Page 9 of Angel in Absentia (Light Locked #2)

Clea watched Yvan and Dae fight fiercely against the backdrop of budding green and a stark blue sky.

The day seemed so peaceful, even beyond the walls.

This field had a name: Dawn Field, named for how the sun rose just beyond it and caught it in a golden pink sheen.

It had come to represent new beginnings in the ashen wasteland where it was now an oasis.

The people of Loda saw their own story in that too.

Iris didn’t push her, always a patient listener, and Clea reflected on the peacefulness of the day and the stark contrast of the feelings inside her.

“I keep thinking about my family,” Clea said at last. “Not just Achor. Ever since I’ve gotten back, I think of everyone we lost over the campaign. I think of life before that. I think of my brothers and sisters, my mother.”

Iris looked off thoughtfully, perhaps thinking of her own losses. Everyone had them.

“Sometimes grief from a fresh loss reminds us of others,” Iris said.

Clea’s hand moved over her stomach as if she could reach the feeling. “I know grief,” she whispered, looking up at the green breaking through the ashen tree. “It doesn’t feel like grief. It’s not…anger or sadness or loss. It’s something…it’s…”

Not enough.

“Something else,” Clea whispered.

It was that phrase in a feeling, an ever-boiling cauldron of sensation in the pit of her stomach that grew with each passing day. Her body felt full of it, buzzing with it, recalling every loss she could commit to memory, and yet it didn’t feel like grief at all.

“I have to see my father at some point today. I’ve already waited much too long, and I don’t even know why,” Clea said.

“It’s because you’re avoiding discussion of the wedding,” Iris offered, though she wasn’t being presumptuous. She often freely suggested ideas and theories openly, perhaps a reflection of a mind that loved theorizing about history just the same.

“Idan is already on his way. He’s set to arrive tomorrow or the day after. Catagard told me this morning,” Clea said. “I’m to be married in six days. It’s going to happen the day after Victas Day, in full audience of the city.”

Iris lay down on her stomach, kicking her bare feet in the air as she watched Clea cast in the shade of the trees.

Iris basked in the sunlight, and Clea was eager to feel it, yet she knew that if her skin tanned, it would further expose the traces of her old illness, which never darkened quite the same as the rest of her skin.

“Victas Day,” Iris whispered. “Appropriate. They moved up the wedding so the day after we celebrate the Veilin heroes’ conquest over the Warlord of Shambelin, the cities of Ruedom and Loda will be united through both of you. Something tells me this was the plan all along.”

Clea laughed. “Oh, I guarantee it. I half believe my father let me escape to Virday just knowing I’d miraculously make it back as the Heart of Loda! His cunning is endless. I was barely useful to him then, but I sure am now.”

Silence settled. Clea closed her eyes, thinking the conversation had ended. She took in a breath and simply listened to the world around her, trying to find solace in it.

After a moment, Iris spoke, her voice soft. “Clea.” In the word, Clea sensed the vaguest caution, which was a rare sentiment for Iris.

Clea opened her eyes, moving her head to look over at her friend’s face, but Iris was looking off toward the woods.

“Yes?” Clea prodded after a moment.

“You,” Iris began, “what do you know about exchanging hearts?”

Clea closed her eyes again but felt a subtle jolt through her chest. She kept her hands folded on her stomach.

“What do you mean?” she asked, treading carefully and doing her best to act nonchalant.

Few knew that she carried the heart of a Venennin, much less an Insednian.

It would be a scandal powerful enough to break her image if anyone could prove it.

She knew Iris could be discreet, but the timeliness of the question alarmed her.

“Apparently, it can’t be forced. The heart is genuine, more genuine than we all are about our feelings, and so two people who exchange hearts have a special, lasting bond.

It can happen between friends, family, and even lovers, though I suppose the last would be rather potent.

Can you imagine? Trading hearts with someone who is also a lover?

I would imagine a bond like that might be so potent that it could be rather impossible to resist. Rare, but not impossible. Do you believe in things like that?”

Clea now eased up where she lay, trying to not look suspicious as she glanced at Iris carefully.

“What brought this up?” she asked, wondering if, during Clea’s own research of exchanging hearts, Iris had somehow caught on.

But no, Clea had been extremely discreet.

No one knew. No one needed to. Given enough time, the bond might just fade completely.

There was no real reason to share anything about it.

Iris looked away, seemingly nonchalant, but the woman was masterful at hiding her intentions, though Clea had always found them to be well-meaning.

Iris had been a courtesan of Ruedom in her earlier years, carefully learning how to dance through vagaries and present fronts.

It was often hard to tell if Iris was up to something because she always seemed to have the air of being up to something, even in her most innocent state.

“I received a letter the other day from a friend who had exchanged hearts in childhood with another friend. They grew up their entire lives side by side, sharing challenges and victories alongside each other as they both married around the same time, had children around the same time, and grew into old age reflecting back on their lives as their children grew old and their husbands died. People can be matched in body and mind, but to be matched by the heart, I just wonder what kind of experience that would be,” Iris said, and her eyes flickered down to Clea’s necklace and the golden hairpin attached to it.

She knows. The idea echoed through her like a gong.

If she knows, who else knows?

Clea swallowed, preparing her answer.

No. It could be a coincidence. How would she know? How could she possibly know?

“That’s one example,” Clea started, trying not to swallow, “but no one says they have to be long-lasting. I’m sure they can come and go. The heart is a fickle thing.”

Before Iris could reply, another voice washed across the clearing.

“I see you’re all enjoying yourselves,” it said, and everyone seemed to stop at once.

Dae dodged a blow and stepped away, leaving Yvan to stumble forward before they both turned. Clea stood up hurriedly, Iris rolling onto her back.

It was Catagard, standing with his arms folded in front of him between two burned trees and an old twisted forest totem of bent metal and glass from the war.

“Catagard?” Clea and Dae both said in unified surprise.

“You never leave the city,” Clea pointed out as she searched the clearing.

“Yes,” he said. “Well,” he started, dusting off invisible ash on his cloak, clearly uncomfortable. “I didn’t have much of a choice. Your Highness,” he added, directing his attention to Clea. “You are needed, and it was important I send for you personally.”

Strange , she thought, but she consented.

She nodded back to the others, turning and following Catagard. She wondered why he hadn’t just sent a scout and prepared to ask him, but he answered the question on his own.

“The castle is full of eyes and ears,” Catagard said.

“This is a private matter that I wanted to brief you on outside of the city. Something occurred in your absence. I’ve been waiting for you to get appropriately settled.

” His thin hands were still folded in front of him, and already a small man, he was dwarfed in comparison to the large ashen trees around them.

He took a strange path back, avoiding patches of Kalex settlements.

“While you were gone, a Venennin surrendered himself to us,” Catagard began, barely above a whisper.

“He’s claiming that he has a message for your ears alone.

He refuses to give us any other information, despite the best that our own interrogators could do.

You understand, we don’t want to expose you to any risk, but we’ve been interrogating him for weeks with no results. ”

“He asked to speak to me?” Clea asked in surprise.

“We too thought it was strange,” Catagard said, “especially considering he is a Venennin, and more so that he is a—” He paused as if the word got stuck in his throat. He looked around, at her, and then forward again, grimacing.

“A Belgearian?” Clea asked.

Catagard shook his head.

“Not a Virad or Ashana, of course, unless you—”

They’d wanted to keep the matter private.

“No, neither,” Catagard said, and then Clea knew the answer.

Insednian , she thought, and then shortly after arose that single name to which that word would always be tied: Ryson .