Chapter Thirty-Nine – Mira #2
But I wasn’t concerned with understanding Velanthe. Only destroying her.
The moment I had the thought, the hall began to crumble around me, the memory paintings smashing, one after another after another.
As the painting in front of me toppled, I caught a glimpse of the memory contained inside: a vision of a stunning man with long, russet hair and cruelly perfect golden eyes.
He was sitting atop a heavy throne in a dark cavern, surrounded by beautiful, cavorting subjects who I might have mistaken for human if it wasn’t for their animalistic features.
Fennec seemed to look right at me, his mouth opening in a snarl that displayed razor-sharp teeth.
And maybe I was every bit as self-destructive as Cassius believed I was, because I picked up that painting and hurled it against the crumbling wall. Shattering the memory of Fennec into a thousand jagged shards.
Somewhere far away, I heard Velanthe screaming. But I didn’t stop. Not until I had torn her entire mind apart – as completely as she had intended to destroy me and my friends.
I opened my eyes to an empty shell. No longer a wolf but a husk of a woman – as beautiful and eternal as ever, but mindless.
And as I looked past Velanthe, my magic seemed to expand, until I was no longer just connected to the people in front of me but to everyone inside the Temple. Hundreds of minds and hearts that were now mine.
Mine to influence or break or shape as I desired.
All mine.
Though Scarlett hadn’t woken, colour entered her cheeks the moment Velanthe’s hold over her snapped.
Lillian, however, quickly returned to normal.
Soon she was sitting, and then she was standing and hugging her brother, whose eyes had returned to their usual brown.
But despite my happiness to see my friend returned to her usual healthy self, and my relief to know that Aric would no longer be hunting me, Scarlett’s comatose state left me with a strange dilemma.
Thanks to my experience with Velanthe, I knew that I could enter Scarlett’s mind – and I suspected I could use such a connection to guide her back from the brink of death.
I just wasn’t sure whether I should .
If I left Scarlett like this, both Aric and Lillian would be free.
And I would have no competition for the Ravalian throne.
A throne that I would have to claim, just as I had promised V?lund, if only to stop future bloodshed.
The only way for Kalure to be truly free was if both countries were united under my rule.
Cassius could prove problematic to that plan – but I trusted him a hell of a lot more than I trusted his sister. If his devotion to me was genuine, then perhaps we could come up with a deal that suited us both. If not . . . well, I would face that when it became necessary.
Scarlett , however . . .
Across the room, my new high priestess was watching me knowingly – but if Odessa had an opinion, she kept it to herself.
Concern shadowed her gaze as she returned her attention to Jadis, who was kneeling over Elian’s body.
I had ordered him brought to the Inner Sanctum, where he could be prepared for burial.
Jadis looked up at me, her jaw clenched with emotion. I felt for her – she had lost a father figure in Darius and now her brother was gone too. Accompanying me to Kalure had cost her everything.
Well – maybe not everything .
Odessa put a reassuring hand on Jadis’s arm as she stood. ‘I want Elian to be laid to rest beside Darius,’ Jadis said to me. ‘And I don’t want the priestesses anywhere near him. No one touches my brother except me.’
I nodded, choosing not to mention that the remaining priestesses were innocent. Grief wasn’t always rational. ‘I’ll see to it personally.’
Jadis’s brown eyes swam with tears that she didn’t allow to fall. ‘Thank you.’
This time, when she returned her attention to Odessa, there was no trace of the grieving sister – only the capable young woman I had tasked with coordinating security of the Temple.
It was a decision I’d made to keep her mind off Elian, and because I needed someone I trusted to keep an eye on Nari and the clans.
Jadis had worked efficiently, imprisoning the mindless Velanthe and sending a raven to Conall and Sionnach – warning them about the senior priestesses, who had fled before I could deal with them.
With any luck, the Council of Ancients would capture the priestesses and punish them according to shifter laws.
But with the Temple out of immediate peril, and the clans willing to obey my commands, I could no longer put off this reunion.
My gaze shifted to Aric and Lillian, who was murmuring something to the boy – Aurelius.
He shouldn’t really be here, considering the dust and debris, not to mention Elian’s body, but he had refused to leave Aric.
Aurelius stayed so close to him he was like Aric’s miniature, red-haired shadow.
My body tensed as I walked over to them. There was so much that needed to be said – that needed to be explained – and I felt suddenly uncertain.
That uncertainty slipped away as Lillian looked up at me and smiled, the love between us making conversation unnecessary. I threw myself into her arms, and after a slight pause, Aric embraced us both.
I closed my eyes as I hugged my two best friends tight, feeling at peace in a way I hadn’t in a very long time.
Eventually Aric pulled back from Lillian, but he let our closeness linger. He hesitated, as if assessing my response, and then threaded his fingers through mine. Like an unspoken question.
I answered it with a reassuring squeeze.
Aurelius tugged on my leg, drawing my gaze down to his oddly solemn one.
‘This is Mira, remember?’ Lillian said. ‘She’s a queen. She rules this place.’
He immediately cast his eyes to the ground and bowed, like a proper courtier. ‘Your Majesty.’
His age made the display a little unsettling – but no doubt he had started etiquette lessons young.
I crouched down so that I was at his level. ‘It’s nice to meet you properly, Aurelius,’ I said gently. Odessa had given me a brief overview of his kidnapping, and my heart went out to him. ‘There’s no need for formalities with me. I’d like you to think of me as a friend. Like Aric and Lillian.’
Aurelius’s smile was timid. He considered me for a moment, then reached up – daringly touching my forehead. Tracing the crown Velanthe had inked across my brow. ‘I’ve never seen a crown like this before.’
‘No,’ I agreed. ‘It’s a Kalurian custom.’
‘Father says Kalurians don’t have rulers.
’ He glanced around the Inner Sanctum, and I could almost see it like he did: as something huge and alien.
‘He says . . .’ Aurelius hesitated. ‘He says they’re barbarians who rebelled against the empire, and now it’s his role to bring them back into line. To save them from themselves.’
My smile tightened. ‘I’m sure he does. But politics are more complicated than that. Not everything is solved by conquest.’
Aric took hold of my arm, drawing me back to my feet. ‘Can you do something for me, Aurelius?’
The boy’s nod was eager.
‘Wait with Odessa for a while. Lillian and I need to discuss something with Mira.’
I watched Aurelius until he was out of earshot. But as I turned back to my friends, my gaze fell on Scarlett – and Cassius, kneeling at her side.
Lillian watched me steadily, and I knew this was what she and Aric had wanted to discuss.
‘Scarlett has been like this for days,’ she said.
‘Velanthe cut her up with the intention of resurrecting her, but she just remains in this comatose state. I think it might be some kind of defence – only she doesn’t realise Velanthe is no longer a threat. ’
I stared down at Scarlett. Like this, she looked younger and oddly vulnerable – and I now knew that she hadn’t been responsible for Aric trying to kill me. But that didn’t make her trustworthy.
‘If I leave her like this . . . you could be free.’ I took no pleasure in the words, but they needed to be said. ‘She’s not technically dead, so you won’t die, but she also can’t pose a threat to you. Or to any of us.’
‘Yes,’ Lillian said softly. ‘But that’s not you, Mira. You’re better than that.’
‘ She isn’t,’ I said, glowering at Scarlett. ‘You don’t know what she’s done–’
‘I do, actually. I started to put it together when we were in the Western Lands.’
Aric glanced at his sister in shock. ‘And you didn’t think to tell me?’
‘I hoped Scarlett would. She felt so much guilt about her deception, and she did give me a second chance at life.’ Lillian tilted her head as she considered Scarlett, and I had the sense that she wanted to be by her side, even now.
‘Scarlett regretted what she did to you, Mira – and I know she regretted lying to us. She never felt like she truly deserved my friendship – or Aric’s. ’
I dropped Aric’s hand as though it had burned me. ‘It was a bit more than friendship , though, wasn’t it?’
‘Scarlett and I . . .’ Aric hesitated, his expression conflicted. He settled on, ‘It never would have happened. Not if I hadn’t believed–’
‘If you hadn’t believed her lies,’ I said tartly. I shifted my assessing stare to Lillian. ‘And now you want me to wake her up? To bring her back into our lives?’
‘I never said she was perfect. But neither is he,’ Lillian said, with a nod at Cassius. ‘You’ve given him a second chance.’
‘After locking him in the dungeons for two months,’ I said heatedly, though I kept my voice low, so Cassius wouldn’t hear me. ‘Since then, he has worked tirelessly to prove himself to me–’
I stopped talking at the look on Aric’s face. It was a look that I recognised instantly, because the same darkness had reared up inside me when Lillian had spoken about Aric’s friendship with Scarlett.
‘Perhaps Scarlett will prove herself just as her brother did,’ Lillian said mildly, though I knew she had noticed the sudden awkwardness between me and Aric. ‘There were times when she wanted to tell me the truth – and you, Aric. But she could never quite bring herself to trust us.’
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I had known that Lillian was soft-hearted, but–
‘Scarlett is a gifted manipulator. How can you be sure anything she felt was actually genuine?’
‘Because the bond doesn’t lie.’ A hint of steel entered Lillian’s voice. ‘Her guilt was real. And so was my friendship.’
I stared at her in disbelief. Then I shifted my pleading expression to Aric, who rubbed his temples.
‘Lil–’
‘No,’ she interrupted coolly. ‘You can be angry with Scarlett all you want, but I’m entitled to my own feelings.’
‘So you think her guilt excuses everything? You died because of her! Mira and I haven’t spoken in months–’
‘That says more about you than Scarlett.’ Lillian’s eyes bored into Aric’s, and they were no longer soft. ‘You were so quick to believe that Mira had betrayed us. Granted, I was as well, but . . . I still would have heard her out.’
‘I was out of my mind with grief,’ Aric said, more to me than to Lillian. ‘That night, at the docks, I had just watched my sister die in front of my eyes. I had seen you – or someone who looked exactly like you – cut down the emperor. And you had made so many decisions that I . . .’
He trailed off, but I knew what he would have said. I couldn’t even blame him for it. Still–
‘If you’re able to excuse your actions by saying you were out of your mind with grief, then I should be able to say the same thing. I crossed lines in the Ravalian Court, but in the end, I made the decision to turn away from revenge. I chose you – you and Lillian.’
‘I know,’ Aric said softly, keeping his gaze level with mine. ‘And I am so sorry I believed the worst of you.’
I nodded but said nothing more. I would need time – time to let his apology sink in, time to unravel my very complicated feelings. But hearing that from him . . . it gave me hope.
And that was enough. For now.
‘What do you think?’ I asked Aric, motioning towards Scarlett. ‘Do you think she deserves a second chance?’
‘I think . . .’ He paused, weighing his next words. ‘I think she gave my sister one.’
Which was a yes. I turned to Lillian.
‘We need her,’ Lillian said firmly. ‘ You need her.’
I wasn’t convinced of that. If our roles were reversed, and Scarlett had the shifters and clans on her side, not to mention Roran’s son as leverage .
. . I highly doubted she would raise a finger to help a p otential rival.
But I wasn’t Scarlett. And a part of me felt relieved at being talked out of making a monstrous choice.
But it wasn’t just Aric’s and Lillian’s opinions I had to take into account.
Though Cassius wasn’t touching Scarlett, his gaze was focused on his sister’s face. No longer did he look like the cool, unruffled prince I had first met, so effortlessly in control of the world around him. There was a realness to him now – a depth of emotion that stirred something deep within me.
We looked out for each other . Cassius’s soft words from the dungeons resurfaced. When I was young, I relied on her more than I . . . In my mind, I saw Cassius’s face harden. It doesn’t matter. She proved I was right not to trust her in the end.
It seemed Scarlett was talented at behaving in a manner that destroyed her relationships – whether she intended to or not. But I knew it wasn’t always easy to stop caring about someone. Even when they hurt you.
Without looking at me, Cassius said, ‘I thought it would be a relief to see her like this. No doubt she would have been a problem, but . . .’ He smiled – a humourless twist of his lips.
‘It seems I’ve forgotten my own advice. When she was considering killing her fiancé, I warned her that she needed distance to succeed.
It’s harder to kill someone if you’re looking into their eyes. ’
I crouched next to him, touching his hand briefly with mine. ‘I’ll do whatever you want me to.’
To my surprise, Cassius shook his head. ‘The decision should be yours. It will mean more that way.’
‘I’m not sure–’
‘I tried to kill Scarlett once. If she believes you did this for me, she’ll be suspicious of my motives, and that suspicion will transfer to you.
But you . . .’ Cassius paused. ‘I saw the way she looked at you in the Ravalian Court. The admiration and curiosity. She needs to know that you saved her – not because you were told to or because you had an agenda, but because it was the right thing to do.’
I frowned at him. ‘I think you’re overestimating my value to her. And I’m not sure my motives will make a difference.’
‘They will.’ Cassius’s midnight-blue eyes met mine, filled with unexpected certainty. ‘I know they will, because they made a difference to me.’