Chapter Thirty-Two
“To be Culled is not to fail. It is, of course, not the chosen path for our candidates. But it is an honorable one all the same. Service to the Geist makes a soul whole regardless of the way in which we reach it.”
In my haste to put Cosmo behind me, I hadn’t paused to gather any of my things.
Not that I had many possessions to begin with.
Still, I made a mental note to get in contact with Bria later and request that she have my things sent to me at the first opportunity.
Though I wasn’t sure that Bria wasn’t also in on keeping the enormous secret of the tenth Trial from me, she’d always been kind, and, if I could trust anyone in that house, it would be her.
That realization hurt. The fact that Dante wasn’t included in my considerations of who I could trust hurt worse.
I sighed as I climbed the steps of my family’s Second Ring home and rang the doorbell.
“Adrian?” my mother blinked at me in stunned surprise before stepping aside and aggressively motioning me in. “Come in, come in! I was just making lunch. Are you hungry?”
I nodded. I was. I hadn’t noticed just how much before, but my stomach gurgled as I stepped inside. Perhaps I’d overstayed my visit to the library. In truth, I hadn’t even realized what time it was.
“Adrian?” Warren asked as he came out from the living room. “What are you doing here?”
Dahlia emerged from the top of the stairs, and Maurice came in from the direction of the kitchen. Oh well, I thought. I might as well get it all over with at once.
“I, um, got into a bit of a disagreement with the honorable patriarch of House Viper,” I muttered, rubbing the back of my neck uncomfortably. “It seems I’m no longer welcome on the premises.”
They stared at me for a moment, blinking. Then, Warren burst into laughter. He doubled over, slapping his knee. Dahlia joined in a moment later, chuckling along. My mother giggled. Even Maurice smiled.
“I’m sure we’re disgraced in one way or another,” Warren said finally, standing back up and wiping a tear from his eye, “but, pardon me for saying, it’s about damn time.”
I grinned as my older brother slapped me on the back and pulled me further into the house.
“Are you moving back into your apartment then? Or maybe you’ve come to stay here?” My mother asked, a small bubble of hope in her tone. “It’s your house, after all.”
“I would like to stay here. If you’ll have me.”
She beamed and threw her arms around me in an embrace so tight, I struggled to breathe.
“I’ve been readying a room for you all along,” she cried.
My smile faltered.
She’d always expected me to come home. Whether I failed or not, she’d been working on creating a space for me to call my own, a place for me to come home to.
Because she didn’t know either. She didn’t know that my success would mean that I would never return here, would never see her or Maurice or Warren again.
“Is Dante coming to stay as well?” my mother asked, her voice dropping to a whisper.
The remaining mirth drained from the air. I glanced at each of them. They all waited with baited breath.
“I’m sorry,” I replied. “I should have told you about our engagement in person. I should have come and announced it before Cosmo could spread the word. I know I said I was busy, and I was. But the truth is, I just wasn’t sure I could do it.”
None of them spoke for a moment, then my mother squeezed my shoulder and offered a maternal smile.
“If you love him, dear, then I’m certain we will too.”
My gaze snapped to hers before turning to find Maurice, who nodded, and Dahlia, who smiled sadly back at me. Warren was the only one still frowning.
He hadn’t told them. He hadn’t told any of them about my bargain with Cosmo.
They didn’t know that this wasn’t a real engagement.
They believed we’d chosen to spend the rest of our lives with one another, without duress and unencumbered, just like the rest of Sanctuary believed.
And maybe we had. I hadn’t wanted to consider it before.
It was easier to pretend Cosmo was the one forcing our hand but, truthfully, Dante had been given a choice. And I’d asked him to choose me.
“Even though he’s a First Ringer,” Maurice scoffed but he was smiling. “And a Viper at that.”
I forced a smile for their benefit, nodding to appear gracious of their open-mindedness, but I couldn’t help but glance at Warren again, who gave me one grave nod. He thought I was a captive. Would it break my brother to know that I’d climbed willingly into bed with the Viper heir?
My mother pulled me forward, steering me off toward the dining room. “I’ve tried my best to make your room feel like home to you.”
My throat felt tight even as I cleared it and my vision blurred, despite blinking the tears back.
I hadn’t let myself feel it, truly feel what it would mean to vanish from Sanctuary forever.
Dahlia’s family had fallen apart after Darius.
Would mine do the same? Would she be forced to endure watching another family come apart at the seams?
“—I even had the decorators match that ratty old wallpaper you always loved back in your old room.”
My mother was still speaking, still going on about her process of readying my room, and I hadn’t been listening at all. I forced a small smile and nodded for her benefit.
I would tell them. I would tell all of them. Just not today. Not yet.
For now, I allowed my mother to lead me into the dining room, where she sat me forcibly down at the head of the table and rushed off to fetch the meal she’d prepared.
Maurice, Warren, and Dahlia filled in the seats around me, and we waited in an uncomfortable silence for my mother to return.
Warren opened his mouth on two separate occasions, as if he wished to say something but thought better of it.
It was strange. They were my family. I loved them more than anything else, but I couldn’t think of a single thing to say to them.
The way we’d lived the past few years, apart from each other and leading different lives, had created a separation.
There was a chasm that had opened between us, and each passing day that I’d lived in House Viper—in the lap of luxury, training for antiquated Trials—had made it wider and wider.
We had nothing in common but blood and memories.
And try as I might, I couldn’t fathom a way to bridge that gap.
“It’s only soup and sandwiches,” my mother said as she pushed through the door, a full tray of steaming food in her hands.
Warren jumped up to help her, looking relieved to have something to do rather than attempt to make conversation with the stranger his sister had become.
“But I figured I’d make your favorite tonight. ”
“My favorite?”
“That lovely Bria girl told me how much you enjoy the fowl they serve at House Viper.” She set the bowls of steaming soup in front of each of us.
My smile faltered. “She did?”
“Oh, yes. She has been visiting quite often lately. Ever since she and Maurice—”
Warren cleared his throat, and my mother ceased speaking, though she glanced from one older brother to the next. Her lips parted in understanding, and she bowed her head as she handed me my sandwich.
“I see,” she said.
I turned my gaze to Maurice, who was already busy chewing on his own sandwich. “Maurice?”
His eyes rose slowly to meet mine, but he continued chewing as if nothing of any consequence was happening around him.
“What is mom talking about?”
His gaze went from me to our mother and back again.
“The acolyte,” he grunted finally, waving his hand in gesture as if I wasn’t aware of who we were discussing. “She and I are friends.”
“Friends,” I repeated, disbelieving.
Maurice only nodded and returned to his food. I glanced over at Warren, who watched our older brother carefully. He would be no help. I returned to our mother.
“Yes,” she said, slowly. “She’s very sweet. And she seems to care for you a great deal, Adrian.”
“Not as much as Maurice though, yes?” I queried drily. The resulting silence was punctuated only by me biting hard into my own sandwich and ripping away the fresh bread with my teeth.
Maurice shrugged and made a show of loudly clanging his spoon against the insides of his soup bowl.
“Anyway, I talked to one of House Viper’s servants, and she told me where they acquired their fowl, so I went and ordered one myself,” my mother continued, proudly, sidestepping the issue of Bria and Maurice altogether.
“It’s been in the icebox for a week now.
She told me it would stay good that way.
I’ve been waiting until you could be available for dinner, but it was starting to go bad, so I had to cook it.
Luckily, you chose today to return home. ”
She sat down next to me, smiling as she reached over and gave my forearm a squeeze.
“She was saving it for a victory celebration for you, once you complete all ten Trials,” Warren told me, also clearly grateful to be away from the prior subject. “But I suppose there’s no point in waiting now, eh?”
“Why not?” I blurted, my anxiety ratcheting up a notch.
“Because…you’re here now.” Warren replied slowly, his frown betraying his confusion, “and done with the Trials.”
“Done? Who said I was done?”
“You did. You said you finally let that old geezer have it and he kicked you out.”
“I did. He did. Well, actually, I stormed out and promised never to return. But I haven’t quit the Trials. Dante is depending on me.”
They all looked at each other in quiet surprise. Apparently, my entrance and my subsequent declaration that I would be living with them had been more misleading than I’d hoped.
“But—”
“Dante is welcome for dinner, you know,” my mother said clearly, her tone firm and daring anyone to question her, or me. “Any time.”