Chapter Thirty-Six

C HAPTER T HIRTY-SIX

I’m poked and prodded as Leira and Aelle fit me into Sarilyn’s gown. Aelle works the laces at the back as Leira fluffs out the bottom of the silk skirt.

Tibith is on one of the settees watching, while Freya is behind me, pinning all my hair up with pins and pearls, which I had told her not to. I didn’t want the three of them to treat me like they were my maids, but they were just as headstrong as me.

‘Well, you look like you can’t breathe.’ Iker chuckles, barging into the dressing chamber with Illias, Idris and Link behind him.

I cut him a glare, holding on to the ornate dresser as if my life depended on it.

‘I can still fight you in this,’ I warn him, and his palms fly up in defence.

‘Don’t listen to him, Nara,’ Freya laughs. ‘He’s just upset that Tibith ate his breakfast this morning.’

I laugh, but it sounds like a wheeze as I try to control my breathing. Idris, for once, smiles as Illias bursts out into raucous laughter alongside a giggling Tibith.

‘It was delicious bread, Mrs Nara!’ Tibith kicks his little feet as my brothers settle beside him on the settee. ‘I couldn’t help it! Darry told me that any bread I see will always be mine!’

‘Perhaps you should tell that husband of yours that bread is meant for sharing.’ Iker looks at me pointedly.

Idris grumbles something under his breath, frowning as he shifts his big frame against the cushioned seats. A twinge of regret plucks at my heart, knowing how devastated my brothers were to find out Darius and I had married in secret. Most of all, Idris. Like most families, they wished to have witnessed their youngest sister marry without the fear of certain death.

They didn’t disapprove of Darius; they admired him, in fact. After the fight at the arena, Darius was there to make sure they got everything they needed, but that didn’t stop them from being their usual overprotective brothers, always wanting to talk with him in private.

‘Oh, how I remember the first year of marriage,’ Aelle says wistfully, giving Leira a sideways glance as she turns me to face them.

Leira chuckles, fixing my cleavage. ‘It is still that way.’

‘I would rather not think of my sister in a marriage at all,’ Idris mutters, and I don’t think he intended for all of us to hear, yet we did.

Freya chuckles lightly, waltzing over to me in her usual beloved purple attire. She holds a circular silver piece of jewellery shaped like a sleeping dragon in her hands. It is the same one I was looking at earlier today.

‘I thought this would be fitting,’ she says, rising on her tiptoes as she places it around my neck.

I touch the carved scales that rest above my collarbones, and both Aelle and Leira move out of the way to reveal the mirror at the end of the room. I look so small from this angle. The dress, however, almost seems to swallow me up with its thick layers of gold.

‘Show them you’re the queen of dragons.’ Freya squeezes my upper arms with a grin as she admires me in the mirror.

I tilt my head to look at her. ‘You know I am not.’

She gives me a look resembling Leira’s expression whenever she tells someone off. The same dark brows furrow as she pouts. ‘Fine, then, the queen of all creatures.’ She is back to grinning. ‘ Solaris .’

The contents inside my stomach jump with a nervous thrill. In many ways, it still feels wrong to be called that when I am not the true Solaris. I am only part of her, a reincarnation, yes, a vessel, of course, but not a deity to be worshipped.

I glance back at the mirror, thoughtfully tracing my fingertips over the dragon necklace. Below it, Darius’s coin still rests upon my skin. I smile. ‘I like the sound of being queen of all creatures.’

‘Once a Trapper, now a keeper,’ Illias comments, strutting over with Link clinging to his arm and my other two brothers right behind. ‘You look stunning, Nara.’

I smile, clutching his hand in mine and giving it a slight pinch.

Idris’s gaze then lingers on Freya, his stoic expression not matching his words as he says, ‘That gown is very nice on you, Freya.’

She smiles like she didn’t expect him to say that. ‘Thank you.’

Idris nods, his eyes flitting elsewhere while Freya unabashedly continues staring at him.

On any other occasion, I would smile proudly that Idris managed to say something other than a complaint, but then I see Iker’s despondent gaze beside him, and my heart feels for them both.

‘Right.’ Leira snaps her fingers, and Freya seems to jerk out of her trance as she turns to her. ‘We should head to where Darius must now be.’ She and Aelle try to usher my brothers and Tibith out, but Idris is a mass of unmovable walls. After a moment, she gives up and shakes her head. ‘Don’t take too long.’ She points at him as everyone else leaves. ‘I mean it.’

I chuckle, watching as she slowly closes the door, and I turn to my brother. A frown splits my forehead as his eyes roam my poised hairstyle and lightly dusted cheeks. ‘What is it?’

He shakes his head. ‘It’s just that the first time I visited you here in the city, I thought you looked so different. A Venator in training, your fighting garments, the friends you’d made . . . But I was wrong.’

I don’t know what to say. A lot has changed since I stepped foot in this city, and I can’t tell if Idris hates that or is just learning to accept it as we go along.

‘I mean,’ he says, ‘you are still you, just . . . grown up.’

Ah. Now I see.

The side of my lips quirks as I fight my own battle not to tear up. ‘I still love to carve – when I’m not fighting against my enemies, of course.’

He chuckles briefly with a nod. ‘And you still love strawberry pies. Even when I tell you that too much of it will upset your stomach.’

I gasp dramatically, swatting his arm as we begin laughing. It quells my nervous heart to see him content. It was always Idris’s job to make his siblings happy. He just never realised I was trying to do the same thing.

As our laughs fade, his expression softens into something melancholic. He glances at the ring on my finger and sighs. ‘I would have liked to walk you down the aisle, Nara.’

‘I know,’ I whisper. ‘Maybe one day, if the world is better and healed, we could do it all again.’

He nods, not looking me in the eye, as if he knows that might be too much of a far-fetched idea.

A lump bubbles inside my throat, and I try desperately to swallow it.

Idris kisses the top of my head, telling me he will see me in the throne room, and leaves.

I sigh, smoothing down my gown, and follow him shortly afterwards.

I’m near the throne room when I hear gentle footsteps behind me. I pause. So do they.

I slowly turn to find Ruvyn. His hands are behind his back as he rocks back and forth on his feet.

I huff out a laugh. ‘Ruvyn, I told you already. You don’t need to treat me any differently.’

After I wrote to Arlayna to make sure Ruvyn’s mother was safe, he decided to stay with me out of gratitude, respect and a keen desire to now serve me.

‘It’s hard not to, Lady Nara,’ Ruvyn murmurs, bowing his head as a soft strand of dark hair falls over his left eye.

I start to protest, but Lorcan appears from far down the hall.

‘Nara.’ He inclines his head before sliding his gaze at Ruvyn.

Ruvyn takes the hint that Lorcan wants to speak with me and retreats to the other side of the hallway, far out of hearing distance but not so far that he cannot see me.

‘Are you all prepared?’ Lorcan asks. He’s still wearing Aerian clothes.

‘Yes,’ I lie, and he believes it.

He nods, allowing an awkward spark to linger between us as if he is uncertain where to go from here.

I stare at him, like I always do, unsure of what to think. Since finding out that Hira was his real mother, he hasn’t spoken about it, and I wonder if it is because he feels that he cannot.

To this day, I still remember him telling me about the mother he thought was his. How she died in childbirth and never met her. Knowing it was Hira rather than someone else makes all the sense in the world.

They might not resemble one another in their looks. In fact, they couldn’t be more opposite in that aspect, but their phoenix side . . . they embodied one another through fire, and now they will never get that again – all because of Aurum.

‘We’ve made sure that the perimeter of the castle is guarded by shifters,’ he starts to say. ‘I know we do not have actual guards that can—’

‘Why are you here?’ I blurt out, shaking my head at my inept way of speaking to him. ‘I mean . . . after everything, you could have returned to Aeris, yet you chose to stay here with us.’

He releases a somewhat tiresome sigh. ‘The Aerian leaders weren’t all that impressed after I decided to come to rescue you,’ he says. ‘Instead of mourning Hira, I came here. I wanted to mend things with Darius, but . . .’

‘It’s proving more difficult than you thought,’ I say as he shrugs, pretending it doesn’t bother him when it does.

Darius is still coming to terms with who Gus was to him and the role he must step into now that Aurum or Sarilyn isn’t here.

‘He does need you,’ I tell Lorcan. ‘I think . . . he needs you more than anyone. It’s just that—’

‘He’s struggling.’

While I may have some insight into what happened during those three months Darius was with Aurum, the undeniable truth remains – I didn’t live it the way he did. He was breaking, and like the Galgr said, there is nothing to fix that, but there is a way to heal it, maybe with time or all of us here at his side.

‘I think it’s time we went in,’ Lorcan says.

I look back at Ruvyn, nodding, though it is hardly a nod in the first place, as my mind only thinks of Darius.

Lorcan walks past me and I turn to him before I can stop myself. ‘Lorcan?’ I call out. He jerks his head back to look at me. ‘Thank you for not leaving us behind. It means a lot to him. To us.’

A whisper of a smile flickers across his lips as he bows and walks towards the throne room.