“It’s a shame we’ll never get to ask either of them, isn’t it?” I said roughly, my chest constricting and burning all at once.
His words made sense. I’d been a bundle of anger andrepressed grief and nerves for the past day, and my mind needed something to latch onto. Something to blame and take all this funneled energy. Branock Aris was an easy target, and part of me didn’twantto think rationally. I wanted to rage and scream and cry and do everything I’d been forced to lock away in the face of the first trial and what followed.
I needed to grieve. But I didn’t think I could handle that. Not on top of everything else.
Leo took a step toward me, and I moved back on instinct. “I don’t want this to affect our alliance in this mission or your loyalty to the Sentinels,” he said. “My sister and I arenotour father. If you can’t separate your beliefs from that truth, I don’t know how to get you to trust us fully.”
I closed my eyes and rubbed at my temples, trying to fight back my pride and some unhelpful sharp reply. That was how I handled emotions I didn’t want to deal with: a snarky comment intended to take the weight off my shoulders.
But he was right. Whatever happened in the past, I needed to separate it from my purpose. From what stood right in front of me.
More than that, I needed to be alone. To have a moment of rest without the fate of this tournament and the mission occupying my mind. Too much had happened in the last twenty-four hours for me to make sense of it all.
“I have to go,” I said finally, weariness evident in my tone. I couldn’t give him what he wanted to hear right now. Not when the memory of my father’s death was constantly meresecondsaway from emerging and pulling me under, and the next time it happened, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to stop it.
“Rose, if you would just?—”
“Thanks for the ride, Aris,” I said. Before I turned to face the palace, I added, “At least you can tell your sister we didn’t kill each other.”
It wasn’t trust. But it was something.
29
Rose
Itook a valerian root sleeping draught and slept through the rest of the day and night. My body needed it, and the Fates only knew my mind did, as well. When I woke the next morning, I felt more clear-headed than I had since the attack on our carriage.
But that clarity brought what I’d put off for so long. What I’d feared to let take over.
The raw weight of grief and anguish was no longer cloaked by the urgency of a trial or spying or meetings. These were the first moments since I’d remembered everything that I had to myself. The first moment tothinkwithout distraction.
And it was like a flood.
Memories of my father crashed through me, as far back as I could recall. Roaring campfires under the stars while he taught me about crystals and spirit magic. Rolling down soft hills of grass and shouting the names of root herbs in between squeals of laughter. He made magic come alive. It was so ingrained in me from the very first spell I watched him perform.
I’d forgotten so much of this. Had replaced these vivid moments with shaded versions of a near-stranger, instead of the father I’d loved so deeply as a littlegirl.
I’d only been five when he died. A lifetime of memories with him had been taken from me. I wondered what magic he could have taught me as I grew, what advice he would have given me, how differently my future might have looked. Would we have run the Arcane together? Would we have had weekly dinners with Ragnar, Morgana, and Beau? Wouldhehave entered the Decemvirate instead of Ragnar?
My morning and afternoon were spent in the only thing that brought me comfort—my magic. It started with the need to take some sort of action instead of drowning in my thoughts, so I began assessing what herbs I had left in my father’s pouch. Every new charm, leaf, and petal drug up memories of him explaining what each herb did or the feel of his Grimoire beneath my fingers as I came across spell after spell penned in his hand.
It was strange to be feeling these kinds of strong emotions decades after it had passed. I thought I’d come to terms with it. I thought I’d patched this heartache. But it had never healed—it had simply been cloaked. As I went through all my bags and pulled out charm after charm, potion after potion, magic and memories and sorrow swelled to the surface, with nothing left to tether them down.
And I let them come.
I let them wash over me, cracking me down the center. I let the tide pull me under until it felt as if I couldn’t breathe, sobs breaking through the waves like a storm cresting the shore. Tears for that five year old girl who watched her father, the strongest man in her world, crumble and fall. Tears for the little orphan who didn’t understand the hand this life had dealt her. Tears for the growing child whose heart was hardened and whose tongue was sharpened by the cutting glares of people who wouldn’t see the truth. Tears for the young woman who never had the chance to live freely, out from the scrutiny and judgment of the world. Who had never had the chance to find herself outside of the labels she was given.
At some point, my aunt’s muffled voice camefrom outside my door, and when she realized it was unlocked, she came in to check on me. She found me sitting on the floor with vials and petals and leaves spread around me, tears streaking my face and my locket clutched in my grasp.
“Oh, my dear girl,” was all she said before falling to her knees and wrapping her arms around my shoulders.
We cried together for what felt like a lifetime, until no more tears were left. And then she held me. No questions, no words, no pressure. Giving me the space I needed to process what I’d spent years avoiding.
“This was the very first herb he showed me,” I said after we’d sat soaking in the silence. My voice was hoarse and my fingers shaky as I held up a brittle amaranth stem. “I could barely say the word.”
Morgana chuckled and smoothed down my hair with one hand. “Of course, he did. Your father and his protection spells.”
“Can you tell me more about him?” I whispered, my head still on her shoulder.
