57. Vera
Vera
“Look, I hate being left in the dark as much as anyone else, but does it really change anything if the Elders are hiding something? We still have to get off this island, and the amulet is still missing.” Tessa spread her hands out wide. “I don’t see another option but to keep going.”
We gathered in my room after dinner to debrief on everything that had happened that day.
Tessa now lounged in one of the chairs by the fireplace, legs hanging over the edge, kicking back and forth against the upholstery.
Starke sat on the settee with his elbows propped on his knees as stared into the fire.
Kieran paced behind him, his jacket discarded and sleeves rolled up to his elbows.
Everett perched on the chest at the foot of my bed. His eyes tracked my every movement as I walked back and forth between the bed and the balcony doors, using my Shifter hearing to listen for any sign of people lingering outside.
I hated that I was so mistrusting. I thought I’d put that part of my nature aside, for once. That I was finally doing something good, something bigger than me, instead of letting others take control behind the scenes. Now I was back to checking every closed door, unsure of who I could trust.
“Tessa’s right,” Kieran said.
She hummed. “I love it when you say that.”
He rolled his eyes. “It’s wisest to continue on our course if we want to heal Odessa and get home.” He glanced at the empty seat next to Starke, and Odessa’s absence filled the room.
Everett, who had been mostly quiet throughout the discussion, snapped his head toward Kieran. “Even when we don’t know what could happen to Vera? The siren and the Fates both showed up on the same day with warnings. We can’t ignore that.”
“Those creatures are merely trying to scare her,” Kieran countered. “You know what the Elders said. They exist to stop anyone who tries to enter or escape. We’re all living proof of that.”
Tessa tipped her wine glass toward Kieran. “That’s a good point.”
“That’s what the Elders said.” Everett’s hand curled around the edge of the chest. “They could be feeding us more lies.”
“Also a good point,” Tessa interjected.
“Very helpful, Tessa,” I said with a smirk.
She reached for the small table next to her and plucked a grape off a fruit plate. “It’s what I’m best at.”
“The Elders are not the ones who infected Odessa, or who tried to put spears through our chests, or who tried to drown us,” Kieran argued. “I’m not saying we have to be friends with them. I’m saying they’re our best way out of here. You do still want to get out of here, yes?”
Everett gave him a bland look, then motioned to Starke with a scowl. “You’ve been awfully quiet. I thought you might be on my side in this.”
Starke looked over at me, then quickly averted his gaze. “I want what’s best for Vera. I always have. But maybe the others are right, too. We don’t know for sure the Elders are untrustworthy.”
Everett’s jaw ticked. He stood and started pacing across the floor. “I just think there’s something we’re missing.”
A knock came at my door, and we all tensed. I hadn’t heard anyone approach. I cleared my throat and called, “Who is it?”
“Sloane, my lady. I have new linens and towels for you.”
My shoulders loosened. “Come in.” The maid entered, quirking an eyebrow at the sight of all of us, then smoothed her features and scurried around the room, depositing new towels and changing the sheets on my bed.
Waiting until she slipped into the bathing chambers, Everett lowered his voice and continued.
“Vera and I snuck into this back room of the archives hall, one that’s only meant for the High Elders, and I saw these drawings inside a book.
” He shook his head, his brow pinching. “They looked like experiments. On humans.”
Kieran crossed his arms. “What do you mean?”
“There were images of humans distorted in pain, with burn marks all over them.”
Kieran frowned. “How old were they? Did they look recent?”
“Well, no,” Everett said reluctantly, features hardening in frustration. “They looked several hundred years old. Why does that matter?”
“Because, Everett, there’s more cause for concern if they were recent findings. That could mean whatever you saw is ongoing. But if they’re ancient records, it could simply be part of Pyraeth’s history. Did you see anything specifically linking Arcadia, Maeve, and Julius to it?”
Irritation flared in Everett’s eyes. “It was their private room, Kieran.”
“I understand, but it’s an archive hall.
Those could have been there for centuries, left by an older generation of High Elders.
None of this sounds like proof of anything.
” Everett opened his mouth to argue, and Kieran surged ahead.
“Disconcerting, yes. Such a dark history is a terrible thing to find. But it’s not enough to warrant us going rogue and making enemies with the only people who can get us out of here. ”
Everett took a deep breath, his eyes finding mine as if searching for an answer. I kept my face impassive. The truth was, I saw both of their sides. I felt the weight of every decision straining my shoulders.
Everett scratched the back of his neck. “I don’t like this.”
“You say that every time,” Tessa said, flicking a grape at him. It bounced off the scowl on his forehead and rolled to the ground.
“The fact of the matter is that we don’t have a choice,” I said simply.
“I have to think of Odessa. I have to think of all of you, who are trapped here because of me. And I have to think of these people who just want their freedom.” I shook my head.
“What am I supposed to do besides keep going? We’re stuck here either way. ”
There was a pause as the others looked down at the floor or into the fire, each of us releasing a breath. Tessa tossed another grape into the flames. “Well, that’s bleak enough for one night,” she said.
The door to my bathing chambers creaked open, and we all shifted when Sloane entered the room again. “Is there anything I can get you?” she asked me.
I shook my head. “No, thank you. Everyone was just leaving.”
She curtsied as the others stood and murmured their goodnights. Tessa caught the maid’s attention on the way out. “Actually, I was wondering if you could sneak some more of that wine into my room. You know, the good stuff.”
Their voices faded down the hall. I closed the door and put my head to the wood, then turned to find Everett still standing at the foot of my bed.
“I’m sorry for getting so frustrated,” he said after a moment. “I’m just trying to protect you.”
“I know, Swift.” I smiled softly. “Like how I’m just trying to protect you.”
His expression softened. “Sometimes I’m not sure which of us is more stubborn.”
The room went silent again, and I bit down on my bottom lip. The look he was giving me made it hard to breathe. “You should leave,” I said quietly. “Get some sleep. It’s been a long day.”
“You’re right.” He held my gaze. “But do you want me to leave?”
Tell me to stop. His words from the library had my pulse racing. I could still feel everywhere his lips touched.
I looked at the floor. “It’s not always about what I want, Swift. This isn’t fair, me needing you when I don’t know how much I can give back.” I swallowed. “You should just…go.”
“Vera.” His voice was soft, determined, as he took a step closer. “Do you want me to leave?”
I finally glanced up. His steady eyes pinned me to the floor, no sign of hesitation. “No,” I whispered.
He was close enough now that he could reach out and catch my hand. “Then tell me what you want, sweetheart.”
I closed my eyes. “It’s not fair to you,” I repeated on an exhale.
“Ask me anyway.”
My fingers closed around his. “Stay. Just until I fall asleep.” I opened my eyes again. “The nightmares don’t come when you’re around.”
He merely nodded as I padded to the bathing chambers to change.
I splashed cold water on my face and let out a breath.
Fates, what was I doing? I still had a long way to go before I could be the person he deserved.
But he was here, and he was so frustratingly Everett, selfless and strong and safe, and I needed him.
He had pulled a chair up to my bed and was sitting when I walked back out, one of the books from my armoire already open in his lap. I smiled at the sight. His bedside table back at the Keep was always piled high with books he was in various stages of reading.
I climbed into the bed and pulled the sheets around me, then turned to face him. A fire still burned low in the fireplace, crackles and pops filling the night air. It cast a shadow on Everett’s face that highlighted the scar across his eye.
I didn’t know why he was still here after I had left him, and after all the horrible things I’d said over the past few days.
He had said things, too. I knew he was angry.
His logical mind wanted an explanation for why I pushed him away, and I couldn’t give him one.
But he deserved more from me than a scribbled note left in a cold bed.
“I’m sorry, Swift,” I said softly, tucking one hand under my head.
His eyes flickered to me over his book. “For what?”
“A lot of things.” I swallowed. “For leaving you. For what I said the other day. I’ve said a lot of things, things I—I didn’t really mean.”
He lowered the book. “I did, too. We’ve already talked about—”
“We talked about our fight here at the palace, but not about what I said before,” I rushed out.
“On the ship. When I told you I wasn’t happy, when I said what we had wasn’t enough for me to stay.
I blamed you, but that wasn’t true. None of it was your fault.
I know you and Nox only wanted what was best for me, but it just—it wasn’t what I needed then. ”
“I know.” He reached a hand across the sheets, and I instantly took it. “We shouldn’t have pushed you.”
“You didn’t, Everett. You were perfect.” I squeezed his fingers. “It was me. It’s always been me and my…my issues.”
He tilted his head slowly. “I wish you would give yourself more grace.”
I released his hand and turned on my back, facing the ceiling.
“But it was my fault. I couldn’t heal. I couldn’t be what you wanted me to be and move on.
And I hurt you because of it.” Tears sprang to my eyes, and I blinked them back.
“How am I supposed to give myself grace for what I did to you? To my family?”
The chair scraped across the floor, and the bed dipped at my side. I craned my neck over to see him kneeling on the ground, elbows pressed into the mattress as he reached for me.
“Vera,” he started, “I never want to hear you say that again.”
“Say what?”
“That it was your fault.” His nostrils flared. “What you’ve endured is more than anyone should have to bear. Your healing belongs to you, and only you. It was never about what I wanted, or what Nox wanted.”
“You were just trying to love me,” I said. “I know that.”
His forehead pinched. “That’s what I thought I was doing, yes.
By handling you with child’s gloves, coaxing you into family dinners and Order meetings, thinking routine would solve all our problems. But that’s where I was wrong.
You were never a problem that needed solving, Vera.
” He gripped my fingers, clinging to me.
“You talk about your tangled mess and your issues as if you need to be fixed. And it makes me sick that I was ever the one to put that thought in your head.”
A tear leaked free and slid down my cheek. “I wish I’d been able to talk to you about this a year ago. I didn’t know what to do.”
The column of his throat moved as he swallowed. “It doesn’t matter anymore. I see you now, Vera,” he murmured. “You just needed me to be there. I thought I was doing everything for you, but maybe what you said the other night was right. Maybe a part of me was trying to change you.”
He stood from his crouch and settled on the edge of the bed. I sat so I was facing him. “I loved you so much, Vera, but I failed you,” he said, reaching up to grip the back of my neck. “And I’m the one who should be sorry.”
“You didn’t fail me.” I wrapped my fingers around his wrist. “I used it as an excuse, but I didn’t run because of you. I ran because of me. I needed space to figure things out.”
“And now?” he asked.
I glanced at our hands, at his thumb tracing slow circles on my neck. The fire had burned lower, darkening the room.
“I still don’t know what I am yet,” I admitted, looking up into his eyes. “I don’t know what I can give you. But I know I don’t want to leave.”
Something shifted in his expression. Not relief, exactly, but his eyes softened. “Then don’t,” he said simply. “And I won’t, either.”
I nodded. He lifted the covers for me to get back under, and I lowered my head to the pillow, a cozy, comfortable exhaustion settling over me. Visions of peaceful rivers and warm water lapped at my mind. “You’re using your magic on me,” I said, eyes already heavy.
“You need some sleep,” he murmured back.
“You’ve always been good at this,” I mumbled, sinking farther into the pillow. “The way you help me and all those kids at the Keep. You really love your job, don’t you?”
“Yeah,” he said with a smile. “I do. They’re just like we were once. I think helping them heals a part of me, too.”
I yawned, and more words tumbled from me. “I’m glad you found where you belong, Everett. And I’m so proud of you.” My eyes fluttered shut. “I’m sorry I never told you that before.”
There was a pause. I wasn’t sure if I said the words aloud, so I peeked open an eye to find his gray and green eyes shimmering as they stared at me. “Thank you, sweetheart,” he whispered.
He stood to go back to his chair, and I grabbed his fingers, barely conscious. “Don’t go.”
“Vera, I—”
“Please. Just one night.” I tucked his hand closer, urging him onto the bed. A low sigh reached my ears as the mattress dipped.
“You know it’s never just one night for me,” he said. Lips pressed into my forehead, and warm arms settled around me. “Sleep, Vera.”
And I did.