“True, unfortunately,” I rasped, feeling a twinge of regret when I thought of Gemma and our first encounter. “Azur…you’ll meet him one day. You’ll see. We call him the fire to Kythel’s ice. The twins. Azur took his wife for revenge alone, married her to keep her close.”
“I know it had something to do with your aunt.”
“Were the keepers gossiping?” I asked, leveling her an inquiring, yet knowing, look.
“Always.”
“My aunt, Aina, was murdered during the Pe’ji War,” I told her. She should know. This was House Kaalium business, after all. “We were very close. And my own mother died not knowing what had happened to her sister.”
“That’s terrible,” Erina whispered. “ I’m sorry.”
“We discovered that Gemma’s father, Azur’s wife,” I said, nodding, “was involved in Aina’s murder during the war. Gemma had no knowledge of it and was horrified when she found out. Me and her… I nearly went into a rage one night at a ball in his keep because I couldn’t stand the thought of her own blood having been mixed up in Aina’s death. It ate at me. I didn’t agree with Azur, with what he was doing. But then…I didn’t realize that she was hiskyrana.”
Her lips parted in knowing.
“Now I know what he’d gone through. I can understand him better,” I added, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “He would’ve never given her up.”
Her eyes burned into mine.
“But like me with mykyrana, Azur made his own spectacular failings with Gemma,” I added.
Erina sighed. “Is that meant to soften me toward you?”
“Yes,” I said shamelessly. “Because they are very happily mated now.”
She struggled to keep her helpless smile from showing. She turned her face to look away from me, her eyes going to the painting on the wall overhead again.
“Wasn’t Pe’ji in the book you showed me?” she asked. “That night in the library.”
“You remember,” I said. “Yes, it was.”
“I’m sorry about your aunt. And your mother,” Erina said, turning back to me.
A delicate question rose in my mind, one I’d often wondered. “Do you ever think about your own parents? Who they were?” I wondered. “If you ever want me to investigate, I will.”
But Erina didn’t look sad nor excited at the prospect. “Is it weird that I don’t wonder about them often? I used to. When I was a child. Now…I think about my mother especially because I’m pregnant, but it’s a stray, passing thought. And then it leaves me. Because, you see, with the exception of Luc, I’ve always been alone. I wonder, especially in your case, do you think it’s better to have grieved those you lost, felt that terrible pain, or to have never known true grief to begin with?”
“Grief and loss is an important part of life,” I said, thinking this conversation was familiar before I remembered. “Ah. Ourdalliafable conversation again.”
“It’s funny how it comes back around,” she said quietly, thinking over my words. “I…I would choose to grieve.”
“Why?”
“Because it means you loved someone to grieve them,” she said. “That’s a beautiful thing. A special thing.”
Our eyes met and held. My throat felt a little tight, hearing what went unspoken.
“Did you grieve me in Laras?” I wondered softly.
“Yes,” she answered. An honest one, raw and open. Simple. “And then I tried to do everything I could to forget you.”
CHAPTER 44
KALDUR
Her words were a gentle confession that twisted me up into knots.
I didn’t like that she’d felt alone most of her life either. But for the first time, I wasgladfor Luc. Glad for their friendship, that he had treated my mate with kindness and love. That he’d given her hope and encouraged her dreams.
