Sixteen
Vale watched Ivy stare around the wide, bony walls. He should have urged her to walk faster. To follow where the void was directing her. But he was so tired, and Ivy looked so lovely as she gazed wondrously around the crumbling castle.
“Is it very different?” Vale asked.
Ivy laughed, running her hand over a chipped wall. “For one, mortal castles are made ofstone, not bone. And they’re not as big. Or abandoned. Or…”
She trailed off, her eyes flashing green as they came to a stop in front of a towering doorway.
Vale peered inside, ignoring the exhaustion pounding through his marrow.
The throne room had decayed since he last saw it several decades ago. A new hole had opened in the ceiling, allowing vines to creep through and twine down the painted wall and over the twin thrones sitting side by side against the rear wall. Once, there had been a giant skeleton sitting slumped on one of those thrones. It had been the first thing Vale cleared.
Vale turned to Ivy. “Is it here?”
“I…” Ivy cleared her throat, the green glow draining from her eyes. “I think so.” She pointed at the painted wall behind the thrones. “What is that?”
Vale looked up at the faded painting. It was partially obscured by vines, but there was enough showing through to make it clear: a rich, lush, bony wonderland.
“That is the void when it is healthy and taken care of,” Vale said. “It looked like this when I still had the light-motes to assist me.”
Ivy pointed higher up the wall. “And those?”
Vale lifted his gaze. This was why he had stayed away from the castle these past few centuries. He did not want to look at the hazy, gleaming lights floating above the content void, even in a painting—dozens of them dancing in the dark sky, beautiful and joyous.
“Those are the light-motes,” he said quietly.
Ivy tilted her head, her braid falling down her cheek. “Did they have names?”
She said it dreamily, like she already knew the answer. He said it anyhow.
“Yes,” he admitted.
She did not ask. He was glad for it.
“You lost your joy,” she murmured, her eyes huge and green once more. Her voice became strange and deep. “The caretaker must be fulfilled. Or they wither.”
Vale startled. “What?”
Ivy shook her head. The glow faded from her eyes.
“Huh? I don’t—” Ivy rubbed her forehead. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what that was.”
Vale reeled at the implications. Hehadbeen happy before the light-motes died. Had he not? He always thought that his joy vanished with the light-motes. But was it the other way around? Did they vanish because he was dissatisfied?
“Itisin here,” Ivy said. “At least, that’s what the void says.”
Vale pushed his thoughts of ancient history aside and stepped inside the throne room, looking around for a crack in the void that would allow them into the mortal realm. The thrones were decaying, as were the walls. The paint was so faded that it was difficult to make out under the vines crawling over it. But there was nothing that looked like a gap in the void.
“I do not see anything,” Vale said.
“I don’tfeelanything,” Ivy agreed, her voice faint. She cleared her throat again, and Vale noticed how red her cheeks were. He thought it was because of the walking. But this was different from the flush that cropped up when they had been walking for several hours. This flush traveled into her dress, making her hot under the flimsy fabric. Making herwet.
Vale inhaled deeply. The sweet scent of her slick made him feel as if the pollen was rising inside him again, even though his pollen had left his blood on the first day.
“You feelsomething,” he corrected, stepping closer. He wound his tail around her leg, and Ivy stuttered a laugh.
“Can’t go into pollen-heat when we rush the mortal realm,” she said. She turned to him, warm and rosy with her lust. “We have to be fast.”
