Page 10 of Grand Romantic Delusions and the Madness of Mirth, Part One

A nne hands me my phone on our mostly silent trek up to the castle.

The thankfully still-locked screen displays a single text above all the others from my friends and colleagues — as if my father can control technology with a mere thought, just as he can control matter and minds. He can’t, thankfully.

But he has texted me his summons to lunch.

I would have expected a signet-sealed note and some bored-out-of-their-mind staff messenger waiting by the doors to my suite.

Maybe he is capable of evolving.

Guilt swirls in my belly as I continue to ignore the other texts, all from friends who are still checking in with me despite the spotty interaction that’s all I’ve been able to manage over the past six months, in between bouts of utter silence.

I answered messages with thank-yous and other pleasant responses for a month or two after I lost Armin.

But then those friends— at least those who didn’t fall off— started asking for more. For more of me.

But I didn’t have any more to give.

At least I didn’t think I had more to give .

I gave a lot of myself to Rian last night.

A slow smile overtakes my face as I navigate the annoyingly steep stairs to the castle by Anne’s side, and the thought of Rian’s hands palming my ass filters through my —

Anne smirks in my direction. I don’t manage to wholly quash my own smile, but I do ignore the questioningly raised eyebrow she angles at me.

As a child … okay, well into my teens … I crumbled to confess under that look.

To the point that whenever we did anything questionable, Armin actively tried to keep me away from Anne.

My father’s chosen laughs under her breath.

My own breathing is ragged by the time we reach the top of the stairs, then cross the yard of the castle.

Anne leads me to the exact door I used to exit in the dead of night— even though it isn’t the direct route back to my rooms. I have no doubt that’s a deliberate choice.

She wants me to know she could have tracked me at any time, and that she didn’t.

There’s nothing nefarious in that. Just Anne making her own personal boundaries clear. Mostly, I think, because my father knows where I am every minute of every day that I’m anywhere near him. And even more so when the power of his claimed intersection point thrums under every one of my footsteps.

That power feels more subdued, less intrusive now. But that’s because of me, because I’m more in my skin, more content than I have been for months, rather than some seismic shift in the deep fount of essence itself.

Inside the castle, at the top of another set of stone stairs, Anne brushes her fingers across the back of my hand. “I’ll go to him while we wait for you.”

I nod, meeting her gaze for a brief moment of intense, forced eye contact — an intimacy among shifters .

“I can do this,” I say. And I realize I’m not wholly lying.

“I have no doubt. I never do with you, Euphrosyne.”

I sense something pointed in that statement— likely a mild rebuke aimed at Armin. But I ignore it.

Anne picks up her pace as she turns away, as if she can’t bear to be away from my father any longer.

I’m not necessarily being uncharitable in that thought. It’s just … I can’t imagine being loved and needed like that. Despite him not being all that outwardly demonstrative, I know my father loves his chosen. Perhaps just not quite as much as they love him.

My father is … less of a person, with personal needs and wants, than his chosen are. Even less than I am.

Than I was.

And now, I need to be more like him.

Armin didn’t ever completely articulate the notion, but he never wanted to be like our father either.

Or rather, he didn’t want to be more like him.

I have no doubt that something like that concern about turning into our father was riding Armin the day he all but threw himself off the side of a mountain …

and then … allowed? … himself to be swallowed, to be consumed by an avalanche.

I pause for a moment, right in the middle of the stone corridor, just to absorb that thought. To breathe through it. Accept it.

I start moving before I’ve fully succeeded at that, but the last thing I need — no, the last thing I want — is to invite back the devastating grief or the overwhelming anger that have each kept me practically immobile for almost six months.

I’m more than lightly sweating by the time I reach my rooms, which makes me more than a little peeved.

Because it forces me to shower when I want to hoard the ghostly imprints of Rian’s hands on my skin.

As if those lingering impressions might help get me through the painful and stilted conversation to come.

It won’t actually be a real conversation.

My father will methodically lay out his plan to find me the strongest chosen in the shortest timeline he can justify to himself.

But he’ll also be trying to determine the least amount of information he can share with whomever he plans to invite to participate in the matching … event. The matching … farce?

I have no idea why Bastian Wilhelm, hereditary emperor of the United European Nation, would bother to even give me a sense that I might have a say in any of it.

I know that Anne will attempt to soften the edges and guide him into more neutral territory.

The results will be the same either way, though.

I have absolutely no doubt that my father already has a list. He already knows what it will take for him to entice each name on that list to take on the burden of … well, me.

I dutifully shower, then dry and style my hair, applying the perfect amount of makeup to achieve a healthy complexion without adding ‘too much.’ Never anything even hinting at a defined line.

My French manicure still looks pristine, despite my repeated raking of Rian’s back.

My mage esthetician has a three-year waitlist, and my nails should be fucking essence-proof for what she charges.

Not that I ever see the bill. Not that I ever handle cash.

A fissure of my ever-present grief cracks open in my chest as I apply a clear layer of lip gloss. The tube clatters into the sink as I grab the edges of the marble counter, as I struggle to remember … climbing on top of Rian, sliding down on his —

More unwanted thoughts intrude, widening the fissure of soul-deep sorrow.

All the things I’ve ignored. All the despair I’ve allowed myself to wallow in while ignoring them. All the relationships I haven’t nurtured or fortified. All the charity work I haven’t overseen as closely as I should. And … and …

It’s been almost six months, and I still need to see to Armin’s personal assets and bills.

The things that don’t just automatically filter through to the main estate accountants and lawyers.

The horses, I was literally forced to care for.

But every other aspect of his personal life has just gone … fallow.

Or maybe it all just continues on as if he’s still here? Still breathing, still participating in his life?

It’s just … I need his laptop. And I haven’t managed … I’ll have to actually enter his apartments to get it.

“Stop it,” I whisper. As if I need to speak it aloud, to force myself to hear it aloud, to cut through the silence threatening to envelop me. Again.

It was never silent around Armin. Not ever truly silent.

There was … comfort … joy …

“Stop it, stop it.” I press my forehead to the counter, and the marble is cool, almost cold against my heated skin.

“You can live without him. You have been living without him. You get up every morning … well …” My words hitch.

“Almost every morning. And you can still feel … and love. Maybe never the same way again, but …”

I turn my cheek to the cool marble and recall Rian tearing me off Perseus’s back. I feel his hard hold on my arms, pressing me against the side of the stable … holding me there … anchoring me …

Maybe being unable to find that anchor within myself makes me weak, but I cling to the gift from the universe that the last hours with Rian had to have been.

I cling to it. And the grief loosens its hold on me.

I straighten, cap the lip gloss, and carefully put it back in its designated place in the drawer.

Then I triple-check my reflection. Moving quickly now, I pull together the most neutral outfit I can from among the clothing hanging in the closet.

None of this space feels as though it belongs to me— including the fact that I can’t remember buying any of the clothing here. Nor do I particularly like any of it.

I choose a soft beige cashmere cardigan, layering it over a matching high-necked sleeveless thin sweater. Then I tug on a wool skirt that restricts my stride to ladylike … no, princess-like … steps. Plus nude kitten heels.

I don’t bother looking in the mirror again. I already know that my hair is too dark for this shade of pinky beige, and that my skin tone will therefore be too pale, bordering on wan.

Perfectly pretty, but not beautiful.

Put together, but not vital or vibrant.

That’s who I’m supposed to be. That’s my role to fill for the family. Or at least it has been my role.

I keep my vintage sunglasses in hand, along with my phone, in the hopes I can disappear behind both at some point.

I cross to the writing desk in the living area of the suite to grab my delicate platinum watch, the single strand of creamy-white antique heirloom pearls I’m never without for more formal occasions or public appearances, and the slightly too large, slightly too ostentatious emerald platinum ring that Armin bought for my twenty-first birthday.