57. CHAPTER 57
Kira
The Capital
Kallum, Ciondo
Kira gripped the newspaper while Pumpkin walked between her legs. Since the slaughter and her return to prison, her mind often flitted away from her body, but the cat tethered her and saved her from drifting too far away.
Right now, at this moment, if not for the fur tickling her ankles, Kira would have vanished forever.
Tears dropped from her chin onto the newspaper, smearing the ink. Her hands shook too badly for her to read the words. She just stared at the beautiful, smiling photo of Adelle, unable to comprehend what she'd read.
After suffering a major heart attack, Adelle Riven passed away in the night.
It was a lie.
It had to be. A strangled sob broke from her tight throat, and she covered her mouth, on the verge of throwing up.
HE LIES
But something inside of her knew there was a ring of truth.
Those dead eyes. The way Zayne looked when he brought the cat to her. Kira knew something terrible had happened. Something too devastating for Zayne to hide.
Adelle really did die.
“What did you do to her?” she screamed it at the camera overhead.
Searching for hints of Adelle through the painful memories of the past week, Kira battled to stay in control of her mind and to catch the tattered pieces of the bloodbath, the days spent in the gore, the chaos.
She remembered so little, but a few moments glowed like Pixi Dust in her mind.
Zayne's arms saving her. The weight of blood dissolving from her hair.
His hands shaking while he scrubbed the floor.
Zayne didn't shake.
His hands were steady when she fell from the ledge and when he shot the soldiers trying to kill her. Fear never made him tremble. Not anger.
But washing his mother's blood from Kira's body did.
She fell against the wall, collapsing to the ground. Pain tunneled into her chest, tearing her apart.
Adelle returned to the church, didn't she?
The timing wasn't a coincidence, not when Adelle was a Follower, and the Phaedra was furious.
Though Kira's body stopped working, refusing to even breathe, her mind pushed on, insistent on answers.
What she needed more than her next breath was to know what happened to her kind, loving Adelle Riven.
So her mind raced ahead of her while her body remained slumped against the wall, tears pouring from her eyes.
The Phaedra planned this.
What did he gain?
Did he want to prove that his High General and his successors would never abandon him? Did he watch with sick perversion as the Rivens scattered their mother's ashes to the wind and then bowed down to him?
As much as that all surely satisfied the Phaedra, there was one true answer.
The Phaedra would never let a bitch get away with insulting him. That was what he called her when he ordered Zayne to drag her to the dead Followers. He spoke it with such venom.
A man defying the Phaedra deserved death. But a woman, one who belonged to his second in command? Well, she deserved to have her blood thrown in the face of the other bitch who denied him.
Rage flushed through her veins.
None of this was an accident.
The Phaedra punished the women who defied him and forced their men to their knees to watch.
He waited for Adelle to enter the church to strike and commanded Zayne to throw Kira down in her blood.
Or worse, the Phaedra forced Adelle into that basement against her will to kill her.
Kira's heart knew the truth.
And now came the weeping, deep and bitter weeping that ravaged her insides with pain and emptiness. She felt Adelle with her, their time together embracing her.
The smell and heaviness of blood entombed her once more—the heartbreak of Zayne scrubbing the gore from her skin—the priceless gift of Adelle's love after years without her own mother.
Pumpkin nudged Kira's foot with her nose, and she pulled her close, understanding now. Zayne brought her to Kira because they'd lost Adelle. “You miss her too. He knew we needed each other.”
The pain crashed over her so many times she drifted from her body again. For minutes or hours or days, she didn't know. She drifted until the sound of her door opening dragged Kira to the surface of her mind.
Zayne's boots filled her vision, and she realized she was lying in a heap on the ground. Kira rushed to her feet.
His dead, blank look dissolved into silent suffering when his eyes lowered to the newspaper on the ground.
“Zayne.” Gravity ripped at her heart the way it had hanging from the buildings three years ago, fighting to tear through her body and smash it upon the floor. Blood and death and the love of one of the greatest women in the empire bound them together. “You're not okay.”
Kira couldn't survive this. She couldn't survive what had already happened. Losing Adelle, too? Impossible. But Zayne never left her, not truly. And as much as this hurt Kira, it hurt him even more. Adelle was the only light in his life from the day he was born. A lone star in Kallum’s dark sky.
So even though she felt broken beyond repair, knew shock quieted the suffering waiting within her, Kira would be here for Zayne.
He needed her.
He blinked a few times, eyes shifting to the cat. “Pumpkin looks happy again.”
Covering her mouth to force the sobs back inside, she walked closer, keeping her eyes on him even though he didn't look at her.
For three years, he ran from her, and at every chance, he told her to stay away.
But her heart pounded with the certainty he was falling, and there was no one there to catch him.
She needed to hold him, hold his broken heart. But she wouldn't hurt him by destroying the space he took solace in, not without his permission. So, she stopped an arm's length away.
Several seconds passed, and slowly his eyes raised to hers. Kira didn't know how to hide her every emotion like he did, and she didn't waste her strength trying to with grief this horrific. Instead, she cried for both of them and tested him by taking a single step into his space.
Zayne didn't back away, so Kira dared another step, giving him every chance to flee. He'd do this for her—let her in—but she didn't want that. She wanted it to be his choice.
His eyes fell to the narrowing space between them, lingering there. “Outside?”
“Yeah.” Fresh pain crashed into her. Even now, he couldn't let her near.
They sat against the fence beside each other, and Kira surrendered to the terrible pain consuming her.
Adelle loved her children so much. Seeing Zayne like this would torture her.
The longing to ease his suffering was a deeper yearning than she'd ever experienced. It was undeniable, like when they kissed, but full of so much more.
If not being able to rip off his mask once seemed torturous, then being unable to work into his heart was impossible. Her arms wanted to hold him. For a touch to ease his grief and soften his defenses and open him to her in the slightest.
This space between them hurt so badly.
She leaned against her arm and allowed the weight to push her hand closer to him, so her fingertips feathered against his. Trying once more to invite him in. Sparks danced along her skin, spreading up her arm. All she wanted was to hold him and help him carry that pain.
Without moving his head, Zayne's eyes shifted to their hands. Kira's heart started pounding because he let her touch him without pushing her away.
Until his fingers curled, tearing away the graze of skin against skin, his subtle shift as deafening as the Phaedra's bombs.
It didn't matter that he sat beside her. He was on the other side of the empire.
Unreachable.
Always unreachable.
Kira hid the cut of pain slicing through her heart. Hid from the embarrassment threatening to warm her cheeks. She'd only wanted to comfort him and show him compassion. It didn't mean anything else. Or it wasn't intended to mean anything else.
Why had she thought he'd let her come anywhere near him? A prison wall stood guard between. Didn't matter that they sat by one another.
But then, his fingers unfurled.
His touch kissed her skin, trailing the edge of her hand, drawing leisurely to the base of her palm, and ever so gently along her fingers.
Chills crisscrossed down her spine.
Whether it was fear or reverence he touched her with, she didn't know or care, not so long as he allowed her close.
His hand closed around hers, and they sat beside one another, stares on the sky, touch hidden from the camera. Keeping each other from falling.
Aching pain groaned against her throat and fought to free itself from her lips. It hurt that badly not to draw her arms around him and take his hurt for herself. But with the camera watching, they laced their fingers where it couldn't see, and Kira could not breathe.
Could not breathe.
“Is the news real?” She hadn't stopped crying since seeing the headline.
Zayne nodded.
She slid her thumb along his hand and shook with the tears she knew he needed to shed too.
“She went,” Kira whispered. “Didn't she?”
His gaze looked unfocused, like he wasn't present. Another nod.
Why did Adelle do it?
They needed her.
“I planned to comfort you when you found out…” Zayne paused longer than normal. “I'm sorry. I saw that look on your face…”
“You're in shock,” Kira said. “Don't fight it. You need it.”
He finally met her eyes, and raw, unfiltered pain emanated from him like the heat of a wildfire. Too scorching to stand by, but she'd let the flames melt the skin from her bones to be here for him.
“I promised not to leave you again,” he said.
“You didn't. You're here, and this is all I need.”
This was too much. Too cruel.
Adelle needed to come back to them.
Please, please, please.
At least come back to Zayne. She'd never leave her son. What happened?
The furious, chaotic life blinked out of Zayne's eyes just as quickly as the elder's had when he died, and Kira watched him disappear from his body. Her breath caught at how quickly it all snapped away. How quickly he donned his mask.
His voice sounded cold as ice, but Kira understood in a way she never had before that it was the opposite.
“You'll survive this,” he said.
“You will too.”
The heartbreak of the night the soldiers stole her from her mother echoed from that day on, impossible to silence.
And she knew these echoes would live with her for the rest of her life, no matter how far she traveled, who she became, or how much time passed.
Kira hadn't begun to feel the pain of all that had happened this week.
But Adelle would always echo through their life too, and she'd relive every second of this agony to hold onto her. She had been worth loving, even when losing her hurt so badly.
Holding on to Zayne, she allowed herself to weep and pinched her eyes, while his remained open and lifeless on the sky.
“I'll take care of him for you,” she mouthed, not voicing the words meant for Adelle alone, “I promise.”