Tears spill over my cheeks. “I don’t understand.”
A soft smile curls his lips. “I have waited a long time for you, Selene Amaris. To complete this, as your mother requested. But I miss my Ria very much. And my fate is nearly complete. Ellas calls me home to her, and I am ready.”
His hands pull away. Jonas traces over the other pieces of parchment inside the box. So many of them that they nearly spill over. “She would write to me, you know. Always, leaving notes and letters wherever she could. And when I would find them, she would read them to me, for I could not. It was a game between us.”
His fingers stroke over the edge of a letter. It looks almost smooth, as though he’s worn the edges away. “I cannot read them. Leesa is learning, but she is still young. Emryn, a little, but Ria died before she could teach him all of his letters.”
I swipe the back of my hand over my cheeks, placing the rolled parchment carefully beside me, my fingers lingering on the sprawling script of my name. My hands itch to reach for it once more, to tear it open, but I turn back to Jonas.
My voice hitches. “I would be honored to read them to you.”
***
When I slip out of the low doorway an hour later, a sleeping Jonas behind me, only Ryn is waiting. He sits on a small bench that looks out over the hearth, his back leaning against the wall of his home. He does not look at me.
I hesitate before taking a seat on the bench beside him, breathing in the pungent, earthy scent that comes from the vast pots of stew balanced over the cooking fires across from us. “You should go in.”
I do not need the shadows to tell me that his father’s life in this world is drawing to an end, and it will be soon. The door to Ellas is cracked open and waiting for Jonas.
I pray that Ria will be waiting for him.
Across the open, cobbled, stone beneath our feet, Callan speaks with several of the elders, gesturing. He rakes his hair back in a show of impatience, the cool breeze that surrounds us sending bronze strands dancing before he steps over to the large cauldron. Working with another man, he carefully lifts the pot from hooks atop the iron bars and sets it on the ground, sending steam rising lazily into the air as he wipes at his face before grinning and saying something to the male opposite him, who laughs.
My feet shift against the cobbles as I look away. Even here, where there is little plant life to be found, the lichen strangles even the tiny weeds that grow between each stone, cracked lines of black spreading out over the ground like the web of a spider.
If the lichen is the web, then the Caelumnai are the flies, slowly entrapped without escape.
“I know what this means, you know,” Ryn says eventually, and I turn to him. He stares at his oil-stained hands. “He was only waiting for you.”
I don’t know what to say in response to the pain in his voice. “He has done me a great service, Ryn. I had feared the worst for all of you.”
He shifts, head shaking in remembered disbelief before he looks up to the sky. I follow his gaze, waiting for him to gather his words.
The sky here above the land does not change, I’m beginning to realize. Where Asteria once experienced all weathers—sunshine, rain and thunder, glorious sunrises and clear blue days, there is now only this unending, murky gray that feelsheavy. Each day must be the same, for I’ve seen nothing else since I arrived.
It’s as though Asteria is suspended in time. Waiting.
What are you waiting for?
Humid air weighs down on my shoulders, the only relief a faint breeze that whips my hair against my face. In the distance behind the stone lines of homes opposite us, I can see the Sea of Stars. A curtain of darkness, and the faint glow of Hala’s moons against the black. A reminder, perhaps, that she is watching.
Ryn’s words are as heavy as the air that surrounds us. “We shouldn’t have survived the Shift at all, you know. If Callan hadn’t been there, we would all have entered Ellas that day.”
My eyes flick to him again. He’s watching, but he turns away as my gaze lands on him. “Callan?”
Ryn inhales. “My mother was dead, struck down as she tried to shield us. My father was still fighting, but he was about to lose. That final blow was upon him, but Callan intercepted before it could strike. He fought off one of his own to help us. Shouted for me to take Leesa inside, and he carried our father in. Told me to bar the door until it was over.”
His smile is not quite a smile. “He has helped us often, over the years. My father has been ill for a long time. Callan made sure that we were not forgotten in the chaos. Perhaps— perhaps it was a redemption for him, and if it were down to me, I’d believe he’s earned one. But regardless of the reason, I am grateful. For Esa and my father especially.”
I force myself not to look in Callan’s direction. “I’d like to see Leesa again.”
“She’s with Merrick this afternoon, for her lessons. She’s no child anymore, though. None here that day remained so.” He stands, lifting his hand in greeting at a call from ahead of us.
When Rio jogs over, I find a genuine smile lifting my lips. Ryn vanishes back inside with a murmured farewell, and I curl my hands around the parchment Jonas gave me before slipping it into the pocket of my frock-coat.
He grins at me, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “I hear you have a preference for your guard rotation. Tobias is quietly furious.”
“You’re not in trouble, I hope?”
