Chapter 31 Rae
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
RAE
My brother’s throat is slashed to the bone, blood pooled around him. He’s crumpled to the floor, sprawled and still.
Then his eyes open, and his lips move. I lean closer to hear.
“You’re falling, Aethry,” he says, his voice gurgling. “Watch out. Watch out, he’s here to get you!”
My eyes fly open, my head still full of Flynn’s face, full of sorrow and danger—but I’m not falling.
I’m lying on my back, staring up at a high, white ceiling. A window set in the wall across from me, small and arched, lets in light.
Where am I? What is this room?
Rolling on my side, groaning at the pain in every joint and muscle, I come within an inch of a gleaming object.
A dagger, right here, beside my pillow. Who put it there? My fingers trail over the hilt.
A slight noise reaches my ears, and I tense, jerking back, still tangled in the covers.
It’s a man. A man is kneeling on the floor by my bed, his head resting on the mattress beside me, on top of the covers. A dark-haired man.
Grabbing the dagger, I roll out of bed, slide to the floor, and press the tip of my blade under the man’s chin.
“Who—?” I start and stop.
The man lifts his head, my blade still pressed to his jugular. His brows arch, and his dark eyes fill with emotion. “Makhair?”
“Jai,” I breathe, lowering the blade. “What are you doing? Why are you on the floor?”
“I must have dozed off. You…” He chokes. He takes the dagger from me, puts it on the carpet, and hauls me down into his arms. “You’re alive.”
He crushes me to his chest, and I close my eyes, overwhelmed with relief.
He smells of blood and sweat, soap and the night.
And underneath it all is the unmistakable scent of him, leather and smoke and Jai.
I feel… safe in his arms. A long sigh shudders through my body. The tension leaches out of me.
“Have you been here all night?” I whisper.
“Where else would I be? You scared me to death. Fuck.”
I take stock of things as he holds me and I hang limp in his embrace.
Someone has dressed me in a long white nightgown with lace at the cuffs of the sleeves.
My white hair is loose and combed out, hanging down my back and over my shoulders.
More aches make themselves known. Bruises, small cuts.
Older wounds throbbing in time with the new.
Meanwhile, Jai is still dressed in his leathers, encrusted with blood—hence the smell, I realize—and dirt. His heart thumps hard against my chest. I can feel him breathing in shallow, ragged inhalations.
Sliding my arms around his back, I clench my fists. This is real. I’m not in the sea. I’m not falling. I’m in Jai’s embrace.
I’m home, I think and it makes no sense, except it does.
After a while, I draw back and he relaxes his hold. “How did you know to come get me?”
“I felt you,” he rumbles, “but I didn’t know where you were. I looked everywhere.”
“I feel when you’re scared or in pain.”
“Where am I?”
“In my room.”
His room. I glance around, curiosity getting the better of me despite the pounding headache.
I expected… I don’t know what I expected exactly, but certainly something more opulent than this.
More in line with the king’s apartments with its thick carpets and heavy, golden-tasseled drapes at the window, with plush furniture and low tables laden with food and drink, golden candelabra and paintings on the walls.
This room is… austere. That’s the word that springs to mind. Bare. Bleak. It has no flourishes of embellishment, no decorative elements. No vases, portraits, bowls of sweets and almonds, or statuettes of the sleeping Gods.
No mirrors.
A practical bronze candleholder with a half-melted candle stands on the only table, a chair behind it.
No personal touches.
Black seems to be the predominant color, if you can call it a color. The hue of shadows. Black and gray, a few colorful touches popping out—a red teacup on a golden tray. A red flower that seems to grow inside the window frame. A stack of books by the bed.
A black moth is fluttering over us.
“I couldn’t think where else to take you where you’d be safe, not without knowing what happened. You are wounded and you wouldn’t wake up. The healers think it might be poison. Your leg…”
I look down at the bandage around my calf. Seeing it reminds me that it hurts.
“That was a deep cut. It had to be stitched and poultices applied to draw out the poison.”
“Sea serpent,” I whisper. “One of its teeth grazed my leg as I waited for Keres to fly low enough for me to grab onto him.”
“A fucking sea serpent almost ate you. You almost fucking died.” His face twists, and shadows swarm the room, wrapping around us like a cocoon. He buries his face in my neck, his breath hot against my skin. “I can’t. I can’t fucking do it again.”
I wrap my arms around his neck. “Do what?”
“Mourn you.”
I stare at the far wall. My head is swimming, and my mind is as slow to recover as my body from this new ordeal, and there’s so much to say…
“Glad to see you awake.” Daria bustles in. “The healers came and went but you didn’t stir. He hasn’t left your side since yesterday.”
“Yesterday. I slept all night?”
“All afternoon and all night. I think it’s time to have a serious meal,” Daria says. “I took the liberty to tell the kitchen to send up a few trays.”
“Thank you,” I whisper, still trying to piece together what happened. I turn to Jai. “Why is Daria here?”
“I asked for her.” Finally, Jai draws back, his long lashes lowered, hiding his gaze. “I trust her. She would never betray us.”
“How do you know that?” I whisper, hoping she doesn’t hear me.
“She’s with Tru.”
Tru. Oh Gods…
“What happened?” he asks gently, though the edge of fear underneath it is still sharp. “What do you remember?”
“I remember… finding you on the terrace.” Gods, how can I tell him the truth? “Then the guards arrived. Arkin was injured. How is Arkin?”
“He’s fine. How are you feeling?”
“Tired.” I smile at him. “Exhausted, honestly.” I nestle more comfortably in his arms. We have our back propped against the side of the bed, and I’ve never felt more at ease.
“What else do you remember?”
“I remember waking up in the water. Realizing I’d fallen into the sea. Swimming to the surface and calling Remi.”
“Good thinking.” He kisses my brow. “And then?”
“I asked him to get Keres so I could ride back home but when Keres arrived, he wouldn’t get into the water and I couldn’t climb. I grabbed one of his claws.” I lift my right hand. I hadn’t noticed the thin bandages around my palm.
He takes it, lifts it, and kisses my fingers. “That was good thinking, too.”
“And then you arrived on your drak and got me.”
“I always have your back. But how did that happen? How did you fall?”
I open my mouth to tell him about Tru and… close it again.
If I tell him, he’ll push away his last and only remaining friend. And Tru had his back. He pushed me off that balcony thinking he was saving Jai. Not to mention, he has deep grievances against the finnfolk who took his sister from him.
What should I do?
“I slipped,” I murmur.
“Slipped?”
“I got on a balcony to see the view and the balustrade was broken.”
“The balustrade was br… Are you kidding me?” His voice drops into that low growl. “Where was Tru? I’m going to wring his fucking neck.”
“Not his fault.”
“The hell it isn’t.”
“Jai…”
His mouth crashes against mine. He kisses me like Phaethon, hard and punishing. Aching. Demanding. Needing.
We break apart, panting.
“Never again,” he whispers. “Never again will I call out your name on the shore, over and over, unable to accept you’re gone.
Never again will I wade into the sea and let the waves batter me as I grieve for you.
” He cups my face, presses his forehead to mine.
“I looked for you. Wept for you. Vowed to never take another woman. I told you. You are the other half of my soul.”
My breath catches. I know he’s not talking about today. This is an echo of the past. “Tell me. Tell me everything. Tell me the truth.”
“The truth is, the king has no business delving into my thoughts and stealing my memories to deceive you.”
“Tell me. Tell me about this girl you once loved.”
“A dark thorn she was,” he says, his voice breaking, “yet lovely.”
Oh Gods…
“She was a thorn, not a flower. She never bent. She never wilted. She was full of anger. And pain. And beautiful promise.”
Tears slip down my face. Oh Gods…
“Don’t cry, makhair.”
“The king deceived me, made me believe… believe he was the one. While all this time… it was you. What does that mean? What does makhair mean?”
“Thorn. My lovely dark thorn.”
All this time. I feel like I’m about to shatter. All this time, he’d known me, and I’ve known him.
“Mars?” I breathe, and my voice changes, the power pulsing in me. “Is it really you?”
The power connects with him, tugging. I have the power of names, of finding the true name and recalling memories, and it fits him. Suits him.
He groans, his chin dipping, and a distant howl echoes inside my mind. Or is it inside his? “Aethre… What are you doing? My head is about to explode.”
Heat burns up my neck as I silence the voice of my power. “Apologies. I was only calling your name.”
“My name. That felt like…” He rubs at his temples. “Like a punch. Phaethon is not happy.”
“… sorry?”
“Don’t be. My name. Mars, the Jackal.” He pulls back, gives a rueful smile.
“A name from a past I barely recall. Damn… I used to be called that, long ago. You spoke the name and something kind of… opened up inside me.” He rubs at his chest, a rueful expression on his face. “Inside my chest. Inside my mind.”
I wait for him to elaborate, but he’s quiet. And I’m still searching for answers. “Mars,” I whisper, “was gray-eyed, with white-blond hair. And he had no shadow magic.”
“I changed. My colors changed like everything else about me.”
“And I should just believe that?” I ask, even though his reaction to his name is proof enough. His true name. “After everything… should I just take your word for it?”
“The woman I loved had hair of ebony. You also changed, my ebony thorn.”
I wince. “You said it. I’m pale and white-haired like a dead thing.”
“While I absorbed the darkness,” he says softly. “The shadows entered me, infused me.”
“You didn’t used to have shadows.”
“But I did. They were mere wisps, but after losing you… They took over me. Soaked into me. Formed all these marks on my face, my neck, my chest, my hands…”
I lower his hands from my face, study the black swirls on them. “The king. He stole your memories by drinking your blood.”
He nods, confirming it. “He says he drinks my blood not like fated mates do to share memories, but to quieten my mind. I never gave much thought to the similarity. Never thought that by drinking my blood, he absorbed some of my memories. And he used them to ensnare you.”
By the sleeping Gods…
“Talk to me, Rae.”
“I can’t. This is too much. Is it really you? I spent all this time thinking you were dead.”
“It’s really me. Makhair… I still can’t believe you’re here. I loved a girl once, and I thought she died. But I was wrong. You came back.”
I don’t dispute it. He knows I didn’t survive or I wouldn’t be here. I can’t focus on that now, not when he’s right here, the man I once loved, and the colors may be wrong but the character, the voice, the kindness, it’s all Mars.
“I told you. It’s always been you,” he says softly. “Only one woman, one mate for me. Always you.”
If anyone I’ve met since coming to shore fits my memories of those light-drenched days, it’s him. Not the appearance, but the character, the person.
The man.
Against all odds, all despair, I’ve found him, and I can’t absorb this new truth. I can’t exist with it.
“Eyes on me, my love. Breathe for me. You’ll be fine.”
I fall back into his arms, shaking. “Tell me,” I whisper. “Tell me of the time we were together.”
“Once upon a time,” he says softly, “I met this beautiful girl on the river shore. I didn’t know who she was.
In all fairness, I didn’t know who I was, either.
I still don’t. But she was a ray of color and joy, a source of thoughtfulness in a world gone flat and gray.
She lifted me up from the mire, brought me cake and wine.
Brought me pieces of herself—a story she’d read, a song she’d learned, a game she played when she was younger.
She told me about her family in the castle on the hill, about her people, about their customs and legends. My princess…”
I sigh, my head resting on his muscular shoulder, my eyes filling up. “Yes…”
“She had a brother, she told me, called Flynn.”
“Remian Flynn,” I whisper.
“And he was a little rascal.”
I smile wistfully. “He was, wasn’t he?”
“He came to meet us sometimes. He liked to skip stones over the water, competing with us. But you were the best.”
“And he was a close second. You couldn’t do it.”
“I always aim to kill,” he says, and I snort. “I don’t play around.”
“That’s a lame excuse for your lack of stone skipping skills.”
“I know.” He grins. “You always got up to your knees in the water afterward and splashed me, called me a wet loser.”
“But you chose the prettiest pebbles for me.”
“You loved the ones with white striations. The ones they say are marked by the Eosphors’ touch as they move across the metal sky.”
“You told me of the old myths about them. About the fall of the Eosphors and their encounters with humanfolk.”
“I shared with you all my disjointed memories. Legends, images, songs. My favorite books.”
“You loved the Book of the Maze—”
“—and the Snail, based on Theseus’ love for Ariadne, and Daedalos’ clever adventures in the labyrinth.”
“You said you recalled a woman who set you free from a prison,” I whisper. “A prison that felt like death.”
“You remember.”
“I remember everything you told me. She had freed you from a dark place, gave you back your name, you said. She saved your life.”
“Those are old memories, from another life,” he whispers. “They still don’t make sense.”
“Mars…” I trace his face with my eyes, with my fingertips. My hand remembers his shape. How did I ever think the king was Mars? His nose, his mouth, his cheeks, his jaw. The shape of his brows. The lashes on his eyes.
This is him. This is Mars. No doubt about it.
And, I finally realize, if it hadn’t been Mars, it wouldn’t have mattered. Jai has the same spirit in him. I would have loved him anyway, in the past or now, or in another life.
He is my soulmate. My fated mate. He was right. There can only be one.
But then someone clears their throat behind me, making me jump.
I’d forgotten another person was in the room until Daria says, “My lady, my lord, the king is coming.”