Chapter Twenty-Seven #2
Warren sucked in a tight breath and finally looked up, his red-rimmed eyes meeting mine. “What you and Dante have, Adrian, don’t ever take it for granted.”
I frowned and, without thinking, rose and rounded the table.
When I reached him, I embraced my brother.
I wasn’t sure if it was what he wanted or what either of us needed, but it felt right.
Finally understanding his pain, Dahlia’s struggle, it felt like the appropriate thing to do.
He hesitated but hugged me back a moment later.
“What did you bargain?” he whispered into my hair.
I backed away, jaw tensed.
“Warren—”
“You said you had to promise them something, give them something, to keep Dahlia and I from being punished. What was it?”
I closed my eyes. It wasn’t the time to tell him this. After everything he’d disclosed, I couldn’t add to his burden. But I needed to say it aloud, needed someone outside of the estate to hear it.
“He wants Dante and I to produce powerful heirs for him,” I whispered and Warren sucked in another sharp breath. “Children who will have a better chance of advancing farther in the Trials because their parents did.”
“Adrian.”
My brother’s voice was dark, low. I’d never heard him like that before. But I couldn’t look at him. I turned my gaze away, striding back to that vase so I might hide the tears streaming down my cheeks.
The door burst open, and my mother stood smiling in the threshold. “I was just coming to ask if you were staying for dinner, Adrian.”
Warren turned away, wiping his tears, and cleared his throat.
“No.” I swiped my own tears away and stepped between them to block my brother from view so he could have a moment longer to collect himself. “Thank you, but I have another stop I have to make tonight.”
She nodded and stepped aside. I strode past her into the hall, pausing to kiss her on the cheek in goodbye as I did.
In truth, I might have stayed. It’d been too long since I’d last sat down to a proper dinner with my family.
But after what I’d just told Warren, I wasn’t sure I could sit across from him all evening, see the pity and concern swirling in equal measure in his expression.
“Adrian,” he called as I reached the door. He stood in the threshold of the dining room with our mother. “We’re all so proud of you. Don’t let the bastards get you down.”
I nodded, tearing up again, and fled the house before I was overcome.
The next door I came to, I didn’t hesitate to knock. Luckily, the man I was there to see opened the door to greet me himself.
“Adrian,” Milo welcomed me with a mixture of surprise and relief. “It’s good to see you. I thought maybe…well, you seemed angry with me the last time we spoke.”
He stepped aside, and I entered House Avus.
“I was,” I replied. “But it seems I’m on an apology tour of sorts tonight, so I thought I might add you to the list.”
He smirked. “I’m honored to have made the list. Though I doubt I’m deserving of it.
Likely, I should be the one apologizing to you.
I pried into things that were none of my business.
I blame the books, you know. Too much time spent with them has made me forget the proper way to speak to another person. ”
I chuckled. Hands clasped behind my back, I peered around at the elegant tapestries displayed in House Avus’ foyer.
“Something tells me an urge to make amends is not the only thing that brought you here this evening.” Milo raised a brow.
“You’re right,” I admitted. There was no sense in beating around the bush. “The eighth.”
Milo’s shoulders fell. He sighed as he turned away and stormed off toward the library in a much fouler mood. I followed.
“I’ve found nothing,” he told me, exasperated.
“Absolutely nothing. I’ve pored over books that are so old, the pages crack beneath my fingers and I’m afraid they’ll turn to dust. But there isn’t a single word about the eighth Trial or anything beyond it.
I’m afraid to say that you and Dante may be on your own from now on. ”
I nodded, somewhat disappointed, but it wasn’t as crushing of a blow as it might have been. I’d already pretty much figured out for myself that Milo wouldn’t find anything, given how little he’d found on the sixth and his lack of success with the seventh.
“I was wondering,” I started, keeping my voice as casual as I could, “if, in all your research, you’d come across any mention of a stadium?”
“A stadium?” Milo repeated, brows furrowed. “Like an arena?”
“Yes.”
“A few centuries ago, they used to have a makeshift arena on the Deck where potential candidates would fight to prove their strength as part of the Trials celebrations. Is that what you mean?”
“Was it quite an event? Would there be thousands in attendance?”
“Not thousands. Sanctuary wasn’t so populous then. Why do you ask?”
“I was curious.”
“Quite a targeted question for mere curiosity.”
Milo watched me closely, but I merely shrugged.
“I came across a mention of them in Prima’s Journal,” I lied. “I just thought—”
“Truly? How fascinating. I was under the impression such exhibitions didn’t exist until a few hundred years after Prima. Perhaps I’ll have to go back and read that detail more closely.”
I nodded, relieved as Milo fell into his academic inquiry, searching the shelves for whatever book he had that mentioned a fighting arena much unlike the one I was questioning him about.
“Am I to assume, from your mention of an apology tour, that you’ve made up with your brother?”
My gaze snapped back up to him, stunned momentarily by the sudden shift in topic, but Milo hadn’t even looked away from the shelf he was examining. He ran his fingers along the spines of various books, absentmindedly mouthing the titles.
“Yes,” I answered. “We’ve put aside our disagreement.”
“Good. A few months is too long to stay mad at one another. Especially here, when you never know when someone may be taken from you.”
He was watching me now, hand poised over a book on the shelf.
There was something in his gaze, something intense, as if he knew something and was willing me to understand it myself.
Or perhaps testing me to see if there was something I knew that he didn’t.
Either way, it was the strangest expression I’d ever seen on his face.
“What do you—”
“Adrian,” Nascha exclaimed, beaming as she entered the library. “What a pleasant surprise. I come here to retrieve my beloved grandson and find an esteemed guest. Please, do us the favor of staying for dinner?”
“I would love to. But I’m afraid Myrine takes it as a personal offense if I miss dinner at House Viper,” I lied.
Myrine couldn’t care less where I was, so long as I was training.
In truth, I would attend dinner with Milo any day, but I had no desire to spend an evening being glared at by Olympia or interrogated by Nascha.
“Of course.” Nascha folded her hands delicately in front of her and smiled.
“Actually, I should be going now. Thank you, Milo. It was wonderful to see you again.”
“Any time,” he called back with a smile.
I left House Avus and returned to House Viper, my mind even more heavily laden than before.
I passed through the iron gates and made my way through the foyer and halls of the grand estate in search of one thing.
I could feel his presence like a shadow in the back of my mind, waiting, giving me my space, anticipating when I might next need him.
Warren had lost Anna. Dahlia had lost Cyrus. I couldn’t lose Dante.
He answered his bedroom door shirtless, leaning against the threshold.
The flickering light of the candle in his room cast delicious shadows over his muscled abdomen.
I pressed against him, fusing my lips to his.
He relaxed into it immediately, one fist wrapping up in my hair as he held my head still. I pulled away after a moment.
“Don’t marry Olympia,” I said, breathless.
There it was. I’d ripped that fragile thing straight out of my heart and presented it to him. Now, I just waited to see if he’d shatter it.
His green eyes flashed as they met mine but he was already nodding, already leaning in.
“Okay,” he whispered and kissed me.