Page 34 of Angel in Absentia (Light Locked #2)

THE RIDE

LEA AND IRIS competed to open the door, one of them dropping the keys before both of them howled in laughter and stumbled back.

Clea slid down the wall next to the door as they tried to argue.

Iris was dressed in a glimmering red dress, her brilliant hair curled across her shoulders.

Clea was in a similar black one, her hair similarly curled in long waves down her chest. They both scrambled against the floor in tall heels, an adornment worn almost exclusively in Ruedom which Clea had struggled with on her walk back.

Idan stood between them, arms crossed as he shook his head. “Unbelievable. I take you both out and you’re the ones who end up ruining my night.”

He picked up the keys and started to unlock the door. In a whining voice, Iris shouted, “Prince Idan lost his keys!” Idan winced as he glanced at the surrounding buildings and unlocked the door.

Clea howled in uncontrolled laughter, and Iris laughed back until they were both hunched on their hands and knees.

“You”—Idan pointed at Iris—“I might expect this from, but I can’t believe you let her drink this much.”

Iris looked at Clea and gasped in feigned horror.

Clea covered her chest with her hands and looked at Idan, who leaned down, helping to hoist her up before pulling Iris in with him.

They both walked on either side of him, swaying rhythmically as they started to sing, so much so that Idan struggled to stand up until he managed to land Iris on the couch and then Clea beside her.

“Are the two of you going to be okay?” he asked before rubbing off a smudge on his black button shirt.

They both grew very somber, folding their hands in their laps and nodding insistently before bursting into laughter again. Clea rubbed her face, smearing her make up as she wiped at tears of laughter. Iris then pointed at her face and started laughing harder.

Idan rubbed his face. “I’m checking on both of you in the morning. Iris,” he said, pointing to her. “No more. Sleep. Understood? If anything happens to Loda’s princess, it would be a scandal, and I can’t deal with one of those right now.”

“Another one, you mean?” Iris said, her question broken by something between a hiccup and a burp. Iris and Clea then proceeded to laugh again, nearly falling over each other as Idan waved them both off and headed for the door.

“Go to bed!” he shouted and left them both still giggling on the couch. “I’ll be downstairs with Merune if one of you breaks something.”

After several other fits of laughter, discussion, and mumbling, they both managed to follow their night with several tall glasses of water, which they nearly spat at each other while trying to maintain enough composure to drink it while recounting the events of the night.

Iris set the empty glass down on the counter with a light clink as her laughter calmed. “Clea,” she said with surprising soberness as they leaned against each other. “You deserve so much more,” she whispered, and wrapped her arms around Clea before squeezing her tight.

Clea chuckled, embracing her back somewhat dizzily before Iris mumbled into her ear, “You’re going to be okay no matter what, but I wish the world was better to you.

If it does this to you, I don’t know what I deserve.

Maybe that’s why they need each other, people that can hurt and people that can heal. You need both, I guess.”

The words landed strangely, Clea trying to figure out why as Iris leaned away from her, both hands on Clea’s shoulders.

“There are worse men than Idan,” Iris mumbled, squeezing her shoulders.

“He won’t hurt you ever, not that he could if he tried.

You’ll be okay. Comfortable. Better here than there.

I don’t want anything to happen to you.” Iris cupped Clea’s face endearingly and then after a moment added, “I think he was right. He and I are kind of similar.”

Clea’s brows furrowed, sensing that the “he” Iris referenced might no longer be Idan by her change in tone.

“Being around you gives us a chance to see the world the way we want to,” Iris whispered, “because we had to change so much to survive it. I hope it doesn’t change you too. I would do anything to stop that from happening.”

Before Clea could question it, Iris yanked her into an emotional embrace, squeezed her tight and then stumbled off toward the living room.

“Night, night!” Iris called and collapsed onto the couch with a groan. “Let’s get food at that cute little deli tomorrow.”

“Okay,” Clea consented groggily, rubbing her face as she filed away Iris’s words for later.

She drank the last of her water before wandering off to her bed.

She shut the door before she made her way to the bathroom and washed her face.

She chuckled to herself, patting her skin dry with a towel as she rested her forehead against the sink and sighed.

She couldn’t remember the last time she was so unconditionally giddy.

She barely recognized the feeling, her body buzzing from the dancing, lights, and music of the night.

She meandered back into her room and lay down over the covers, staring at the ceiling and not wanting to fall asleep and waste the feeling.

Veilin bodies recovered faster from everything, and she knew the dizzying feelings of the drinks wouldn’t last much longer.

Hazily, she thought about Iris’s request to stay, and looked to her right to see Ryson’s weapon in its case in her bedroom.

Maybe she really was being brash? Maybe she really had done all she needed to do for her people.

They’d let her go, and after her confession in the council, it seemed they might not want her back after all.

It had hurt, but maybe this was where she really did belong.

No one had asked her to go on a mission to visit the Insednians, and at this point, they might think her too corruptible to even try it.

Regardless, waiting another few days to go back wouldn’t hurt her case.

Her father had welcomed her to stay here for as long as she wanted.

She could get married here. It could be a quick wedding, and Idan would likely let her get involved in different academies, learn what she wanted, explore what she wanted.

He’d always encouraged that. Maybe at last she’d find a place where she felt she belonged.

Clea turned her head in bed and stared at the ceiling.

So many of her Lodain people thought Ruedain ways excessive and frivolous, just as they thought Virdain people barbaric and brash.

Clea had been unable to agree with either sweeping statement, though she understood what habits might fuel the thoughts on either side.

She’d always felt neutral despite any effort to ally herself with a given side. Sometimes it gave her perspective, but other times she wished she could belong somewhere. Another cost of healing, perhaps. Connection to everything by default seemed to mean there would be no one place to call home.

She closed her eyes and listened to the steady beat of Ryson’s heart, that faint echo behind her own.

It took her a moment to recognize that Ryson was perhaps that one place that captured her bias, where she reflected back on her journey with him with a one-sided fondness.

Her hand drifted to the necklace around her throat.

Maybe the isolation that ailed her, and the immersive pull of those memories, were two sides of the same coin.

She realized in that moment that the very heart she clung to for comfort was likely the same thing that drew her away from the rest of the world.

In a murky realization, she knew she’d need to release that heart, let the memories of him go back into the world.

That, perhaps, was the true solution, nested in her people’s warnings about healings, nested in Ryson’s own warnings against forging a connection with him.

The entire world had been shouting the solution to her, and she’d only just now been able to accept it.

She would never belong anywhere until she no longer felt she belonged with him.

Clea rubbed her face, whispering to herself, “You certainly created a mess to get here.” She really was stubborn, and for a healer, surprisingly destructive.

She was never going to see Ryson again, right? It’s not like he would show up one day, and she didn’t want him to. Maybe in more ways than she wanted to admit, this was about what her journey with him meant. She needed to accept it had ended.

She mumbled to herself, arguing again with the imaginary high council in her head before she at last rolled over to fall asleep.

???

She drifted in and out of slumber, waking up several hours later, hot and in need of more water.

She crawled out of bed in the dark with a much clearer head, only to hear Iris snoring on the couch as she grabbed a drink of water and wandered out to the air of the open porch.

She rested her arm over the railing as she drank and looked at the vastness of Ruedom.

It was beautiful at night, buildings stacked like lit honeycomb.

Loda would be dead quiet in such darkness, with only fiery lamplight on distinct corners and the silver cast of the moon.

She considered Iris’s offer to stay. It gave her some strange freedom to think that she could live here. Ruedom was truly safe, and life blossomed without fear of retribution or thought of imminent suffering.

She grinned, thinking of the night and taking another sip just as she smelled the vague whiff of smoke drifting from a lower abode.

“…if I can help it,” Idan said as he came out on the balcony below her. He was speaking with Merune.

Clea prepared to call down to him, but he continued speaking.