Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
“They say that love makes a man do crazy things, that revenge can twist the soul into something evil and unrecognizable, that anger can make a good man bad. But nothing, absolutely nothing, can break you, can change you, more than grief.”
Ididn’t leave Dante’s bedside for three days following our victory.
We’d somehow managed to make it all the way back to the estate before collapsing in the foyer.
Cosmo had come in raving, demanding to know what had happened.
Neither Dante nor I had the strength to answer him even if the Oath would have allowed it.
Instead, we let him rant, and I only spoke when he tried to order my partner be taken away from me.
We needed each other. Cosmo had tried to protest, likely already considering ways to blame me for his grandson’s state, but I had muttered a string of profanity and threats so vivid, even the patriarch of House Viper balked.
That was the first time Dante had smiled since his mother had caught us in the foyer with her dire warning. It made me smile too, but then I fell into oblivion alongside him.
Apparently, after that, Bria had gone to the gardens to fetch a sedative which Dante had been under ever since, and Myrine had found me all manner of food and water and medications to keep me alert and energized enough to heal her son.
It was a lot of work to regrow a limb. Dante was sedated for the pain, but I used every waking hour to focus on his healing, dozing off only when I had no more energy left to give or feared I would give too much like I had in the Trial itself.
I was such an emotional, nervous wreck, I doubted I would have eaten or slept during those three days if Bria and Myrine hadn’t shown up at regular intervals to shove food down my throat or pull me away for some rest.
Finally, on the third evening, Dante opened his eyes. He looked down at his hand and flexed his newly made fingers.
“Thank the Geist,” I muttered before blacking out again.
I didn’t wake up for two days. When I did, it was in Dante’s bed.
I opened my eyes to an enormous breakfast Myrine had ordered made for me and brought in on a cart that could slide over the bed for me to eat without having to get up.
She never said a word, but she smiled at me for the first time, and that was enough.
I was halfway through a stack of waffles the size of my pillow when Dante entered the room.
He hesitated for only a moment as his eyes met mine.
The green in them shimmered as he closed the door slowly behind him.
I heard the distinct click of the lock and then he was pulling his shirt up over his head.
I inhaled sharply but he simply strode across the room to the closet and reached inside.
“I’m sorry,” I said, trying to ignore the way every muscle in his upper body shifted and flexed as he pulled a new shirt off one of the hangers.
He frowned. “For what?”
“Um, cutting off your arm?” I replied, incredulous that he even had to ask. But to my even further astonishment, he simply waved his hand as if the matter were of no consequence.
“You did what you had to.” He raised a brow and looked me right in the eye. “What I told you to do.”
I nodded but didn’t feel any better. “Still, I’d prefer if you stopped doing wildly reckless nonsense so I can stop having to save your ass.”
He smiled, a real and genuine smile. “I’m not intentionally doing wildly reckless nonsense, you know. It’s the Trials.”
“Right. The all-knowing wicked gods.”
“It still surprises me to hear you talk about them like that,” he spoke, his voice low. Dante’s smile faltered.
“Sorry to disappoint.”
“It isn’t a disappointment. It’s refreshing. Real. I’m used to everyone around here walking on eggshells like the gods might smite us all any minute. You’re not like that. It’s new.”
I smiled slightly and nodded.
We stared at one another for a moment in silence. We hadn’t had the time to discuss all he’d confessed in the Trial, but it felt irresponsible to ignore it any longer.
“I’m not your responsibility, Dante,” I told him, making sure to meet his gaze and lower my tone so he knew I meant it. “We’re partners. Equals. If we’re going to get through more of these insane Trials, it’s important that you understand that.”
He frowned and studied me closely for a moment, then nodded.
With that settled, I pushed the breakfast cart back from the bed and stood. I looked down at the clothes I now wore. Someone had changed me. I wasn’t sure who or when but I definitely hadn’t been wearing this garish green nightgown when I’d passed out. I looked up at Dante with a raised brow.
“Bria said you needed to be comfortable while you rested,” he told me. “I offered to let you sleep naked in my bed but my mother didn’t appreciate that suggestion.”
I barked out a laugh and he smirked at me as I shook my head and crossed the room to his closet.
I started sifting through his things, looking for anything that might not completely dwarf me if I put it on.
I didn’t want to walk all the way back to my room before I left but it was looking more and more like I would have to as I passed giant shirt after giant shirt.
“Where are you going?”
I looked his way to find him leaning against the door, watching me. He wasn’t concerned in the slightest about me rifling through his things. He must’ve heard me thinking about leaving. I turned back to my search as I answered with a frown.
“Cyrus.”
“Adrian—”
“I have to try.”
“Healing me nearly killed you. You need more rest.”
“He needs me, Dante.”
You mean she, he chided in my mind. I winced, but since someone was rattling the locked doorknob in an attempt to get into the room, he only said aloud, “Good luck, Adrian,”
Then he strode away from the closet and opened the door, letting in a frazzled Bria before vanishing into the hall beyond.
She came with an assortment of clothes, thankfully.
I selected a pair of jeans and a green tank without answering the questions in her gaze.
Then I informed her I was leaving and swept from the room before she could object.
I made my way out of the estate and toward the gates.
I descended to the Second Ring as easily as always.
Though, this time, I noticed more gawking than usual.
Adults whispered and pointed, children gaped, the guards smiled at me.
One even called me ‘ma’am’. News spread fast. Although, I suppose Dante and I had been recovering for five days.
This was the first time anyone saw either of us out and about since we'd stumbled out of the tunnel.
I ignored the attention and made my way to Cyrus’s house. His mother opened the door on my second knock. She smiled when she recognized me.
“Adrian,” she welcomed happily. “I believe congratulations are in order.”
“Thank you.” I stepped inside when she gestured and made way. “I just thought I’d stop in to visit Cyrus.”
“That’s so kind of you, dear,” she said, already leading me down the hall toward his room.
“Is Dahlia here?”
“Yes, of course. She’s been with him all morning. Hasn’t left his side once, as always.”
My gut tightened as I followed his mom down the hall. Something was wrong. It was too quiet. The bench at the end of the hall was empty, and Cyrus’s door was closed. There was an odd scent in the air as well. Pungent and familiar. What was it?
I sniffed once, twice, knowing Cyrus’s mother couldn’t smell it. She didn’t have the heightened senses gifted to those who’d passed the second trial. I sniffed again and froze.
“Wait—”
His mother had already reached his door and opened it. She didn’t even look at me before dropping to her knees with a bloodcurdling scream.
Cyrus laid upon the same bed they’d placed him in originally, eyes closed in what appeared to be a peaceful slumber as they always were, but there was a deep gash carved into his neck from one ear to the other and his life’s blood had spilled out over his chest, his arms, his lap.
His mother wailed something incomprehensible as I rushed forward.
I placed a hand over his still bleeding neck and flooded his body with all the energy I could spare.
But unlike with Dante, it seemed to simply dissipate the moment it left me, rather than entering him.
I tried again, but nothing happened. I peered down at the quilt over him, soaked through with blood, and realized it was too late.
There was no thrumming, no heartbeat. He was already dead.
“No!” Cyrus’s father had joined his mother in the threshold. Both of them were beside themselves in unrestrained agony.
“She did this,” his mother screamed, halfway out of her mind. “She killed him!”
Dahlia.
“Find her,” Cyrus’s father hollered at a few hired guards who’d entered to investigate the screaming and at the servants standing nearby, staring in horror. “Find her now!”
“Wait, don’t—” I started, but the guards were already gone, rushing from the house in pursuit of their prime suspect.
I sprinted past Cyrus’s parents, who remained crumpled on the ground, crying and shaking. My entire world shrunk to one thought, one single course of action.
Find Dahlia. Warn her. And if I had time, figure out what the hell she’d been thinking.
I went to her house first, the one she’d shared with Darius. She wasn’t there. Dionne just stared at me when I asked about her until I pushed past her and darted up the stairs, screaming her daughter’s name. But Dahlia wasn’t there.
Next, I went to my house. Maybe she was with my mother or Warren.