Back then, I didn’t know what Warren had been dealing with. But now, I understood that moment in the kitchen with horrifying clarity.
“No.”
He’d known. The moment it had happened, he’d known.
Warren had felt the connection, just as I did with Dante, which also meant he’d felt when it snapped.
Perhaps there’d been even more. A thought that Anna sent to him as she died. A feeling of fear, of terror, or horrible, unthinkable agony. Maybe she’d summoned him to save her, and he had been too late. Maybe she’d said her goodbyes, and he just couldn’t accept it. He’d never told us. Hecouldn’ttell us, not everything. I didn’t even known how she’d died.
“You get it now,” Warren said slowly, and I looked up. He stared at me, eyes red-ringed and full of a sorrow that I hadn’t truly noticed for years, but now, a new understanding had been forged between us, something meaningful. He was still hurting for her. Maybe he always would be.
“I do,” I answered with a nod.
He exhaled. There was a sort of relief in it, as if he were pleased that someone finally understood his suffering, as if he had been looking for some sort of sign, some validation, that it was alright for him to still be in pain after all this time.
“Whoever he is,” Warren stood and made his way toward the door, “don’t lose him, Adrian. Saints, do everything you can to never lose him.”
Without looking back, he left my room, and I was alone, my chest hollow and weighted.
My mother had insisted on a party. No matter how much I’d argued or begged for her to allow this victory to pass uncelebrated, she wouldn’t hear of it. Warren had had a party, so I would too. Warren smiled sadly at me from the corner of the living room at the comparison, undoubtedly thinking of Anna with our family firmly embedded in Trial festivities again. Guilt settled in my gut like a rock, but I hadn’t known what it would mean to him before.
She set the date for two days following the Trial to accommodate the others who were celebrating as well. I decided not to point out that I wasn’t feeling like celebrating much these days. My mother was smiling again. I wouldn’t take that away from her.
She invited the whole Third Ring and most of them came, entering the house long enough to congratulate me, linger in conversation with myself and my family, then leave with excuses that they had other such events to attend for the others who’d made it past the first Trial. Though they made pains to assure me they had the utmost faith in my success, I knew they were saying the same to all of the other First Trial participants they were celebrating as well. Still, I smiled and thanked them politely, even though I didn’t have half of their conviction.
After having passed the Trial, I’d been existing in a sort of stunned daze.
Many of the neighbors, mostly my mother’s friends from her infrequent, temporary work as a seamstress for the upper ranks of nobility, stuck around for the entire party, mingling in corners, laughing at the stories of bakers and cobblers, working class humor.
I was speaking with Juniper, who hadn’t made it through the First Trial but was more than her fair share of excited for me, when a hush fell over the crowd. I looked up—why was everyone staring at the front door?
An old man stood in the threshold, his opulent emerald cloak pooling upon the warped floor of my mother’s foyer. His wizened eyes narrowed and gazed about the room. When they fell upon me, his frown deepened, and he took two long strides into the room. Someone followed behind him. He held his body straight, rigid, the excellent posture of the elite, but his eyes were downcast.
Dante didn’t even look up at me.
“Are you Adrian?” The old man’s voice boomed like thunder.
A group of women nearest him flinched away, scurrying from the room toward the kitchen. My lips parted but my eyes caught on Dante. He raised his gaze to meet mine, and I saw the warning there. He gave the smallest shake of his head, jaw clenched. But something about that goaded me, so I jutted my chin out and peered directly into the elder’s eyes.
“I am,” I said. My voice remained as calm and measured as I could manage. My mother stepped up behind me, her arm snaking around my own. Maurice was there as well, hovering just above my right shoulder. “And who are you?”
“I am Cosmo, reigning Patriarch of House Viper,” he announced, then paused for a beat as if we were supposed to bow or something. No one did. It seemed to sour his mood; his lip curled in clear disdain. “My grandson has informed me you have been linked.”
I glanced behind him again, at Dante. This time, his shoulders slumped and his gaze darkened. There was a sorrow there, so deep I couldn’t fathom it. But I felt it. It crashed against me like a wave, threatening to pull me under and tear me in two.
I stumbled and inhaled a sharp breath. I understood, this intrusion, this anger. My eyes narrowed as a rage of my own rose to meet Cosmo’s. I wasunworthy. That was what he believed. Unsuitable to be linked with his grandson, undeserving to even touch the hem of his cloak.
“Welcome, Cosmo of House Viper,” my mother interjected. She strode forward and patted him kindly on the arm, smiling. To anyone else, her tone would have seemed warm, friendly even. But I heard the contempt hidden there, the masked, unadulterated hatred. “We are honored to have you.”
Cosmo’s gaze darted to where my mother’s hand rested, his upper lip curling up in disgust. He peered around as if noticing for the first time that there was, indeed, a party taking placearound him. He let out a slighthmphand turned back to my mother.
“I’ll need to take the girl for training.”
Again, my eyes flicked to Dante’s. The silent warning remained, but I kept my chin high and my voice steady as I responded.
“No.”
Cosmo raised a brow, turning toward me. “I beg your pardon?”
