Chapter 31 #3
‘Well, that was one way to avoid talking to me about the Veil,’ he teases.
‘Hey.’ I slap him playfully on the arm. ‘You’re the one who started that. Not me.’
‘Really? Because you’re the one who brought up you coming on the ice.’
I pout slightly. Maybe he’s right.
Do I need to feel this nervous about telling him about the Veil?
It’s not like he doesn’t know what happened.
He was there too. That’s part of the reason I couldn’t open my eyes when I heard the queen screaming.
I couldn’t bear to see him – young Kyor – having his heart ripped out as his mother died.
I hate that for him. I hate that for both of us. Then again, if I can trust him enough to let him use a dagger on my clothes and ask him to bite me at the moment of my climax, maybe this is something else I should be able to share with him.
‘The third stage started with a vision of my mother and Dinah – the priestess who raised her. She made her stop taking a tonic.’
‘What tonic?’ he asks.
‘I don’t know for sure, but I know she took gladden root to forget, so maybe that, and I think she took one to suppress her magic too, but I could be wrong. I suspect there were other ones she took too. Her eye colour wasn’t Issen or Sanning.’
‘But you would have noticed if those had changed, wouldn’t you?’ Kyor questions.
‘In my lifetime, sure. It would probably have been easier to spell them.’
‘The way I did,’ he confirms with a nod, although the fact that he’s brought up his spelled eyes – done in honour of his mother – only makes what I have to talk about worse.
‘I was then taken back to that night,’ I admit.
‘To the queen’s bedroom,’ I whisper. ‘Your mother’s bedroom.
The Veil wanted me to watch it again. Wanted me to watch your mother’s death.
’ As he moves to cover his mouth, I reach out and rest my hand on his knee.
‘I’m sorry. I don’t know why it took me there. ’
‘No, no.’ He takes me gently by the shoulders. ‘I’m sorry for you, Rose. I’m sorry that you had to see that again. Had to watch me. My stupid lies. I was a kid and—’
‘We don’t need to go through this again,’ I say softly.
‘You know I don’t blame you anymore. You were hurt, and you did what you needed to do to protect yourself from the pain at the time.
’ I let out another sigh. ‘Your father is the one to blame. He’s the one who cast us out, and his punishment didn’t fit the crime, no matter what you had said.
’ I frown. ‘I don’t understand why the vision would show me that again, though.
I’ve thought of those moments many, many times over the years.
What does it expect me to learn that I don’t already know? ’
‘Maybe it doesn’t want you to learn anything,’ Kyor suggests.
‘Maybe it just wants you to … I don’t know, accept the past?
See that this is what got you to this point?
After all, if you hadn’t been stripped of your magic, you never would have entered the Retterheld.
Maybe you never would have learned that you’re Issen royalty at all. ’
‘Maybe,’ I say, though I’m not convinced. ‘But Caz says the Veil always teaches you something, and Magnus confirmed that.’
So far, the only thing I’ve learned is that the next time I see Dinah, she and I will be having a conversation so uncomfortable it might qualify as a form of torture.
If I survive long enough to see her again, that is.
‘So how do you complete that stage?’ Kyor asks the question that’s been whirring through my mind since the minute I realised where the third door had taken me.
‘I don’t know. I don’t have a fucking clue.’ My voice tightens more than I anticipate, and I groan. ‘Sorry. I don’t mean to snap. It’s just… I can’t even get to the end of the vision.’
‘What do you mean?’
I sigh as I close my eyes and try to explain something I don’t even understand myself.
‘I think it kicks me out when my emotions run too high. Obviously it thinks I’m not in the right mindset to learn anything.
And then that’s it. Another chance lost. Another chance that I won’t get the cure for this. ’
I lift my hands, looking at the black lacy pattern. I haven’t told him yet about the still-rising pain in them. The throbbing and aching that worsen daily.
‘That’s not going to happen, Thorn. It’s not.’ He takes my marred hands and pulls them into his lap.
‘Thank you,’ he says. ‘Thank you for telling me about it. I don’t want secrets between us. And I’m sorry there have to be some. If I could only find a way … a way to break this Godsforsaken vow…’
I hear the determination in his voice and I know the man I love. He will go to any lengths to do what he believes is right, especially when it comes to me.
‘If I can find a way to complete this last stage of the Veil, then we can find a way to break the vow. One day.’
His smile is soft as he leans forward and kisses me.
‘What did I do to deserve you?’ he whispers against my ear.
‘I don’t know, but it might have something to do with those sparks of yours.’ I grin.