Chapter 34
Breakfast and lunch were canceled in an unspoken agreement between Maeve and Reeve.
Unspoken being that neither of them entered the room where they customarily met for meals the following day.
Maeve sulked all morning, barely able to read any of the books that kept appearing in her rooms. Books she assumed were from the library in Aterna, the largest in all seven realms. She also assumed they were from Reeve, which made them even more difficult to enjoy.
Despite his display before Mal, and despite the Dread Ring now on her finger, Maeve felt revitalized. She had been tempted in her fury to release and sever her hold on the thread of Magic connecting her to Reeve, but somehow that bond ran stronger in the hours after Mal’s departure.
“Spinel,” she groaned, resting her head against the crystal altar where Maxius lay and lamenting to her cat.
“Why does he have to make it so hard? Why couldn’t he have prepared me?
” She ran her fingers down his shining coat, answering her own question.
“Because then you’re reaction wouldn’t have been genuine and wouldn’t have truly provoked Mal,” she said in her best impression of Reeve’s casually arrogant voice.
Spinel chirped an unhelpful reply.
Her thumb traced the underside of the band on the Dread Ring as she stood and made her way through the palace absentmindedly.
Foolishly, the feeling of Dread Magic back in her grasp steadied her.
She spent the morning in Reeve’s personal armory, alone, and able to hold smaller swords pumped full of his Magic that she’d previously not been able to lift.
Her lightning, mixed with the Dread Magic the ring provided her, gave her strength.
It wasn’t close to what her own Dread Magic provided her, but still. . . it felt like a gift.
Hope was a dangerous emotion in such dark times.
As the future became the daunting present, she questioned what the aftereffect looked like.
Who would be there, and who would be changed?
So many, herself included, would never be the same.
Abraxas would need to heal after Mal’s cruelty.
Zimsy, if they ever found her, would be different after such horrible trauma.
Maxius.
She pushed down on that one. The guilt was too heavy. Rivaled only by her guilt for Mal. To understand Shadow’s possession, his slow death, according to Mely, was to accept that even if she removed him from the grips of that possession, what would remain?
She’s still infuriatingly yours.
Reeve’s words bounced across her mind. He was right, and he was wrong. Mal was hers to save. To honor. To redeem.
Past that, her mind remained blank of possibilities. Or desire.
She’d never been in a time like this, where tomorrow was so very unknown and unpredictable that there was little point in trying to picture it. Even the time after her father’s death had given her some promise of the future, dismal though it was.
And so, after a roundabout journey through the palace and due to that crushing feeling of uncertainty in tomorrow, but certainty that a certain Immortal stood a chance at warming her cold and hollow insides, she stood in the open threshold of Reeve’s palace wing.
She leaned against the large frame of the doorway. Reeve sat, not at his desk, but at a large dining-like table, writing with quick purpose. He kept his attention on his work, but she had no doubt he was aware of her presence.
“Who was she?” asked Maeve softly, her mind lingering on the statue of a goddess-like woman that sat prominently at the entrance to the Celestian Palace.
“Who was who?” he replied without looking up at her.
“Your first love.”
Though he tried not to act caught off guard by her bold questioning, the quill in his hand scratched to a halt, and then quickly resumed.
“The statue. It’s her, is it not?” Maeve asked.
“It’s her,” was all Reeve offered her, an edge in his normally casual tone.
“An Immortal?”
Reeve looked up from the papers sprawled across the large table, but Maeve met his frustration with her soft expression.
“Why do you want to know?” he asked with a forced calm.
She looked around the room, the portraits of Immortal Royalty from hundreds of generations ago staring down at her.
“You know me. Startingly well. You know everything. And I. . .don’t know you. Not really.”
Reeve stared at her, unblinking, his expression one of uncustomary exhaustion.
“This place has so much history, so much of you,” she continued. “I feel left out.” She offered him a small smile, the closest thing he’d get to her saying, “I’m sorry I make you so mad that you turn into a monster.”
He held her gaze for a moment more and then studied the vast space between them. His brows pulled inward, and she felt him tug gently on the bond that ran between them. It jolted her stomach, nearly bringing her to the tips of her toes.
A small sound of acceptance hummed in his throat, as though he, too, could feel its expansion.
“Can I give you a tour of the palace tomorrow?” he asked, his voice still distant and drained. “I’ll answer all your questions with great patience. Patience, I unfortunately lack currently.”
The corner of Maeve’s mouth turned up, only for a moment. She nodded.
As promised, Reeve was in a much better mood when he met her at the entrance to the palace the following day.
Their journey to Heims was in just a few days, and Maeve had many questions about that as well.
But she swallowed them and prioritized the, realistically, unimportant questions that coursed through her.
Reeve had promised his honesty, as much as he could, given that some of his secrets were sealed in Magic, in exchange for one veto.
The first, “What was her name?” Maeve asked as together they looked up at the statue of the woman Maeve had assumed was Reeve’s mate.
She was sculpted in shining white marble, ensuring her tall and goddess-like figure was preserved forever.
A fountain of clear blue water surrounded her, flowing gently.
Behind them, the skies remained darkened despite the early morning hour as Shadow’s reach moved over Aterna day by day. Maeve kept her back to it.
“Leandra” answered Reeve.
“And how old were you when she died?”
“Fifty-five.”
She hadn’t been expecting an answer that reflected a time so long ago for him. She allowed Reeve to guide her through the palace as her questioning continued. He kept his normally long strides short, keeping pace with her.
“And how many have there been since then? Did they get statues?”
Reeve’s eyes sparkled, back to his usual self. “Why? Are you wondering if you’ll get one?”
Maeve chewed the inside of her lip and shook her head. “That doesn’t answer my question.”
“Does it bother you that many beautiful women have shared my bed, kitten?”
“It wasn’t even a sexual question, you complete ass,” she shot back, but Reeve only grinned.
“Ah,” he responded, looking straight ahead. “Then you were asking how many women I’ve loved? Married? What?”
“I don’t know,” she offered softly.
“Yes, you do,” he said with an all-knowing chuckle. “And the answer is once. I’ve been in love once after Leandra.”
Maeve recalled the beautiful Immortal women he’d brought to Sinclair Estates and Castle Morana. Their glowing skin and long legs.
Maeve glanced up and over at him. “And what happened then?”
Reeve looked down at her. “She forgot about me.”
Maeve couldn’t resist a light tease. “How could anyone forget about the Reeve of Aterna?”
Reeve smiled down at her, but it didn’t match his eyes. “I failed,” he said plainly. “I didn’t fight for her.”
The way you fight for Mal, she felt like he meant.
“The things you said to Mal, to me. About me. About us.” She rambled on, “And you said you haven’t been happy since that Summer Solstice party.”
Her words plunged them into dangerous territory.
“Are you asking me if I desire you?”
Heat smeared across her cheeks, blushing them. Reeve’s lips pulled back, revealing the way the tip of his tongue played with his sharpened canine.
“You’re insufferable,” she stated with a shake of her head, annoyed by his carefree satisfaction, but all the while fighting her own smile.
“If you’re hoping my words were solely an act to shake Malachite, I’ll give you a chance to retract this particular line of questioning.”
Maeve bit her lip, completely aware that was an answer in and of itself.
“Stop that,” he ordered, his eyes on her lips.
They turned a corner, and Maeve stilled, a whisper of a gasp on her lips as she took in the view before her.
Above the smooth crystal floors, towering high into the magnificent ceiling, was a mural painted with vibrant colors of violet fire, surging high above black rock and ash.
It performed in drastic juxtaposition to the bright crystal architecture surrounding it.
At the center was a monster she’d seen only a handful of times.
But he was depicted in a grotesque light, an image she disagreed with.
The dragon she’d seen undulated with glittering, holy scales.
The markings, which mirrored the very ones scarred onto the side of Reeve’s face, jet across its oversized body in jagged lines. Its eyes blazed with violet fury.
So many questions burned at the tip of her tongue, but she halted them all. They felt too personal. Too raw. Too intimate to ask. How? When? Why?
“The last dragon,” she said softly, noting the reality that although he wasn’t fully dragon, he was the last of the kind. “Is this how you picture yourself?”
Reeve stood still as she walked the length of the massive mural.
“I did at a time, yes.”