“No.”Jaw tightening, a lump rose in Saer’s neck, a pressure behind his eyes.“I didn’t notice until...she was gone.”
Saer could see his love with increasing clarity in his memory, the elegant way she moved, her refined curves which begged his touch, the arcuate curve of her lips when he’d inadvertently amused her.
One of his hands raked through his hair and gripped at the back of his scalp.Anything to quell the torrential tsunami of emotion.The internal defenses he’d built were intentional and, Pride thought until recently, robust.
‘I have taken what vengeance I can.’Runeak.Blame and rancor.The first cracks in the foundation.
‘No one will ever be able to take away what the two of you experienced, no matter how Father came to know about it.’‘Nor will killing another of us make your anguish disappear.’The Twins.Acknowledgment and bartering.Another blow to his shields.
‘Neyu is dead, and you’re more interested in ending Errshek than feeling her absence.’Kalia.Umbrage and sadness.
The impenetrable walls, well and truly, crumbled.Helpless to their disintegration for reasons he couldn’t comprehend, Saer shoved his other hand through his tresses, bending forward on his elbows, and squeezed his eyes shut tight.
“Why are you still fighting, Saer?”The youngest’s voice was unusually soft.
Choking out a noise, something between a barking breath of air and a cry, Saer dug his fingertips harder into his scalp.He didn’t respond, and couldn’t discern whether he had no desire or lacked the capability.
Kalia tried again, still hushed.“What was the last thing she said to you?”
A whine crawled out of Saer’s throat, but this question he could answer, as easily as though Neyu said it moments before.“I’m ready.”
He just heard Kalia’s acknowledgment of his revelation—a catching of her breath.With renewed sorrow, she pushed for a hint more.“What were your final words to her?”
Those, Saer kept locked away, always extinguishing the recollection before the moment Neyu was consumed.
The cracks and fissures splintered further.
Saer’s knuckles went from pale to white with the urgency he gripped at the nape of his neck.
The memory wouldn’t be denied, and he fell, powerless to the onslaught.An almost imperceptible hiss made itself known from the corner of his eye.Tears he’d refused to shed past that night, reminding him that they’d never disappeared, but had been denied too long.
“I love you, Neyu.”Saer whispered it like she was there, like his lips grazed her ear, feeling her shivering in his arms all over again, and the way he trembled in turn.“Hold onto me.”
The dam broke.
Kalia’s arms wrapped around him from behind, her forehead pressed to the crown of his head while Saer, for the first time since his beloved’s unmaking, allowed grief to overtake him.
35
HowlongSaerletteardrops sizzle and steam as they fell down his face, he couldn’t quantify.Kalia remained through it all, a motionless but comforting presence in a way Saer never would have guessed of her—and in no way would have permitted under any other circumstances.In those moments, they were creatures mourning the loss of another they each held dear, taking what solace they could in their collective memories, even if reliving them in silence.
Still.Just as Kalia bade.
All theDaemoenicafelt Neyu’s absence, without question.The youngest and the eldest, however, harbored the largest voids.Known but not fully recognized by Saer until that moment, Kalia had been the closest to Neyu, second only to him.And now, she knew without a doubt that he was in love with her.
Perhaps the same realization on her end prompted Kalia to break the silence, her voice a frightened whisper.
“I told Errshek.”
A different stillness settled upon Saer as his tears slowed, then stopped, the last evaporating from his face.He quelled the immediate impulse to shove her away.Likely, the piece within him that he’d taken from Lust herself forced him to stay his hand, to wait in silence for Sloth to go on.
When Saer didn’t react in violence, Kalia’s shaking voice continued.“Alus and Arek have each other.Runeak works alone.You and Neyu…” For an instant, an edge entered her voice, a mix of hurt and wanting.Sloth stopped herself, and Saer felt her swallow against his back.He remained frozen.
Kalia went on with hushed anxiety when he didn’t interrupt her.“So we paired up.”The statement weighed heavy with guilt.“He…” Saer pictured Kalia’s face as she spoke, the way her brow furrowed in a combination of confusion and agony.“He worshiped you, Saer.”
Saer expected just about anything other than that.“Errshek?”
He pushed halfway up, his signal for Kalia to let him go.As she stood, he twisted at the waist to view her over his shoulder.“What are you talking about?”
