Page 22

Thea

H ow long could a single night last? As I opened my eyes to the same somber, thunderstruck sky, the answer seemed to be forever. The clock atop the mantel claimed I’d only slept for a handful of minutes, but in my exhausted, muddle-headed state it felt as though a lifetime had passed.

I had that peculiar dream again. Not last night’s nightmare but the sequence of seemingly arbitrary objects. The fashionable cravat. The curious silver vial. The vampire hunter’s sword. The image of them floated glowingly in the forefront of my consciousness; everything else was haze and shock.

I could not believe it. I got poisoned. Here. In the Castle.

I wasn’t very familiar with the workings of sentience, but I had seen the Castle act on its own volition plenty of times. So why had it not intervened before I drank the poison? I knew the Castle had its limits and could not see everything that was happening within its walls all at once. Perhaps it couldn’t have stopped it from being spiked in the first place, but it could have knocked the cup out of my hand or flared an odd light in my direction—something to indicate danger to me.

“Maybe this is all just a bad dream,” I mumbled to myself, lowering my heavy lashes.

Unfortunately, one could not wake up from reality, so with a resigned sigh, I opened my eyes again, threw my weight on my palms, and pushed myself to a sitting position. It was then I noticed that the roses on the windowsill had withered. In the flickering orange light of the fireplace, the rosebuds looked black and frail like balls of burned paper.

Was this Hector’s manifestation or the Castle’s? Was there a difference between the two at all?

Suddenly, the door banged open, and a gust of glacial wind whipped into the room, making the flames quiver upon the hearth, ash scattering across the rug.

In the eventful decade I’d known Hector, I’d seen him angry, betrayed, heartbroken, but I’d never, not once, seen him look so… murderous .

The door shut behind him with a resonant click, and our gazes collided like planets out of orbit. Something of his ruthless resolve seemed to falter. His face turned soft, his eyes shifting from rage-red to melancholy-grey.

My lips parted for words my mind had yet to conjure. Then, in a blink, Hector was kneeling on the floor next to the bed. His hand clutched mine, his forehead dropping on the small space next to my hip. “Forgive me,” he choked out. “This is all my fault.”

For a moment, I was too stunned to say or do anything but stare at the black sweeps of his hair as they spilled over the snow-white sheets. I was almost afraid to speak. I felt like anything above a whisper could break him. But as he raised his head again and looked at me with his brows pinched in agony, I could no longer stay still. I slipped to the edge of the bed so I could take his face between my palms. He followed the movement, his arms closing around my calves, his chin falling atop my bent knees, where the hem of my nightdress had gathered. I could feel the heat rising from his shoulders. In the mirror across the room, he looked like a supplicant kneeling before his priestess.

“Please forgive me,” he rasped again.

My fingers shook as I threaded them through his hair. “I asked to stay here, Hector. It was my choice alone.”

He shook his head, the motion nearly manic. “I shouldn’t have let you stay.”

I summoned a smile to my lips. I did not have the heart for smiles right now, but in his presence, I had the tenderness for it. “Very bold of you to presume you can tell me what I can and cannot do, Lord Aventine.”

His brows lowered, something of determination piercing through the wall of his sorrow. “I cannot lose you again. I won’t survive it this time.”

“You never lost me to begin with,” I said gently. “My heart was always with you. My heart is always, always with you.”

Slowly, like coming out of a dream, Hector blinked the tears from his eyes and got himself off the floor, pulling the covers over me in a manner that felt more dismissive than caring.

I pushed them away, launching to my feet with enough fury that a wave of dizziness washed over me. But there was no sickness in this world worse than a broken heart, and I could hear mine cracking already.

The words left me with a wounded gasp. “You don’t believe me, do you? Not anymore.”

I knew him so well, he didn’t have to say it. I could see it in his defensive gaze, his clenched jaw, his body that drew inward, steeling itself against me.

He had not forgiven me, I realized with a twinge of anger. Anger, for I, too, had struggled. I, too, had been abandoned and forced into an unrecognizable version of myself. Everybody always tells you how hard it is to be left behind, but no one ever tells you how devastating it is to be the one who has to leave.

I wiped tears from the corners of my eyes, shaking all over. “Do you even know me, Hector?”

“You did not just ask me that,” he hissed, his expression as severe as the roaring in my blood.

“Answer me!”

Fiercely, he seized me by the arms. “Is this a joke? Does it amuse you to pretend that you don’t know? Am I funny to you?”

His face fell in alignment with mine, making it impossible not to breathe the same air as him. Still, I could turn my face away. I could twist my arms out of his hold, and he would let me. Instead, I raised my chin, narrowing the space between us. “Know what?”

“If you came to me with a face I’ve never seen and a voice I’ve never heard, I would still know you,” he said. “I would know the sound of your heart, your footsteps on the stairs, the way your breath catches when you gaze at a sunset. I would know all the words that make you laugh and all the ones that make you cry. I would know your every secret agony, your every dark desire. To say that I don’t know you would be the same as saying that I don’t know myself.”

There was a hot ache in my throat. My voice sounded like air passing through reeds when I managed to reclaim it. “Then why did you forget me?”

“I never—”

“Yes, you did! Every day I went to the post office hoping for a word from you, to at least tell me where in the world you were so I could send you a letter. But you didn’t even grant me that. You just disappeared. I was scared and alone, and you weren’t there. You act now as if you care a great deal about me, but you abandoned me when I needed you the most. You never asked your parents about me. You didn’t even bother to learn if I got married. Honestly, Hector, I doubt I ever crossed your mind.”

“ Crossed my mind ?” he hissed, his eyes flashing. “Every day is a struggle to get you out of my head.”

“Then why didn’t you write to me?”

“I wrote to you! I wrote to you every day for four years!” he roared, pushing off me to rampage through the room.

He tore open every drawer and cabinet, throwing out heaps and heaps of notepapers. Some were sealed inside envelopes. Some were folded down the middle. Some were left open, their edges torn or creased. Letters. Hundreds of them twirled in the air like a whirlwind of lanterns before scattering all across the bed and floor in a cream-colored haze.

One of them got caught at the hem of my nightdress, and I stared at it numbly, breathlessly. My mind was blank, my thoughts displaced. I was nothing but pulse and sickened hope.

I barely felt my body move as I bent to take the fragile piece of paper between my fingers. Tremulously, I unfolded it. It had a faint floral scent and was cluttered with Hector’s neat calligraphy.

Thea , it read, Happy birthday!

I can’t believe we’re twenty already. Remember how a slow afternoon used to feel like a year? Now time flies by so fast it frightens me. Twenty always sounded very mature in my head, but here it is, and I still feel like a little kid. I have no idea what I’m doing or who I’m supposed to be. That’s why I’ve been traveling so much. I’m still trying to figure it out.

I haven’t seen my parents in a while. I know they visit you often, but they never tell me about you. They’re trying to force me to reach out, you see. ‘If you want to know what Thea is doing, then write to her. Go see her, for gods’ sake. Let your precious pride take a blow, for once,’ they keep grumbling every time I hear from them, which I’m sad to say is not very often, for I tend not to stay in one place for too long.

Anyway, I came to Kartha to watch the harvest moon like we always did. It’s huge this year and so orange it verges on red. I wish you could see it. I know this is your favorite festival of the year.

I’m staying at an inn in town, and the whole place smells of cardamom and woodsmoke, and from my window I can see the festival’s lanterns glow like tiny suns as they drift into the sky. Below, the trees are shedding their orange leaves. The nights have grown longer, too. Cozier. For some reason, autumn always reminds me of you.

Margaret says we should pack our bags, march into Thaloria, and steal you away. She’s here, of course. Arawn too. They didn’t want to leave me alone on my birthday, but, in truth, I feel more alone with them here. They’re so happy, so wonderfully in love, it’s like they’re in their own universe, speaking their own secret language. Do you remember how we used to be like that too? Not in love, obviously, but the way we would talk and talk for hours, and whenever someone asked about the words that passed between us, we were ever unable to articulate them.

Sometimes, I wonder, what do you talk about with him? Do you tell him about us? Do you tell him about me? I don’t think I could ever explain myself to someone without talking about you.

I should have cherished these moments more. I should have told you how I really felt. Now I’m terrified to know. What if I reach out and find out that you’re miserable? What if I find out that you’re happier than ever?

I’m the one who told you to go, but do you know what these words cost me?

I wish I were brave enough to tell you.

The stillness in my chest shattered. Now it was all activity and hum, like bees at spring’s bloom. I tried to form words, but it was impossible. The rushing in my throat was made of love too old and inward to express. “Hector… I…”

He shoved the hair from his forehead, releasing a tremendous breath. “I couldn’t send them. I couldn’t pretend. I couldn’t tell you that I was happy for you and Jasper. I couldn’t act as if I hadn’t spent every day of every year thinking of you, longing for you,” he said, his voice quieter now, beseeching. “From the moment we met, you’ve been haunting me. And I want you all the more for it.”

The very air turned electric. It hurt too much to take it in my lungs. Everything hurt. Because that longing, that infinite, all-consuming ache he talked about, I felt it too. My entire being was filled with waiting. I waited for the press of his body on mine. I waited for his hands in my hair. I waited for his kiss, for his lips to swallow the distance.

Finally, he backed me against the wall, his hands bracketing each side of my face. His chin tilted down, his mouth drawing nearer. Nearer. And just as I readied myself for his lips, his face caved into the crook of my neck. “What are you doing to me?” he murmured, his hot breath dampening the skin of my throat. “I came here to ask you to leave the Castle, and now I’m…” He pressed closer, his knee wedging between my thighs, stirring something unfamiliar inside me—dark, voluptuous, intoxicating. “I should be able to let you go, shouldn’t I? Love is supposed to be selfless. Perhaps Arawn is right. Perhaps this is obsession.”

There was more pain in these words than I could bear. I could not believe I’d spent four years thinking he had unlearned the shape of my soul, that this version of me was some kind of mystery to him. Nothing about me was new to him, for Hector had always known of the woman I would become. Time and time again he’d told me of her. And if this was not love, then I didn’t want to be loved. I just wanted to be his.

I wanted to tell him all of this, but I had already seen this moment happen, and the uncanny sense of repetition trapped me inside my mind. Earlier, in the drawing room, I’d seen myself expelling the poison from my body, and then I’d seen Hector pressing me up against this very wall, right before sinking his fangs into my neck.

“Do you want to bite me, Hector?” I asked, my pulse jumping between excitement and terror.

Slowly, he pulled himself straight, searching for my eyes. “I would never.”

“Do you want to?”

His tongue caught against his fangs as he exhaled, “Yes. But not for the reason you think.”

“You asked me earlier what I saw. I saw you bite me.”

A shadow of horror glazed over his face. He took a step away from me, steady and determined. “Then I will prove to you that destiny can be unwritten.”

“Hector—”

“No,” he snapped, his hand slashing the air. “For once, I will do the right thing. When dawn breaks, I’ll take you to the city.”

“Would you leave me alone with a potential murderer?”

“It’s not the same.”

I shook my head furiously. “Trust me when I say that worse things are going to happen if I leave.”

The sternness of his brow turned inexorable. “What do you mean?”

“I know you think you’re above destiny. You’re a proud man. You don’t like the idea of something or someone pulling at your strings. But my very magic is destiny. So many things could have gone wrong just on my way here, but it was as if I was guided by a divine hand. And I keep having this vision. At first, I thought it was a dream, but I’ve seen the objects twice already, and after tonight, I’m certain they’re pointing toward something or someone.”

“Objects?”

“A cravat. A silver vial. A hunter’s sword.”

“What kind of vial?”

“The kind that could contain poison.”

He looked at me, grim as death. “I gave the Ravenors until dusk to come forward.”

“And then?”

“Then I will kill whoever did this to you.”

I should not be so surprised. Still, my heart skipped like a stone on water. “I’m a human. This is a matter the king should settle. You will take them to the city so they can face trial.”

“They hurt you.”

“It was a drop of poison.”

“And it hurt you.”

I braved the small distance and pressed my hands against his stomach, my fingers curling into the fine silk of his vest. “Listen to me, Hector. Your devotion must lie with the society—”

“My devotion lies with my heart. I don’t know how else to be.”

“You will never forgive yourself if you do this,” I implored him, cupping the hard stone of his face. “You will never be able to wash the blood from your hands. It will follow you for the rest of your life. Do not risk your position over nothing. You can do so much good for vampirekind. Throwing away your mother’s legacy for revenge will not honor me. It will not bring you the freedom you think either. I know you’ve always wished to be rid of this responsibility, but believe me when I say that having a wish come true and being happy are two completely different things.”

He was silent for a moment, statue-still and expressionless.

When I tried to withdraw my hands, he slipped his own palms over them and held them in place. Turning his face, he touched his lips to the inside of my wrist for the second time since I came here.

“What was that for?” I whispered.

“For being my reason when I lose mine,” he said.

I smiled a little, relieved by my small victory. “Drink some blood and come to bed. The Valkhars are coming tomorrow. You can’t face them looking like this.”

But Hector slid away, agile as the wind. In a blink he was by the door.

A dark feeling spread inside my chest. “Where are you going?”

“I need to get some air,” he rasped, half of him gone already.

The night did not last forever after all. Morning came. The sun drove high, then higher still. He did not return. I did not know why I waited. Perhaps I could not find rest in the same world he was suffering. Perhaps it was the same old wounds we’d given each other that kept me awake, the ones we had yet to heal.

Either way, the sky arched with a fresh sheet of darkness by the time I was able to close my eyes again.