Page 36

Thea

T he ceremony was brief, wordless, and somber as a funeral. There were no speeches, no plans for the future, no wishes of prosperity for the new sovereign of the vampire world. There was only silence.

The whole event was already lost in the labyrinth of my memories. Their tall bodies and gemstone faces, their slit wrists, the blood in the bronze chalice, the sound of Hector’s throat swallowing, taking their essence into his body—all seemed like a scene I’d read in a book rather than something I’d lived. Had I really stood amongst these creatures? Had I really smelled the ripeness of their blood in the air?

The Valkhars left the Castle immediately after they gave Hector their oath, their exit as unremarkable and defeated as daunting and blustering had been their entrance. Then the Ravenors followed. Roan promised to visit us as soon as Tieran recovered. Tieran gave me a salve for my throat and apologized for the way he spoke to me that day. Dahlia and Alexandria asked if they could write to me sometime, and Collette and Espen pulled me aside and expressed their eternal gratitude for saving all of their lives.

I didn’t feel like a savior. I felt shattered into a million pieces, left here in the Castle with only the shell of the man I loved.

Days came and passed in a sepulchral daze. Hector hardly ate, rarely spoke, and almost never came to bed. Some nights, when I couldn’t sleep either, I would find him in his study, sitting in his old leather armchair that faced the window. He would stare out into the cold black void, expressionless and motionless as the dead, and when I would call his name, he would only mutter , “Go to bed, Thea,” without ever turning to meet my gaze.

His sadness paralyzed me. I didn’t know what else to do but stay here by his side as I, too, worked through my grief. The sky arched anew a dozen times above us, but in my mind I was still stuck in that ruined room with its vine manacles and spilled juniper, watching Arawn’s eyes rolling white.

I could be doing something as mundane as reading a book or brewing my breakfast tea, and suddenly this pressure would build deep in my chest, and I would have to crouch down, gasping, and cup my knees until the Castle would flicker a light or send a cool breeze, and I would be able to breathe again. I knew it was trying to remind me that it was still here, its profound wounds finally healing, and that if something as ancient and unyielding as the Castle could learn to move forward, then so could I.

Every day I burned the frayed edges of my seams so I would not unravel. But whenever my eyes met with Hector’s, I was filled with despair all over again.

He looked so… haunted. Permanently, irreversibly haunted.

I don’t think he wanted to take revenge on vampire kind, was the first thing he said to me after we were left alone. I think he wanted to take revenge on himself.

I was starting to fear that Hector was taking revenge on himself too for not being able to help Arawn. Until, one day, one unremarkable, ordinary day, life did what life did best. It moved on.

It was a cold, gloomy morning, the unrelieved horizon stretching infinitely over the Castle. I was sitting at the dressing table, getting myself ready for the day, when Hector came in to wash and dress. As he grabbed his boots, I asked him if he was going hunting, and he surprised me by revealing that he had a standing appointment with his solicitor in the city.

“I won’t be long,” he reassured me in that calm, soft-spoken tone he sometimes used when his mind was not entirely devoted to the conversation. “I should be back by dinner.”

“Shall I come with you?” I asked anxiously, watching him pull on his long, black coat.

“Only if you wish to see the city. I’m afraid the meeting with Rothbard will be horribly dull to you. I will stop by the post office on my way back, though. Your parents must be worried sick by now.” He turned briskly as if to say goodbye, but upon meeting my eyes, he paused, brows knitting. “Are you okay, Thea?”

My heart was an anchor at my feet. I wanted to stand up and go to him, but the distance seemed immeasurable. “I don’t know, Hector. Are we okay?”

He lowered his head, the blades of his cheekbones paling. “I’ve been terrible to you, I know. I can only hope you’ll find it in your heart to forgive me.”

I was empty of words. Each second seemed to pass with an eternal pause. Rain started drumming against the windowpane. I could hear the sound of each fat drop as if it were the blood in my veins. “I don’t want to lose you again,” I whispered.

Sunburst eyes shot up and met mine. I blinked and found him kneeling on the floor before me, his arms wrapping around my bent knees, his face pressing into the folds of my skirt. It pained me to see him like this, but I also felt relief just for breathing so close to him.

“You won’t lose me,” he said, his shoulders shaking as if his whole body was fighting back tears. “There is no force but Death that can take me away from you. And even him I promise to fight.”

Tremulously, I threaded my fingers through his hair. “I feel so far away from you.”

His head lifted. Tears flooded his eyes and trickled down his cheeks. In ten years, I’d never seen him cry like that. “I’m sorry,” he murmured, his voice like shattered glass. “You don’t know how sorry I am. I feel like I’m trying to fight a war I’ve already lost.”

I didn’t think he was apologizing to me anymore, and that was what hurt me the most—hurt me in channels of my heart that had remained intact even at the darkest of times. I had to watch him suffer and dwindle away day after day for something that had been completely out of his control.

“This life,” I ventured hesitantly, “we’re living it for the first time too. We’re bound not to understand everything, not to see everything.”

He was inconsolable. “I miss them so much, Thea,” he sobbed. “And Arawn… He was in so much pain, and I didn’t do anything… It was right in front of me, and I…”

Heart shattering, I stumbled in corners of my mind, searching for the words that could explain the individual loneliness that separated one living creature from another, which was a lot like sunlight splashed across a bright yellow expanse. Something that, to everyone watching from afar, was undetectable. A shadow barely there.

“Hector,” I said gently, “it is impossible to know the depth of someone’s sadness unless they wish to share it with you. And even then it’s hard work. Most times we fail to understand our own and end up hurting the people we love the most because of it.”

When his tears dried and his breath slowed, he leaned in, cupped my cheek, and pressed a kiss upon my lips, catching me in the soft warmth of his mouth. “Thea,” he exhaled. “I promise to always share my sadness with you.”

The feeling in my chest was bittersweet. A hopeful kind of melancholy. I closed my eyes, touched my forehead to his, and vowed, “I promise to always share my sadness with you.”

“Thank you,” he whispered.

“For what?”

“Saving my life. In every way a life can be saved.”

“You saved my life too, you know,” I said.

He sighed resignedly. “I’m pretty sure I’ve only ever brought you trouble.”

“Yes, but I became stronger for it.”

We were not absolved of grief. We were not giddy with happiness or drunk with love. But we were together. And right now that was more than enough.