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Four

CIANA

H is body shook as he buried his face in my shoulder. Kurai was suffering, and all I could do was hug him.

“There, there…” I whispered, stroking his wide, muscular back. “It’ll be okay, darling. Everything will be okay.”

Shadow fae might lack the ability to feel pleasure, but they clearly weren’t insensitive.

My life story touched Kurai, but I sensed there was more to it.

Something in my past must’ve resonated with him on a deeper level than mere sympathy.

He was hurting, falling apart in my arms, and I held him.

I’d hold him for as long as he needed me.

With a deeper, stronger breath, he straightened and met my eyes.

“Thank you.” His otherworldly, emerald-green eyes brimmed with unshed tears that made them shine like precious gemstones.

“You’re very welcome.” I smiled. “Thank you for listening when I really needed someone to talk to. And I’m glad I was here when you needed a shoulder to lean on.”

He breathed deeply, running a hand over his hair .

“I’m not sure what came over me,” he muttered. “I don’t ever hug.”

“Well, that’s a shame. Because there is not a thing in life that can’t be made better by a warm, friendly hug.”

He peered at me from under a strand of coal-black hair that had made its way out of his hair tie. “How old are you, Ciana?”

“I’m twenty-two.”

“So young. I’m more than four times older than you. Tell me, how did I not know that about hugs?”

“I always knew it, silly, and age has nothing to do with it. Didn’t your mom hug you?”

Pain sliced through his handsome features, and I knew that my words must’ve touched something raw inside him.

“I…I should go.” He gathered his long legs under him and got up.

“Um…already?” I jumped up too.

He paused. Tentatively, as if trying to touch another person for the first time, he placed his hand on my shoulder.

“I’m not running away from you, Ciana. I will see you again.”

“Will you? Tomorrow?” I asked, perfectly aware how needy I sounded. But I did need him.

Kurai’s company gave me some sense of normalcy. The humans in the sarai still seemed overwhelmed by what had happened to all of us. Their anxiety exacerbated mine, but Kurai’s presence calmed me.

“Come have dinner with me tomorrow,” I invited.

“I don’t eat dinner. We usually only have one meal at midnight.”

“It’s pasta tomorrow,” I said quickly. “Spaghetti, they say. I haven’t cooked pasta since that day when…” I swallowed hard at the phantom sensation of Dylan’s rough hand in my hair when he shoved my face into the pot. “Since…” I couldn’t finish the sentence. The words refused to form.

Keeping his hand on my shoulder, Kurai moved his thumb along my skin in a soothing caress .

“I’ll have dinner with you,” he promised.

That one simple sentence somehow made breathing easier for me.

“You will? I used to love spaghetti before, you know…” I waved a hand in the air, unable to voice it. Or maybe I was just unwilling to mention Dylan’s name again. I never wanted to say his name out loud ever again.

Kurai moved his thumb again in that small but so very soothing circle.

“No need to remember bad memories too often. Once a night was enough for now,” he said in his deep, calming voice.

“Maybe you’ll help me create new memories that will override the old ones?” I smiled.

“We can certainly try.” His lips stretched to mimic my smile. It wasn’t perfect, but he tried, and I was so incredibly grateful to him for that effort.

KURAI

I couldn’t stay in my room that day, leaving it even before the sunset.

I’d been so careful at avoiding connecting my tendrils to Ciana.

Yet her leilathas proved unnecessary to convey the deep compassion this woman was capable of.

She’d long unwrapped her arms from around me, but the warmth of her hug still cradled my heart in comfort as I walked the crowded streets of Kalmena.

I needed to lose myself in the crowd to have its noise muffle the thoughts that screamed in my head.

My mother died the year after she had dropped me off at the temple.

The Master Guardian delivered the news somberly, along with his kind permission for me to connect to the Source of Joy for comfort any time I wished that night.

I assured him it wasn’t necessary, then I cried alone in my bed while the rest of the Joy Guardians prayed upstairs.

I mourned Mother, feeling angry that I did. For a century, I pretended her death didn’t affect me. I convinced myself that she’d been dead to me all along, from the moment she’d abandoned me and chose my stepfather over me.

Shreds of the memories I’d been trying to forget all this time swam to the surface now. Like pieces of a puzzle, they lined up into a grim picture of my early childhood.

My father died in a raid of desert dwellers. He was a farmer, trying to make ends meet while working day and night on a farm that demanded a lot and brought little.

My mother remarried soon after his death, probably because it proved impossible for her to keep the farm afloat on her own. But to me, it felt like a betrayal to my father’s memory back then.

The memories of my stepfather were all laced with pain and fear.

Shouldering my way through the crowd on the street leading to the city market, I tried to understand why a grown man would have such hatred for a child, especially in our society that generally treasured children.

Maybe he hated to share Mother’s attention with me. Maybe he had no patience to deal with the moods of the boy who was still grieving his father’s death. Maybe poverty made him resent giving up any morsel of food required to feed me.

Whatever the cause was for his hatred, he never missed the chance to make it clear how much he hated me. He beat me. He yelled at my mother to get me out of “his” house. And when she finally took me away, I believed she did so out of obedience to him and indifference to me.

“You’ll be safe here, Kurai.” The words that fell from her injured lips that night haunted me now.

As a grown man, I could now see the things I couldn’t or didn’t want to notice as a child.

Maybe Mother didn’t give me up in cold blood. Maybe she protected me the only way she knew how—by finding a safe place for me to live, grow, and thrive, away from the monster who tormented us both.

“He acted as if he wanted to kill me.” Ciana’s words pierced my heart like an arrow, making me stagger on my feet.

I never learned how my mother died. What if after ensuring my safety, she returned to live with the man who’d eventually turned into her murderer?

A sickening feeling rose from the pit of my stomach. I leaned against a column in the underground marketplace.

“Are you alright?” a sympathetic passerby asked.

“I’m fine,” I lied, fearing I would never be fine again.

The need to feel Ciana’s arms around me again became unconquerable. Without her embrace holding all my pieces at once, I had only shreds of my composure to keep it together.

Pushing away from the support column, I headed back to the palace.

I’d promised to meet Ciana for dinner, but I couldn’t wait until morning to see her. I hoped she wouldn’t mind if I showed up early, and I didn’t care about skipping my midnight meal for that.

As I approached the palace gates, however, a guard stopped me.

“The Council needs to speak with you, Joy Guardian,” she said, gesturing for me to follow her into the queen’s palace through the main hall, then down a wide staircase to the council meeting room.

Alarm spiked in me, but I calmed it down. Running would be stupid. There were plenty of guards all around the palace to stop me. There was no need to act guilty before I was even accused of anything.

Calming my worries, I tried to think what this meeting could be about. Questioning the guard wouldn’t help me, it wasn’t like the Council would provide her with an explanation of their orders. But whatever it was, I had to be ready for the worst .

If the true purpose of my being in the sarai had been discovered, I had a plan to execute immediately. Except that it didn’t sit well with me now. And I knew why—I couldn’t hurt Ciana.

The guard opened the door to the council meeting room for me.

“This way, Joy Guardian.” She bowed her head, letting me enter.

A thick rug covered almost the entire marble floor with plush cushions arranged in a circle in the middle. The six council members sat on the cushions by the light of the candles in pyramidal stands. The fire in two brass braziers also aided in illuminating the space.

With my arrival, the conversation in the room halted. The three men and three women councilors turned to face me.

“Greetings, Joy Guardian. Please join us.” the Head Councilor, Lady Uryami, gestured at the free cushion in their circle.

Her inviting me to sit with them like their equal was a good sign. It meant I was still a guest at the palace, not a prisoner or an accused.

With a respectful bow, I sat on the cushion, folded my legs under me, and adjusted my skirt over my knees.

“It’s an honor to be here, esteemed Royal Council,” I said, still wondering what it could be all about.

“We received a disturbing report, Joy Guardian Kurai,” the Head Councilor said with her brows pinched in a frown of concern.

“And we were wondering if you could possibly provide us with some clarification,” Councilor Terent added.

“I’m happy to assist with anything I can,” I assured them, taking in measured, even breaths to keep calm.

Lady Uryami steepled her fingers in front of her lavishly decorated chest armor. “We have been informed by a source closely connected with your temple that there may be plans to sabotage the opening of the second portal.”

Fuck .

We were so close. Less than three weeks were left before it was possible to open the second portal. But if our plans had been discovered, the Royal Council would likely make it impossible for us to break into the sarai and abduct the humans in order to transport them back into their world.