“She hasn’t been herself, Isla,” I replied but the exhaustion creeped into my tone and diminished the strength of my argument.
“She’s still the Matriarch.”
She crossed the room and stepped behind my desk where she knelt down in front of me and took my hands. Her eyes were shining with unshed tears when she looked up at me.
“You don’t have to take everything on yourself, Milo,” she said. “You have Nascha, you have me, you have Paxon and, as much as I hate to say it, you have Olympia too. We’re all here for you, for this. So let us carry some of your burden. Let us play a part in shaping this new future of Sanctuary you seem to envision.”
I froze at her choice of words.This new future of Sanctuary you seem to envision.
“Isla–” I started.
“You think I don’t know about the Third Ring family you’ve given a free pass into our home?” she asked, raising a brow. “Or the research alliance you’ve formed with a minor house? Don’t forget the fact that I was there when you demanded my grandfather make your wife Heir to his House as well. Things are changing in Sanctuary. Adrian may have been the catalyst but you’re the one who’s been pushing it along.”
“And you…support me in this? Even though I’m changing the course of history. Even though I’m spitting in the face of the rules established by every First Ring Patriarch and Matriarch for the last two thousand years.”
“You’re a good man with a good heart. Even when I don’t agree with everything you’re doing, I can rely on that and know it’s coming from a good place. You cared about Adrian Bexley and, now that she’s gone, you’re questioning the system that could have gone to such lengths to keep her down. I get it. I might have done the same if I’d been her friend when she was here.”
Isla’s words meant more to me than she knew. Since I’d begun to make those decisions, I’d heard nothing but questions and concerns from my cousins, the people I trusted most in the world. They’d done what I’d asked, of course, but I’d seen the glances they cast at each other, the looks they gave me whenI issued a command they didn’t agree with, Paxon especially. Isla’s support made me feel a little less lonely and that made all the difference.
So without pausing to consider the complications it might bring, I reached out and caressed the cheek of the only girl who’d ever truly loved me in any real way with my free hand. Then I pulled her forward and pressed my lips to hers.
For a moment, she was too stunned to move, but then I pulled her closer with a hand on the back of her head and she leaned into me. It wasn’t a soft kiss or clumsy, like the uncertainty or inexperience of youth, but it wasn’t forceful or brutal like those driven mad by lust either. It was calm, comfortable, like it was simply meant to be. Her lips were meant to be on mine, my hands were meant to be on her, we were meant to exist together in the same space at the same time, as one.
When we separated, it was only enough to rest our foreheads against each other for a moment, finding peace in the quiet assurance of the other’s company. Then Isla’s eyes fluttered open and met mine.
“It’s all about to change, isn’t it?” she whispered against my lips.
“It was always meant to,” I told her. “We just have to build something better in the end, together.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Olympia
Iwaited until Nascha was safe and sound within her own room surrounded by only those I could trust before making my way back down to the Third.
I’d found Nascha bleeding from a head wound beneath the Tribunal’s table. A massive chunk of stone had knocked her down but she was still conscious and able to crawl forward on hands and knees as directed with little help. I had her stay low to avoid as much smoke as possible even when I’d watched Jude leap back up from where he’d been blown over to the side and practically sprint up the stairs with a few members of his house following quickly in his wake. I’d deal with him later. For now, I had a list of priorities I was getting through much slower than I liked.
First, get Nascha to safety. Saving the Matriarch of my House was the one and only thing that mattered when that tunnel blew to bits in front of us all. I didn’t have time to find Cosmo in the chaos and beat his head into a bloody pulp against the stones. I didn’t have time to find Myrine and slash her throat with her own sword. And I didn’t have time to think about Harrison andthat cursed mark on his back. All I could think about, as I waded through the smoke and debris clinging to the air above the Deck, was finding my grandmother. I thought of nothing else until the moment her head hit her pillow and a healer from our own House bent beside her bed.
Then I allowed myself to shift to priority number two; Harrison.
I stormed through the halls of House Avus with a dark cloud hanging over me that anyone with sense could see. My own cousins leapt out of my way as I passed and even my mother, who never let me go without a snide remark aimed in my direction, didn’t dare to speak once she saw the look on my face.
I spiraled along with the steps down to the Third, my rage growing and burning inside of me until it was a fiery inferno I no longer had an ounce of control over. Harrison was a rebel. Harrison was a danger to my family. Harrison was aliar.
The door of his fourth floor apartment slammed into the wall so hard it left a hole where the knob had struck, but I didn’t care. I strode right into that hovel with fists clenched at my sides and a feeling of betrayal clawing through my already shredded heart. I was going to find him and I was going to make him pay for his lies. I was going to make him feel every piece of the mortifying anguish tearing me apart at the seams. And then I was going to go back to my House and lock myself away where I could never fall for another man’s tricks again, where I could neverfeelanything for anyone ever again, because it always ended like this.
When I shoved the door to his bedroom open as hard as I’d pushed through the front door, however, I found it empty. The bed was neatly made in a very un-Harrison-like fashion, not that I’d ever truly known what that might be. Everything was put away and in its place, like he’d been expecting company, like he’d prepared for this or, I realized, heart sinking, like he’d left.
“Hey beautiful.”
The sound of his voice speaking that nickname sent me over the edge.
I whirled and a knife was at his throat. He held his hands up in a sign of surrender but I saw nothing even remarkably close to submission in his eyes.
“You fucking liar,” I snapped at him. “You knew. The whole godsdamned time, you knew about the rebels, about that fucking symbol, about all of it, and you lied to me. You’ve done nothing but lie to me.”
“That’s not true,” he argued.
