With a whoop, Varian wound his arms around my waist and swung me around, my feet leaving the ground, feeling like I was flying. When he set me back down, I gazed at my friends, my heart swelling with a fierce, unshakable warmth. We’d been dragged through the mud this past week, yet somehow, we’d come out the other side not only alive, but in love all over again.
“Hey, assholes,” Ariel yelled, “is there anything good to eat in this mausoleum?”
“No,” we all yelled back, and burst out laughing, hardly able to think through the joy spilling through my veins, the way my heart felt like it might float away.
Whatever came next, I knew one thing for certain.
We were meant to stand together.
Always.
54
LYRAE
Iwatched my sister take a bite of soup, her hand trembling so badly I had to look away. To count to ten, to remind myself we’d won today, despite the brutal aftermath.
Which, in truth, could have been far worse.
“I’m sorry there’s nothing but soup. Var did the best he could; there’s not much to work with here. It’s not like Rooke gets steady supplies.”
Varian had dropped off a tray with a steaming bowl of thin soup, accepted Ariel’s hug with a sheen of tears in his eyes, given me one worried look, then left us alone.
“Varian Kronos was always the best cook out of all of us, Ly, and you know it,” Ariel slanted me a stern look. “I doubt I could stomach much more than broth, anyway.”
Typical Ariel. Varian had always been her favorite, the big, older big brother she’d always looked up to. No wonder she’d twisted him around her little finger and talked him into stealing the Fae King’s sword, and it was exactly like Varian to go along with one of her mad schemes.
He’dalwaysindulged her, something we’d have to talk about.
I worked the ring off my finger, the stone flashing bluesand greens in the candlelight. “Here. This is yours. I figured you’d want it back.”
She looked at it wonderingly, slipping it onto her thumb, the only finger it still fit. “I never thought…the Citadelle guards took this away from me, right before they threw me into Gravelock’s carriage. I always wondered why. How did you ever end up with this, Ly?”
I blew out a breath, my shoulders drawing in. “Well…”
I told her everything.
Fighting on the front lines for the Shadow King, my cursed deal with the Oracle. Everything I’d done as their pawn and how much I wished things had been different. Then I told her about Anaria, Valarian, the new world we were building to the north.
“That’s…a lot. So the Old Gods are gone and so are the three realms? What about this queen? Is she…like the kings? If the Fae King was her father, won’t she…”
I shook my head. “Anaria isn’t anything like him. She’s the opposite. You’ll like Tempeste, Ari. There’s music and art, schools for almost any interest you might have. You could do anything, be anything you wanted to be. Make up for lost time.”
Too late for me, but for Ariel…yes, she would have every advantage, every opportunity to become the woman she was meant to be, and if it took her a few more years to figure that out, she had all the time in the world.
Provided, of course, I didn’t end up in a prison cell for my part in all of this.
“I won’t lie to you, Ariel. I was sent here to do something for my queen. In fact, I swore an oath to her. An oath I have broken about a hundred times over. I might not have the brightest future in Tempeste, but I promise you this: you will have the future that was stolen from you. That bastardtook away fifty years of your life, and I will give you the next fifty, filled with everything you’ve ever dreamed of.”
She looked wistful and young, in one of Rooke’s shirts, clean after a long soak in the tub. Her hair looked like mercury, her eyes were too big for her face, but my sister was alive.
I had to keep reminding myself of that.
“I spent a lot of time,you know, rotting away in that fucking tower,” she murmured. “Always so cold. I’d like to be warm first. Then I’d like to see this new world, I think. And then…I know you and Ryland and Var are together, and I’m happy for you, Ly, but I’d like to find a family of my own.”
There must have been something on my face because she gripped my hand. “Don’t look like that. I’m not leaving you behind forever. And I’m not jealous—far from it. I want what you guys have. What you three have always had. And now with Rooke in the picture…” her smile turned a little too knowing for my liking, “I suspect you’re going to be busy.”
“Rooke isnotin the picture,” I rolled my eyes. “So you can stop that train of thought right now.”
