Her grin was almost too quick to catch. “You won’t be thinking of us when she’s back in your arms.”
He breathed deep to block out the image her words had elicited.
“You blinked when I said that.” Lexsea’s boldness had returned. “Because you’re celibate.”
Jesstin thrust his sword at the path. “Go.”
“Not because you don’t have desires,” Lexsea said. She kept her hands obediently at her sides. “You’re punishing yourself.”
“I said go.”
“You’re punishing yourself for the behavior of other men. Men who are not you, are nothing like you.”
“If you’re in my head right now?—”
“I don’t need to be in your head. You’re so transparent. You’re so... so much more open than you want to think. You would rather inflict suffering upon yourself than address what they’ve done to you. Ryquin knew more about you than you knew about yourself. Your two fathers. Your dead mother. Your siblings, the good ones and the bad. Your tavern.” She cast a wary glance at the door. “Gennady.”
“So?” Jesstin had lost some of his edge, and while she wasn’t molesting him this time, she’d infiltrated him in another way.
“Thumbing your nose at your subjugators by living monastically, by denying what is natural, doesn’t spite them. It feeds them. Me, I don’t like losing, so I take what I want when I want it, so when someone takes from me, there’s too much still left for me to care. My father is a deluded autocrat, my mother thinks I’m a nuisance, and my brother, though he loves me, views me as an instrument to see his dreams to culmination. I live life on my terms because I cannot control how they think or what they do.”
“Is this how you justify being a sexual predator?”
“I want you to travel to Infinita Mori because it will keep Ryquin focused on his quest for kingship of the dead, so I can lead Rivenholde when my father steps down. Ryquin wants you to travel to Infinita Mori because he wants to rule it. All of that is true. We both benefit. But you... Do you even know what you want? Does ‘want’ mean anything to someone who has denied themselves as long as you have, with the fervor of an ascetic? You won’t cry in front of the others, but I know the look of a grief so deep, you cannot even find tears. I couldn’t say, Jesstin Skylark, if you can resurrect Aelloven or your mother or anyone, but Ryquin believes you can, just as he believes that when you get there, you’ll know how to open the door he needs. And I’ll make sure Aelloven is safely preserved in the cabin, with your friends, when you return. With her.”
Jesstin needed air, but he was already outside. He scratched at his neck, more crusted blood flaking and gathering under his nails.
Dead.
Elloven was dead.
Not sick, not dying, not elsewhere, dead.
Jesstin took a whimpering gulp of air. His hand shot out and punched the croft siding.
“Whatever there was between you, is it not worth at least trying?” Lexsea asked. “Yes, I’ll say anything to persuade you, but it doesn’t make my words lies.”
The bitch is right. You’re punishing yourself. Feels good, doesn’t it? Feels better than the alternative.
“We’re done,” Jesstin barked. He tried to clear the gravel from his throat, but it just made it worse. “You do your part. I’ll do mine.”
Lexsea pinned her cloak tight at her neck. “Daire can guide you through what comes next. He can take you to the garden where we first met. Sooner versus later, Jesstin. If you’re not gone by the next turn of the moon, my father will send you to the netherworld himself.”
“What is the difference in how time passes down there compared to up here? Is it like the labyrinth?” Sesto could only ask the question so many ways. It was time to accept Daire just didn’t have the answer. No one living—or dead—had ever returned, and the dead who talked to necromancers kept their secrets close.
“No one knows for certain...” Daire sounded woefully disappointed in himself.
“We should be wary of trusting anyone who claims to have any answers,” Taven said, looking at Sesto. His hands were bone white and clenched under his chin, his cheeks similarly colorless. Sesto might have felt some pity if the whole catastrophe hadn’t been his fault to begin with. “They speak in half-truths.”
“Fascinating you should reason that out now,” Sesto replied and rolled his eyes back toward Daire. “What did Lexsea need to say that could not be said in front of all of us?”
Daire shook his head.
“You’re at the heart of all this, aren’t you, necromancer?” Taven demanded.
Daire looked to Sesto for help.
“Ask your friends.” Sesto wagged his head toward the door. “The ones living in your head all these years without a single tax paid.”
