Chapter 44
XLIV.
brYNN
The familiar weight of the forsaken realm settled around them. But instead of the usual sense of returning to something that might become home, the Forsaken Court felt oppressive tonight. Too quiet. Too empty.
Coming back to a place that wasn't hers. To a man who kept her at arm's length, no matter how close they stood.
They walked toward the main palace without speaking. The weight of Thessa's domain still pressed against her mind. All those spirits caught in their worst moments, unable to let go.
Just like him.
The thought had been building all day, whispered by every ghost they'd passed. She'd been living in the death realm for weeks. Surrounded by spirits, souls, the dead. And she'd never once asked the question that now felt unavoidable.
"My parents," she said abruptly, stopping in the middle of the corridor. "Are they here?"
Dante went very still.
Dread crossed his face.
"Can I see them?" The question came out quieter than she'd intended, but she pushed on. "I know they're dead, but I've been living among the dead and I never even thought to ask—"
"Don't." The single word came out sharp. Almost desperate.
"Don't what? Don't ask about my own family?"
"Don't ask questions you don't want answers to." He turned to face her fully, and she saw exhaustion there, and guilt.
Her stomach dropped. "What does that mean?"
He ran a hand through his hair, a gesture so human it caught her off guard. "It means some knowledge only brings pain."
"They're my parents. I have a right to know."
"Do you?" The question was harsh. "Do you have a right to knowledge that will destroy any peace you might find in this place?"
The corridor felt like it was closing in. Servants had vanished, sensing the dangerous undercurrent in their lord's voice.
"Tell me," Brynn whispered.
"No."
"Tell me what happened to them."
"I said no." His voice carried that edge she'd heard him use on courtiers who overstepped, the tone that reminded everyone exactly who they were dealing with.
But she wasn't everyone else.
"You don't get to decide what I can handle." She moved toward him instead of backing away. "You don't get to shield me from my own life."
"Your life ended the night you were marked for tribute." He held her gaze. "Everything since then has been borrowed time."
The cruelty of it stole her breath.
"Then tell me about their deaths," she said quietly. "If my life is already over, what's left to shield me from?"
For a moment, she thought he might break. His shadows reached toward her before recoiling.
"Time changes everything in the death realm," he said finally, his voice barely above a whisper. "Even love. Even memory. Even the people we once were."
"What does that mean for them?"
His eyes closed briefly. "It means the parents you remember, the ones who loved you.
.. They don't exist anymore. Death changed them.
The betrayal that killed them, the way they died believing the worst..
." He shook his head. "They're trapped in that final moment of despair, reliving it endlessly.
They wouldn't recognize you. Couldn't recognize you.
All they know now is the pain of believing their daughter turned against them. "
The words drove the air from her lungs.
She'd expected them to be unreachable.
Not this.
"They think I betrayed them?" Her voice came out thin. Broken. "They died believing I was part of what destroyed our family?"
"The betrayer was thorough." His voice gentled in a way that made her chest ache. "Made it look like the whole family was involved. Your parents' final moments..." He stopped, shaking his head.
"Tell me."
"They were calling your name. Asking why you'd done it, why you'd turned against them. The betrayal broke their hearts before it killed them."
The floor felt unsteady beneath her feet.
All this time, she'd carried the grief of losing them. The anger at their betrayer. The guilt of surviving when they hadn't.
She'd never considered that they might have died hating her.
"So they exist," she said when she could speak again, "but they're not... them."
"They're echoes." His voice was soft now, almost tender. "Broken echoes of their worst moment, played forever. And seeing you would either mean nothing to them, or it would cause them pain beyond imagining."
Her parents weren't just dead. They were imprisoned in their own anguish. Forever believing she'd destroyed them.
"That's why you didn't tell me," she whispered.
"Yes."
They stood in the corridor, separated by mere feet but feeling like worlds apart. She felt tears prick at her eyes and blinked them back furiously.
The weight of it was crushing.
"I'm sorry," he said quietly, and she heard genuine pain in his voice. "I'm so sorry."
She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
Then she made the mistake of looking up at him.
His expression held something she hadn't seen before. Recognition. Like he knew exactly what it felt like to lose someone and never get them back. To be surrounded by the dead and still be completely alone.
For a moment, standing there in the aftermath of devastating truth, she thought maybe they could comfort each other. Maybe this shared understanding of loss could bridge the distance he'd been maintaining.
"Dante—" she started, moving toward him.
His expression shuttered immediately. The vulnerability vanished behind cold blankness.
"The investigation," he said, his voice going flat. "The spirits mentioned visitors asking about ward construction."
She actually laughed, a broken, disbelieving sound. "Are you serious right now?"
"Thessa deals in riddles. Her information could point anywhere."
No. She wasn't going to let him do this. Wasn't going to let him use her grief as another barrier between them.
"Stop," she said, her voice shaking. "Just stop."
"The pattern is building—"
"I don't care about the pattern!" The words came out sharper than intended, but she was raw, and he was retreating like none of this mattered. "My parents are trapped in a nightmare of thinking I destroyed them, and you're talking about ward construction?"
His jaw tightened. "I'm trying to—"
"You're trying to avoid." She closed the distance between them, watched him force himself not to back away. "You've been avoiding me for a week. You ran from your own garden rather than acknowledge what's happening between us. And now you're using my grief as another excuse."
"There's nothing happening between us beyond the investigation."
She stepped back.
"Nothing?" Her voice came out small, and she hated herself for it.
"Nothing," he confirmed, and his tone was so flat, so final, that she almost believed him.
Almost.
But his darkness was writhing around his feet. His hands were clenched so tight the leather of his gloves creaked. And there, just for a second, something flickered in his dark eyes that looked like agony before he buried it.
"You're lying," she said quietly.
"I'm keeping you alive."
"From what? From caring about someone? From letting someone care about you?" She held her ground. "Or are you just keeping yourself safe?"
His shoulders went rigid. "You don't understand—"
"Then make me understand!" Her voice broke on the words. "Make me understand why you looked at me in that garden like I mattered, then spent a week pretending I don't exist. Why did you just hold me together through the worst news of my life, then immediately shut me out?”
"Because this—" He gestured sharply between them. "—can't happen. Won't happen."
"Why not?"
"Because I could kill you!"
The words exploded out of him. His control shattered, his whole body rigid, shadows erupting in violent tendrils.
"Because my nature is death.” His voice broke into a near-shout. "And no matter how careful I am, no matter how much I want—"
He stopped abruptly, jaw working.
There it was. The truth he'd been hiding behind formality and a week of silence.
Her heart was slamming against her ribs. "How much you want what?"
She watched him fight with himself. Watched the war play out across his features, in the way his body strained toward her even as he held himself back.
For one breathless moment, she thought he might actually answer.
He exhaled. Straightened. When he spoke again, he was the Reaper once more.
"It doesn't matter what I want. All that matters is keeping you alive long enough to fix the wards. After that, you can return to the living world."
The dismissal broke something in her.
"That's it?" Her voice came out barely above a whisper. "That's all I am to you? A tool for fixing your ward problem?"
"Yes."
But his shadows strained toward her.
"We'll continue tomorrow," Dante said finally, his voice hollow. "The Mourned Court. Dawn."
"Fine. Tomorrow."