The words held a double edge. A barb that I sensed just beneath the surface. I knew it had been a slight against him when I’d left the moon winds celebration. I knew that he’d been expecting a proposal to join our two Houses together.
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
Kaan’s gaze went back to the crowd, zeroing in on one person in particular. When he looked back at me, I could tell he noticed the larger cut of my vest and pants.
“May I speak plainly,Kyzaire?” Kaan asked, dropping his voice.
My lips pressed. I inclined my head.
“Have your amusements with the human female. Keep her, if you wish—I’m sure Lyris will not protest.” I stiffened. “But don’t forget that your own father wants our Houses to be joined together. Don’t forget the value that we will bring. No other House has more value to you than Arada does.Iwant my daughter married into House Kaalium.Iwant our legacies to join at this place in time. If that’s not something you can offer me anymore, then let me know. And soon. Give me the respect of your honesty at the very least. That is all I ask.”
With that, he left, heading back toward Raana.
I blew out a sharp breath, watching him go. He was right. He deserved an answer. In my mind, I knew the answer that I should give him. The only one.
When I turned, I saw Millie, standing in the crowd. She’d been observing the exchange, and she likely knew who Kaan was, as inquisitive and curious as she was. She watched Kaan leave, then her eyes came to me.
There was a question in them that I thought she already had the answer to.
Then I watched her turn back toward Erzan, a jar of blue paint held loosely in her grip.
CHAPTER26
MILLIE
“Sasiral,” Kythel prompted quietly. “Would you like to be alone?”
I looked up from my father’s face, focusing my gaze on Kythel, who stood a respectful distance away. Beneath the shrine in Erzos, down two flights of stairs, deep into the earth was where the bodies and bones were kept, awaiting their soul gem creation.
My father was still sealed in a hydrosack. The cerulean fluid inside tinged his gray skin blue. His dark horns pressed into the lining of the clear sack, made of a stretchy material that settled around his body like a blanket.
Other than the hydrosack, my father looked like he was sleeping. His body had been preserved all these months, and seeing him broke a little piece of hope inside me. That maybe this nightmare would end. That I’d been lied to. That he wasn’t truly dead.
The material squelched when I reached out to touch it, but I pressed my fingers into his hand. His claws had continued to grow, the sharpened tips pricking the material until I thought they might pierce through it. But his hand was solid. Cold.
“No,” I replied to Kythel. My eyes were bleary and burning. How long had I been standing here? Though the vault was underground, it was well lit by Halo orbs andakkium-powered crystals perched on thin, decorative columns. The walls were made of a stone, a warm cream. “No—I’m ready to leave.”
“You’re certain?”
I squeezed my father’s hand, running my thumb over the top of it, hating the slick glide of the hydrosack material. I hadn’t cried once. I’d expected to be a bawling mess the moment I saw him. Instead, all I’d felt was a calm grief.
My father’s body had been waiting for us the moment we’d stepped into the vault room, spread out on a stone slab made from the same material as the walls. Next, Kythel told me, his body would be cleaned. The proper rites would be performed. His body would be burned, his ashes collected, purified. On the next moon winds, his soul gem would be created.
Longer to wait. But it gave me time to find Ruaala.
“Yes, I’m certain,” I told Kythel, turning from the stone slab.
This was only my father’s body. His soul was in me already. It had never left.
I found soft comfort in that knowledge, and it gave me the strength to walk away, returning to Kythel’s side.
TheKyzairewas watching me closely. When I walked into his arms, he smelled like summer spices, and I breathed him in deeply. He was warm.Alive. A steady, solid, breathing, living thing against me.
“Take me back to the keep,” I requested. “Please.”
Since I’d seen him with Kaan of House Arada yesterday, Kythel had been distant. Distracted. But right now, I had all of his attention.
“Whatever you need,sasiral.”
