CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Despite the coolness of the evening, a dozen candles lit my family’s home, all shimmering in Asha’s eyes as she greeted me with a big embrace. I lifted her onto my hip, planting a kiss on her cheek.
“You look well,” I told her. Throughout the spring and summer, pink had returned to her cheeks and her figure was rounder. She was no longer the bony patient I’d nurtured for months, fearing the worst.
Asha spotted Thomas behind me and hid her face in my shoulder.
“Tell him,” Kelara said.
“Thank you for the offer, Prince Thomas. Mama says I can come for a tour of the palace if Lyra and your guard take me together.” Her voice was muffled by the fabric of my gown. I gave Kelara a look, but she shrugged. I couldn’t blame her caution after our last trip.
But it’d been over a year. And sometimes people changed.
Thomas bowed his head. “You’re most welcome, Asha.”
Caleb followed us in, satisfied after checking the outside of the house for lurkers that never existed.
He was extra cautious after Prince Thomas’s kidnapping, and for that, I could not blame him.
Even I still checked over my shoulder when walking around the Capitol, especially with the Blackwoods missing.
When Caleb noticed Kelara, he stumbled. I brought my hand up to my mouth to cover a smile.
“Hi, Mr. Caleb,” Asha said with a wave.
“Are you alright?” Kelara asked, brows knitted together.
His throat bobbed. “Of course.”
I tugged Thomas into the kitchen, Asha still on my hip, and left the two of them to continue getting acquainted. Mama was hunched over by the hearth, stirring a pot of stew. Her eyes crinkled at the sight of us, and she rushed over to wrap us both in a big hug.
She pinched Thomas’s cheek. “What a handsome young man. After what you did for Asha… how can we ever repay you?”
He cleared his throat, his face flushed. “Um…”
Her eyes darted meaningfully to me. “How about my daughter’s hand?”
“Mama!” I cried out, letting a giggling Asha slide to the floor.
“Lyranore’s getting married!” my niece sang, dancing back into the living area.
“I’m not getting married.”
Mama lifted her brows and shrugged, although the twinkle in her eye irked me. When I looked at Thom, his hidden smile only made my fists clench tighter.
“You’d be lucky to marry someone like me,” I told him. “But to make it clear, I want to focus on my studies, not my relationship.”
“But of course,” Mama said drily. “Tell me, time mage… can you finish making this stew for me?”
Laughter broke from Thomas’s chest. I glared at him.
“No, Mama,” I said.
Mama huffed. “Then what good is it?”
Thomas wiped the corners of his eyes.
“I can take things apart—”
“Oh, wonderful,” she said. “Next time I need this stew reversed into raw ingredients, I’ll let you know.” Seeing my face, she paused, coming up to me with a teasing smile that slightly thawed my chill. “I’m very proud of all you can do. Of all you will do, Lyrie.”
My frown softened. “Thanks, Mama.”
“Especially the honor you’ll bring us as a royal princess.”
“Mama!”
Thomas’s laughter came fuller, deeper, and I rolled my eyes as he pulled me toward him. He kissed my forehead in a way that made Mama and Asha squeal. Kelara and Caleb were nowhere to be found.
But I didn’t bother looking—I already had enough trouble standing beside me, grinning like he owned the world.
Dry fissures webbed through the dirt as I leapt over gopher holes and animal droppings in our neighborhood’s downtrodden cemetery.
Weeds grew over the grave plots, many tombstones cracked and encrusted with years of muddy splatters.
I picked my way through it all, slowing at the sight of a familiar name, a familiar presence that lingered in the air.
Papa.
Four years.
I’d let four years slip by without visiting him.
I sank down into the grass before his gravestone, my dress billowing around me, its silver embroidery twinkling in the heat of the summer sun.
“I’m going to Junira, Papa,” I told the grass-covered mound. “Just like we always dreamed.”
In my heart, I tried to imagine his response. Tried to remember his soft voice, his warm embrace, the smell of wood and smoke lingering in the air.
I swallowed hard. “I’ve been given a full scholarship for university. I’m studying magic, just like you told me I could.”
My eyes blinked more rapidly as tears obscured my vision. I glanced around, my shoulders sagging at the sight of no one else in the courtyard.
“I should have believed you sooner. When you were still alive to cheer me on.”
A tear slipped down my cheek. I rubbed my palm against the side of my face.
“You would be proud of me.”
My premonitions had always been about the future, but in that moment, when dread filled my stomach, when nausea made the world spin, my mind flicked back to the past.
I’d always held onto the stinging words he’d spoken to me in our final conversation, his urge that I was made for more. It’d always felt like shoes too large for my feet, something I would spend my life trying to grow into.
It was only now, my mind whirling back in time for once, that I remembered Papa’s weary face staring into mine with nothing but tenderness.
I remembered his trembling hands as sickness stole what little autonomy was left in his body.
I remembered tears hidden in the depths of his gaze, a man who never cried seemingly aware he was losing his chance to.
And I heard his words, the words he’d meant for me to remember, the ones I’d mistaken for criticism, the words that he’d meant from his heart: I know you’ll always make me proud.
He was proud of me as a maid. As David’s wife or a spinster. As a mother or a childless aunt. As a powerful mage or a simple textile worker.
He was proud.
He’d trained me as best as he could. Taught me what he knew. And he certainly hadn’t been perfect.
But he’d loved me and wanted what was best for me.
Once, Prince Thomas said children inherited threads from their parents.
Maybe Kelara and I had inherited Papa’s—not his magic, but his love.
Love for our family, for Amouridia, and for what he believed was right.
And now we carried that thread forward, from the books sold at Kelara’s shop to the changes in magic laws I hoped to one day enact as a future member of the Mage Council.
He might have passed away, but he hadn’t truly left.
And he never would, not with the legacy he left behind, the one we were expanding even wider.
Not when traces of him lived on in Asha’s hopeful disposition, in the journal I’d donate to the university’s archives one day.
He lived on in Kelara and me and every decision we made in the rest of this beautiful life we’d been given.
My face was wet and sticky, and I dragged my hands down my cheeks, embarrassed. I stood up, brushing the dust off my gown, looking down at the grave Mama had kept clean for these past four years, the fresh flowers laid atop his burial mound.
I closed my eyes and focused. A sapling rose from the earth, blooming into a large, golden lily. “For you, Papa,” I told him. “To be with you while I’m gone.”
I left the graveyard and my father behind, returning home to pack for a life of adventure I knew awaited me.
Knowing that even though his body was in the ground, his words, his spirit lingered with me always.
And no matter the choices I made, I would always make him proud.