He didn’t want to know if he’d seen what happened in a vision or not.
Erich leaned back in his chair and tried to appear nonchalant, but feared he was failing miserably. “She won’t hear anything I have to say. The Avatheos has dug his claws in deep.”
“She can fight it all she wants, but your destinies are too entwined to be untangled. It would be like asking the moon not to rise as the sun sets.”
“But the moon doesn’t always rise.” Erich rubbed his stubbled chin.
He’d eaten a feast after the fight, and yet his hunger still gnawed at him. He wondered if he’d ever feel satiated again. Liane’s flushed face and parted lips flashed through his mind, and his manhood stirred once more. He’d need to take himself in hand later to calm that particular beast. Not that he was certain it would really cool his desires.
“Just because you cannot see her, doesn’t mean she’s not there,” Fritz said cryptically.
He was going to assume he was waxing poetic about the moon and couldn’t tell where Erich’s thoughts had strayed.
“Speaking of the moon, the full moon is less than two weeks away. We should make plans for when I need to leave the city and transform.”
“Yes, I suppose we will,” Fritz said distractedly, as he pushed the crust of bread around his plate.
“Leonhard knows where we are, and he’s close to the Avatheos. I think for both our safety, it’s best if we pull up roots.”
“Do you know what really caused the Corruption?” Fritz asked.
“Are you trying to change the subject?” Erich asked with an arched brow.
Fritz didn’t look up from his plate. “What humans call the Corruption, we call the flood of tears. It’s what started our genocide. The sun cult, now known as the Church of Sol, burned the moon temples and places like here, where dual worship protected the source. They murdered those of us with ties to the moon—the elves, the dragonborn, and the others. Our blood seeped into the ground and created a chain reaction that swept through the veins of magic, polluting and weakening them. The Nameless Goddess tried to stop them, but Cyra’s cult had grown too strong, and they sealed her inside the veins, locking her power and cementing their own.” Fritz recited this all, staring out into the distance, haunted and terrified. As if he were reliving those moments himself.
“Why are you telling me this now?” Erich asked.
Fritz turned to look at him, his vision clearing. “Because you need to understand light cannot exist without dark. Everything requires balance. It may seem that your warnings to Liane have gone unheeded, but you’ve planted a seed of doubt in her mind, and if it is cultivated, it shall bloom. If she didn’t want to believe you, why would she have spoken with you tonight?”
Erich didn’t have an answer for him. Not one that was decent for polite company. But suppose Fritz was right, and Liane could be convinced, how much longer did he have before Leonhard got bored with this game of cat and mouse and decided to call in Erich’s debt? Or before the Avatheos caught wind of a dragon loose in their mist and had him executed?
“Let’s find another inn after I return from my transformation. And perhaps consider splitting up.” Erich stood.
“You’re not alone anymore. I know you’re itching to rescue her, but we can do this together. If you give me more time...” Fritz said. He reached across the table, then recoiled at the last moment.
Erich had spent so long alone that it felt wrong to lean on anyone. Besides, the longer they spent together, the higher the chance he’d get Fritz killed.
“Don’t worry about me. But if you find a way to get Liane out of the temple, I’m all ears.”
Erich took a few steps toward his bed and turned around once more. “And thanks for dinner.”
Fritz smiled softly. “Anytime.”
16
Aristea picked at an apricot on her plate. She hadn’t touched her bread or sausage. Yvette and the other lady’s maids had finished their breakfast long ago, and they kept glancing in her direction as they waited patiently at the table for her to rise. The silence was oppressive, and her gaze kept sliding to the door, half expecting Liane to come bounding in, cheeks flushed and a mischievous smile on her lips. But her sister was miles away in Basilia while Aristea was trapped here in the mausoleum of her own making.
Aristea pushed aside her plate. She had no more appetite, and her lady’s maid, Jana, glanced up.
“My lady, are you finished?” she asked.
“Yes, thank you.”
Jana took her plate and handed it off to a kitchen servant. Aristea’s other ladies rose without a word, filing into the dressing room to prepare her next black gown. They worked with silent efficiency as Aristea reflected on how this cold silence hadn’t always been the norm. Before she and Heinrich had combined their households, she’d been surrounded by maidens she’d called friends; they’d laughed and teased one another and whispered about courtiers they fancied. But Heinrich didn’t like them and arranged for their marriages and replaced them with daughters and sisters of his favorites. She tried making friends with them, but they were quiet and cold. And over time, she’d become used to the silence and the distance that grew between her and those who served her. “It was the way of things,” Heinrich had told her when she’d complained to him. The household you kept was said to reflect its mistress, and Aristea wanted to be respected, and the ladies were demure and obedient as she should be. But now she wished they’d giggle or gossip or do anything other than sit around her like dolls she’d placed in a playroom.
The silence hadn’t been quite so stifling with Liane around, but with her gone, Aristea felt deeply lonely.
She wanted to talk to someone besides Mother about Mathias. Someone who understood him as well as she’d thought she did. Aristea didn’t want to believe Mathias would plot against the throne, not her charming, funny baby brother. But the evidence was damning. Heinrich never trusted Mathias and often whispered in her ear about how, until Aristea had a son, the council would demand that Mother name Mathias her heir. As much as she didn’t want to believe, the truth didn’t matter. The rumor was enough to destabilize everything Mother had built. If the elves chose to attack in the midst of another civil war, the empire couldn’t survive. Aristea could see the fissures in the empire, like cracks in a vase; one wrong movement and it would shatter into pieces. They needed to squash the rumors, and Aristea needed to strengthen her alliances now more than ever. That was why, rather than continue dancing around him, Aristea decided to talk to the wife of one of the most powerful men of Heinrich’s faction, Duke Krantz.
