Page 78 of House of the Iron Reaper

Nerissa nods and looks up at his entry.

“Deyanara, Novalie, Ronan,” she says quietly. “The best and most unexpected of friends, he said.”

I open my mouth to reply. To my horror, I break out into a wail instead. I cover my face with my hands and turn away, sobbing uncontrollably. Nerissa rests a hand on my back but otherwise stays quiet.

“I’m s-s-sorry,” I stammer between sobs. “Deimos is… he…”

She rubs my back, her fingers colder than expected. The sudden chill of her touch is oddly soothing, grounding me, and I draw in a deep breath.

“Can you tell me about this?” she says, gesturing up at Deimos’s entry. “Is this a death custom for dragons?”

I sniff and wipe the tears away, even as they do not stop.

“It…” I hiccup and start again. “It is to mark our place in history.”

She makes a thoughtful noise.

“So you believe he is here, with what remains of him?”

I shake my head.

“No, this is just a physical reminder of all who lived,” I tell her. “We believe we are just another piece of the world, born from it and then given back when we die.”

She leans forward with interest and says, “How so?”

“I suppose…” I press a finger to my lips, thinking hard. “I suppose you could liken it to sea waves. We are all of us waves, rising from the sea when we are born, cresting into adulthood, and then down, down, down, sinking back into the sea for our death. The Reapers come to welcome us back into the world but we were always a part of it, and we still are, even in death.”

“Like the waves, then, you never really leave?” she asks. “Only take one form and then another?”

“Yes,” I say and only then does the weight of my words land in my stomach. I pause, blinking. Again, slower this time, I repeat, “We never really leave.”

If the grief of Deimos and my Iron family had not been so heavy, I might not have noticed the almost imperceptible shift in weight. But this time, when I breathe, it is a little easier.

“It is a beautiful belief,” she says with a smile. “I think I shall adopt it, and next time it rains, I will know Deimos is still here. Perhaps he is here even now, in the tears we shed for him.”

Nerissa leans forward to brush a tear from my cheek.

“I know people say ‘they would want you to move on’,” she continues, drawing back. “But it doesn’t really matter what they would want. They’re dead.”

Her frankness startles me so much, my tears dry.

“What matters is what the living want.” Nerissa looks at Deimos’s entry and then back at me. “I want Deimos to be here, still in the world. So, when I have a choice, I’ll do what Deimos would have done.”

Nerissa reaches behind her, where a satchel sits. She pulls out a large, folded leaf and hands it to me. I take it gingerly and she pulls a second one free for herself. When I look up at her, I find her skin is streaked with ink black tears.

“Deimos would have fed you,” she says, her voice even despite the tears still falling. “So that’s what I’ll do. And that means he’s still here.”

I sniff back my own tears and unwrap the leaf, finding an odd white grain inside, piled together and shaped like a fish. Despite everything, I puff out a laugh.

He would have loved this.

Nerissa and I knock our leaves together in a toast. I close my eyes when I take a bite and, for a moment, I can trick myself into believing Deimos really is still here.

Chapter 40

Novalie

The moon is high above me and Dragon’s Vale is silent. Training is long since over. Ronan stayed for a while before declaring himself at the point of starvation and disappearing, his under eyes smudged with dark. Aythora bid me goodnight hours before, alongside a stern warning about overexertion. Deyanara has not shown since Deimos… Since Deimos.