this.”
Roslyn nodded as I followed her into the corridor.
“Roslyn,” I said. She glanced at me, her eyes red-rimmed. “Thanks for choosing me to come here. I needed it.”
She looked away, her expression never altering from the grim state of sadness that had come over her. “It wasn’t me. I mean, I was going to, but Caelan did first. He believes in you, Anna.”
She gave me a quick grin before she left, disappearing down the corridor.