“She was.” Her tone sharpens, offering a warning. “I wasn’t talking about him when I mentioned betrayal. As far as I’m concerned, he was never a traitor. But not everyone believes the same thing. My father certainly doesn’t.”
“I don’t know if I’ve met him.” I try to place her features against any of the people I’ve seen, but nothing stands out. “Not that I’ve met many here.”
There don’t seem tobethat many people here. Nowhere near as many as I’d thought there would be, given the castle’s proximity to the Veilspire and Solvandyr. I would never have been able to hide myself well enough to sneak inside, as I had initially planned.
Perhaps there’s a secondary location somewhere close, though we never learned of one.
“There aren’t that many to meet. It’s Galus Valcor.” She says his name with just enough dryness that I manage to prevent my initial feelings from showing. “On the Council.”
Unfortunate.
“You two are… not alike.” I glance at her quickly. “I mean no offense.”
“None taken.” But there’s something impossibly sad beneath her words. “Elerie was far more his daughter than I am.”
She sucks in a breath before she pulls herself upwards. “We should get going. Braid your hair back, and put more of that oil on. It should get rid of the knots. Elspeth gave it to me, and her hair is longer than mine.”
“Who’s Elspeth?”
“Doesn’t matter. She’smine.” She turns, cocking an eyebrow at me, and I bite down on what might be the beginning of a laugh. Sera pulls the door open once I’ve finished. “She probably won’t be at dinner, since we’re leaving for a patrol straight after the meal.”
“Is that because it’s easier in the dark?”
Her grin is a brief flash. “Careful, Lightbringer. Ask too many questions, some will start thinking you’re a spy.”
“And you don’t?”
Sera shrugs. “I think it doesn’t matter what you are now. Besides, Darian vouched for you, which is enough for me. This way.”
Eres
Kaelen has his back to me, his hands buried in a vat of heated water as he scrubs at one of Neela’s iron pots. Several more wait beside him, all of them crusted with the remains of whatever Neela plans to serve up tonight. It’s hot enough in here from the fires burning at the other end that sweat immediately prickles the back of my neck. Kaelen’s shirt is damp with it as he swears below his breath.
I kissed her.
Lingering in the doorway as the faint noise from the hall trickles through, I watch him work. Kaelen stiffens, the draft from the door hitting his back. His face breaks out in a smile when he turns. “There you are.”
He’s always looked at me like that. As if the sun has just broken out after a long winter. And I’ve never looked anywhere else. Never even considered it, not when I had him.
I kissed her.
More than that. I tasted her. Her lips, her cheeks, her skin. The hollow of her throat, my lips exploring when they have ever only belonged to him. And now that I’ve had a taste, I find that I only want more.
That perhaps I might want everything from the Lightbringer I found in the snow, and it scares the fuck out of me.
“What’s wrong?” Kaelen wipes his hands off, already reaching for me. “Eres?”
There is no limit to who we can love. Iknowthat. Fuck, but I’ve been telling Kaelen that for years. Nudging him to face what he tries to ignore and what’s so damned obvious to every single wielder in Umbraxis.
No heart was meant to hold a single soul.
But it was always supposed to be him. Kaelen.Darian.
Never me. And neverher.
And yet the knowledge doesn’t feel heavy, or even particularly new. Perhaps I knew all along. I saw Lyra in the Veilspire, saw her broken and bloodied and still fighting for every breath when she should have been dead long before I arrived, and I knew then, I think.
She didn’t belong there. She didn’t belong withthem, with those who hurt her and abused her and made her into whatever and whoever she is. They gave her nightmares, and I’d take every single one of them if I could.
