Chapter Three #2
There was an even longer pause. Then Beth shook herself back to reality.
“Sorry, God, I’m sorry—” She stumbled over her own feet as she stepped back. “Hi. Yes, hi.”
As the other female entered, she braced herself to perform a social dance of how-are-you, I’m-perfectly-fine, isn’t-the-weather-good/awful/cold dialogue. Except nothing came out of her mouth and Rahvyn didn’t say anything, either.
Which gave her too much time to think. She felt like she hadn’t seen Rahvyn in forever, even though they’d worked together every night up until so very recently.
Then again, she’d been sitting next to the image of Wrath the whole time, as opposed to the female standing in front of her now.
So many years. Side by side. Each acting their role in that collective illusion, as the seasons came and went, and she silently screamed on the inside.
“Sorry, what?” she heard herself ask.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“I guess I need to stop being an idiot, huh.” Beth backed up a little more, and still couldn’t think of what to say to be polite. “Do you want to come in?”
“You’re not an idiot.”
“That is debatable.”
Rahvyn smiled in a way that almost hid how shrewd her eyes were. “I’ve seen you in action, remember. You’re very smart, you think on your feet, and you have a politic way of breaking bad news.”
“I…” Rubbing her eyes, she tried to stay away from the past. “Thank you, I guess.”
“It’s true.” The other female entered. “I keep expecting to see you around the campus, so to speak.”
“Well, I’m sticking close to home these days. And there’s nothing wrong with a little agoraphobia.”
Annnnnd who was she trying to convince of that, she wondered.
“Well.” Rahvyn pushed up the loose sleeves of her sweater. “To that end, I wanted to know if you had any interest in coming to Luchas House with me tonight? We could use some help sorting out the attic. And honestly, I’ve missed you.”
Well, shit. She really didn’t want to go anywhere. And if she did, she didn’t want to be around the female for so many reasons.
“I’m just cleaning up breakfast.” She pointed to the sink. “First Meal. You know what I mean.”
Yeah, ’cuz that one pan in the sink was brain surgery that took hours.
“You should really come with me.”
Beth locked stares with the female, and in the back of her mind, she tried to define what color those irises were. It was impossible. They were…all colors, all at once, and none that she had ever seen before.
“I know that we aren’t friends.” Rahvyn’s voice was soft and low, hypnotic in the way the flame atop a candle was.
“We’re more like two fighters who’ve been through a war together and are suffering from the same kind of battle fatigue.
Even though your burden was far greater, I have some idea of what you’ve gone through. I was there.”
A shaky disorientation made sitting down seem like a great idea, so Beth went over and took a load off at the little table. As she fanned her hands in front of her, she regarded the subtle tremble like they were someone else’s fingertips. Someone else’s forearms. Someone else…entirely.
She’d taken off the Saturnine Ruby last Wednesday, but the indent in her finger remained.
“How are you,” Rahvyn prompted. “Really.”
“I’m so glad Wrath is back,” she said roughly. Because she felt like she had to after everything the female had done to save him.
“But…?”
She tucked her palms under her seat, and told herself to keep quiet. Instead, the words came out with the quick cadence of honesty.
“I’d had all these fantasies about what it would be like if by some miracle he ever returned.
When things would get really bad, when missing him just became unbearable…
I would play pretend. I’d imagine him walking through that door…
and how he’d smell and what he’d say. How he’d feel when he took me into his heavy arms… ”
In the pause that followed, she expected Rahvyn to jump in with some variation of “and then it happened, and it was just magical!”
When the female stayed silent again, Beth felt herself get teary.
“It was such a double-edged sword, those fictions. Desperation made them clear as the present, but the burn on reentry? When I pulled out of them and had to face my lonely life all over again? It was a toss-up whether the relief was worth the agony of returning.”
“And then it happened. He did come back.”
Beth waited for the magical part, and when it didn’t come, she flushed. “I am not ungrateful. Oh, God, this is coming across so badly. You saved his life. Unless you’d stepped in and hidden him in time—”
“I know all that.” Rahvyn shook her head. “But it was a complicated miracle, right from the beginning. And Caldwell did not change while he was away. He returned to everything that had taken him away, the war, the aristocracy, his role as King.”
“Yup, everything’s just like it was.” Brushing her hair back from her face, she forced a smile. “Anyway, enough of my bitching. I’m sure it will be fine. Everything is going to be…just fine.”
Her eyes bounced around, skipping over the familiar landscape of appliances and countertops, cupboards and drawers. Then she locked on the sink and that pan and tried on for size the idea of being in the residence for the next twelve hours.
With nothing but herself and the wait for Wrath to come home for company.
“Did you say an attic needed to be cleaned?” she muttered.
“Yes, and we have cookies. Toll House.”
She tried her best to smile. “I’ve heard that’s a thing. Every night at Safe Place and Luchas House. But I’ve got to know, with or without nuts?”
“Without.” Rahvyn’s expression was all about the well, duh. “Why mess with perfection. Although if you want them in, we could make you a special batch?”
Beth went over to get her parka. “I’m going to forget you ever suggested such savagery.”
“You are a kind and benevolent Queen.”
“I don’t feel much like a Queen these days.” She stopped short and cursed, recognizing how unappreciative she sounded. “Listen, I truly am grateful. Even if I don’t seem it tonight.”
“I know you are.” Rahvyn put a hand on her heart. “And I’m…sorry. About everything.”
“No, really, I’ve just had a rough night, I’m the one who’s—”
“I couldn’t tell you where Wrath was. It was too dangerous. You would have been at risk.”
“I know. And it would have been another kind of agony, waiting out the thirty years.” She frowned. “I have wondered something, though. How did you decide three decades?”
“I didn’t. Lash did.”
Beth pulled a double take. “I’m sorry?”
As Rahvyn smiled, the expression didn’t reach her eyes. At all. “You ready to go? Or were you going to wash that pan?”
She glanced over at the sink like she was seeing it for the first time. “It can soak. What about Lash?”
The other female—or whatever she was—went to the door. As she glanced over her shoulder, there was a warping in the air around her, her aura of power causing a distortion.
“I had to wait until the weakening started.”
With that mic drop, the female opened the way out and stepped into the hall.
Worried she’d miss her chance to ask for details, Beth fucked off the pan and hustled out. As she clapped the steel panel shut, something in the back of her mind was firing, but the distraction was easily extinguished.
“What about the weakening.” She scrambled over to Rahvyn and took the female’s arm. “Tell me.”