Eyes wide and disapproving, Fia scoffs. “Neri got to you, I see. He used that pretty face and suave charm to convince you of his ever-powerful nature.” She slides a glare at the wolf. “Have you been to Min-Thuret, Neri? And don’t lie. I can smell the city on you.”
“I have,” he answers, his voice strung tight as a drawn bow.
The queen holds out her hands. “Then where are Thamaos’s bones and the prince’s head? I’d love to see them. My magi can safely discard of Thamaos’s remains, and tonight, we can celebrate our victory with the prince’s head on a pike. I hear revenge is called for.”
Helena’s small gasp at the reminder of Finn’s murder hurts and angers my heart, but I keep my attention on Neri who turns to me as though no one else in the room matters.
“I went for Moeshka first,” he says. “He wasn’t ready to return with me. I found him in a holding cell in the lower quarter, waiting for transport to Min-Thuret for questioning. So then I sifted into the palace. Fleurie wasn’t there. Not that I could sense. As for Thamaos and the prince, they are highly guarded by the Brotherhood inside Rite Hall.” He pauses, as though unnerved by his next words. “I couldn’t get past their shields. I’m… not strong enough yet.” Again, the wolf wipes his bloody nose and glances at the red smear on his hand, perplexed. “This resurrection is having its way with me, it seems.”
My blood goes cold. I’d been correct to question how quickly he would be restored. But being right just means that my precious weapon might not be such a divine intervention after all. Not immediately, anyway.
“And what of Raina?” I ask, my words shaky. “Is she being kept in Rite Hall too?”
Neri and Alexus share a glance. They needn’t say anything for me to understand that they’ve already discussed this.
“I couldn’t sense her,” Neri says. “She is not at Min-Thuret, or even in Quezira. I searched everywhere before I returned and found Thibault.”
I press my hand to my roiling stomach and look between Neri and Alexus. “Where is she, then?”
“We don’t know,” Alexus answers, his face grim. “Possibly wherever Fleurie is being kept. It’s the only answer I have.”
“Raina isn’t with me,” a feminine voice says from across the room, so hoarse it sounds as if it’s been scraped against gravel. “Not here, anyway,” she adds.
We all turn toward the hearth, even those who are seated and standing at the meeting table. There, sitting in Fia’s chair and dressed in soot-covered attire, is a woman who had not been there before. Though her flaming red hair is dulled by ash, I know her face. My sister described her well. I knew her the moment I saw her last night in the grove.
Fleurie.
6
NEPHELE
The room falls silent, and after a long and weighted moment, Alexus slips past Fia.
His expression is one of utter incredulity, his unwavering gaze fixed on the godling across the room. Though he’s known of her existence for many weeks, and though he saw her last night too, no one knew Fleurie’s fate after she vanished with the prince and Thamaos’s bones.
Until now.
Alexus’s vivid eyes are unusually shadowed, his brow drawn down as he slowly makes his way toward Fleurie, as if he’s imagining her. He’s always such a towering, formidable presence. But today, there’s one crack in his meticulous facade: the tremble that ripples within his entire body at the sight of his old friend.
Fleurie stands, her eyes glistening and bright with pools of unshed tears. She moves from behind the table and walks toward Alexus, bridging the distance three centuries has forced between them.
Each step is calm and oddly powerful for a woman who’s been buried away from everyone and everything, existing in a half-alive state, alone and in darkness no less, for so very long. I suppose that’s what the blood of a god can do when it runs through a human’s veins.
She shouldn’t look how she does—like the rest of us looked a few hours ago. Her clothes shouldn’t be burned and scorched in places. Her face shouldn’t be smeared with soot, nor her hair filled with ash.
She leftbeforeRaina’s fire. Didn’t she?
Fleurie and Alexus meet boot to boot. She tilts her head up, chin trembling. With genuine and undeniable love in her golden eyes, she releases a spill of tears as she lifts her shaking hand to cup Alexus’s face.
I’ve seen Alexus cry once, and that was in the grove this morning. His strong, broad shoulders shake as he weeps quietly, staring at his friend, pressing his cheek into Fleurie’s touch like it’s the only thing keeping him from crumbling.
Sweetly, she folds her arms around his neck and pulls him down into a tender embrace. Burying his face in her hair, he tightens his arms around her waist and picks her up, holding her as a cry of deepest pain rumbles from his chest and fills the room. After it passes, the only sounds between the two friends are rough gasps around their tears, and mournful, murmured words almost too quiet to hear. Almost.
I’m so sorry I left you. I’m so sorry.
You didn’t know.
I should’ve known.
