A blessing?
My eyes race to her cup. “Is there liquor in your chocolate?” I ask and she laughs.
Her smile becomes softer. “I mean it. If it weren’t for you, Thalion would still be alive.”
Well… if he weren’t contracted, it would be possible.
She releases my arm yet holds my stare. “But I don’t think I would be.”
Turning, she steps up to the parapet balustrade of the bridge, resting her hands and cup upon the stone. I join her, studying her as she stares out over the river.
“He never meant it. Until he did,” she says, her stare growing distant. “And the contract, it made him worse—made everything worse. There was nothing I could do—nothing Ryc could do—to stop him.”
I remain silent, staring at the Olloran skyline.
“If what I suffered is a glimpse of how demons treat one another in the hells, I cannot and do not want to imagine the horrors you’ve survived,” she says and my chest tightens. “I’m glad you’re here. Not only for Ryc, but for you.”
Everything I know about the Sovereign Queen Emeritus emerges beneath a different spectrum of light—one revealing tucked away truths.
Her radiant nature.
Carefree spirit.
Musical laugh.
All of it meticulously curated and worn like her favorite forest green cloak.
“Thalion was a stain upon the Witherhorn name,” she says and scoffs a small laugh. “It brings me peace knowing he’s right where he belongs.”
In a cold, unyielding instant, Lilith’s words are quick to remind me how I could never be a blessing.
?????????????
Remaining in the cold to collect and clear my scattered thoughts feels a lot like self-inflicted punishment. And perhaps it is.
Lilith has long since retreated to the castle, leaving me to linger upon the parapet, feet dangling over the water. With the wind at my back and my hood raised, the cold is tolerable enough.
I never understood Ryc’s reluctance to tell Lilith about Thalion’s soul crystal being hidden in the stronghold—but I do now. It’s been a while since Ryc and I discussed the subject and I haven’t given it much thought since. He made it clear it wasn’t something she needed to know.
He’s protecting her from him…still.
Sitting shut and stored behind a series of wards and locks and guards is a kinder eternity than Thalion deserves.
“Please do not leap,” Cyran’s deep, unamused voice startles me and he grabs my arm.
Heaving a sigh, I level a flat glare up at the fae as he releases me.
“Afraid you’ll sink with all your armor?” I tease, turning back to the river.
He huffs through his nose, the faintest smilecurling his lips.
“Lady Lilith said she left you here. I expected to find you gone,” he says, following my gaze westward.
I scoff a laugh, smiling. “You make it sound like I’ve a tendency to vanish without a chaperone, Cyran.”
“Yes,” he nods. There’s the tiniest hint—the tiniestspark—of a smile in his voice. “One who plagues rooftops and stalks sailors.”
My head whirls as my brows fly high.
