22. Rain

Chapter 22

Rain

I didn't want to leave the garden.

I didn't want the moment to be truly over, and as soon as I walked into my rooms and faced Tempest and Char, it was. Not that I didn't want to see them. They were great.

Just . . . I was lost for what came next.

I was no teenager, to be swooning over the idea of being in love. I wasn't going to go around thinking I had a boyfriend, like I had for about ten seconds when I was fourteen.

Mother had disabused me of that notion all too quickly when she'd found out about the boy I'd kissed. She'd pulled his test results, decided he wasn't clever enough for me to date, and promptly given his mother a promotion...far in the north.

I'd never seen him again.

She can't do that to this one , Iri pointed out. Adair's a grownup. He makes his own decisions just like you do .

But I was already asking a lot of Adair, wanting him to be with me at all. His family had been vassals of the Gloombringer since before they'd been called Gloombringer—hundreds of years. I wasn't going to ask Adair to take on Oberon's displeasure and Mother's.

Besides, would she be unhappy? Adair was definitely intelligent enough for her. He had to be. He couldn't bear children, but Mother had never seen a problem with other means of having children, be it surrogacy or adoption. She was a pragmatist, always, and knew forcing me to marry a woman was never going to work.

She'd lamented how I followed my feelings too often, but I thought—hoped—that she understood by now that she wouldn't change me. At least not that way. I tried my best to be the son she wanted. I'd spent twenty-four years trying to mold myself into the person she demanded I be. But sometimes, I couldn't be that man.

"Wondered if you'd be out here," Tempest said from behind me.

I turned to face her, sighing.

"Kind of expected Adair Courtwright to be out here too, though." She looked around, like maybe he'd be hiding around the corner of the hedge if she turned fast enough.

"He went to bed." I turned and started walking toward the house. No reason to try to put it off further.

"Is he coming home with us?"

I turned and gave her a look. "It's been two days, Tempest."

"Well aware," she agreed. "But you haven't seen the looks you've been giving each other. And anyone at this castle who doesn't think he's leaving here with you, well...they must be dumb enough to think you'll stay here."

I stopped and considered that for a moment. Stay here? Gloombringer Castle was lovely enough, but it contained Oberon fucking Gloombringer, one of the most insufferable asses I'd ever met in my life. Oberon fucking Gloombringer, who Adair worked for. If we remained here, he'd continue to have power over Adair, and that wasn't just terrible, it was unacceptable.

I was never one to jump to violence, but if Oberon tried to hurt Adair in any way, I might be forced to kill him.

It's not a real choice , Iri told me. You can't become a Gloombringer. Not unless there's a future where I'm no longer part of the Moonstriker family .

I scowled. Bond Frost, then. I know you wish he were more flexible, but he's smart. He learns anything he puts his mind to .

Sim gave a nervous chime at the antagonistic tone of the conversation, and then did another thing I hadn't been aware they could do. They gave me a wholly fictional image, me and Adair on a boat in what looked like the South Sea, given the pale perfect shade of blue of the water.

Nope , Iri insisted. He has to stay Moonstriker. He's the Moonstriker. Unless he can cart me out of the tower, and I'm pretty fucking big to be carrying around. Not like you, little cousin .

Sim's chime in response was a little...sad, maybe? It sounded almost like they wanted that image to be real.

Frost , I started again, but Iri cut me off.

It's not a choice. I like you best, yes, and that makes me happy about us bonding, but I can't just choose whose song is right and you know it. I like your brother's song. It's...strange and discordant, but pretty. But it's not my song. I can't resonate with him .

She paused, both she and Sim silent, and Tempest too, beside me.

I'm sorry .

The strangest thing was that I thought she truly was sorry. She wasn't one for lying, but also, she understood the responsibility she represented, and she knew it was a burden.

I shook my head, sighing. No, this isn't on you. I'm just being irritated at my lack of choices. I'm not sorry I bonded with you. I...I like having you there. I like talking to you. Both of you. I know Adair and I were saying it's a lot, and it is, but I don't want to not have it .

"Everything all right?" Tempest asked after a moment, reaching ahead of us to hold the door open for me.

"It is," I agreed, then I stopped and turned to her, for some reason absolutely done with the secrets. "It's Iri. I'm talking to Iri."

She nodded. "I know."

I blinked at her for a moment, and she rolled her eyes.

"Rain, I've known you for almost twenty years. I know you. You bonded with her...what, ten years ago? You spent like a week moping in your room, and then two more where you couldn't look Frost or Ember in the eye. Like you'd taken something from them, and you couldn't tell them about it."

I scowled and looked away. "It wasn't a whole week. The first two days I was just woozy from blood loss."

She quirked a brow but didn't ask.

I sighed and dismissed that. "Does everyone know?"

"Not everyone." She cocked her head back and forth as we walked, considering. "I'd be surprised if Frost and Ember don't know. Frost is too smart not to know, and Ember...well, she'd be relieved. The last thing in the universe she wants is to be the Moonstriker. If she doesn't know, you should tell her."

Well? I asked Iri. You didn't want me to tell anyone, and I told Tempest. Am I in trouble ?

For a moment, there was silence. Then, hesitation.

Iri?

You're going to be mad at me.

I snorted, rolling my eyes. What for this time?

Iri made me wait another minute as Tempest and I took to the huge central staircase. Tempest watched me, but didn't say anything, clearly aware that I was having a conversation. Mother really had chosen her well.

I don't actually care , she finally said. I told you not to tell anyone because I needed you to be ready, not me. Not because it was a secret. And I guess...I guess you're ready?

She guessed . I groaned and let my head fall back, and Tempest reached out to steady me, raising an eyebrow at my frustration.

"Does Via talk in circles sometimes?" I asked her, referring to her own stone. I knew they spoke to her, if not terribly much.

She snorted at that. "They're a stone, Rain. Don't they all?" She stopped, in the middle of taking the step onto the landing. "Wait, Iri does too? Really?"

"Every time," I said, giving a shrug. "Every single time."

"Huh. You know, I think that makes me feel better about Via doing it." She shook it off and headed up toward our suite, smiling now. "So do we get to admit you're it? No more hiding?"

"I think it might be for the best for the summit." It had been weighing on me, the fact that to Oberon and Huxley, I was no more important than any vassal of their house. I wasn't even an heir, so what was the point of talking to me?

Tempest paused at my side, and I turned to look at her, only to realize that she hadn't stopped. Or well, she hadn't chosen to stop. She'd frozen, mid-stride, mouth open as though she were in the middle of speaking, looking at me and past me at once, because I'd moved but her gaze had not.

A blue flicker caught my eye and I spun to face an apparition behind me. A bright blue stone the size of a person's head, hovering in midair. But it wasn't hovering—it wasn't there at all.

She wasn't there.

Iri was back home in Moonstriker Tower, sitting on the onyx table where she always was, in the middle of the throne room on the top floor. Here, she looked translucent, like she was there but not quite, and while she sat at the same level as always, the table beneath her was missing.

"What the hell?"

" No ," she said, and for the first time ever, I could have sworn I heard her voice aloud and not just in my head.

"No?"

"You can't tell them. I don't...I don't know why, Rain. And I know that doesn't help. It's not logical. Your mother wouldn't listen to me if I told her this, but I know. You can't tell them you're the heir. Please."

I stared into her blue depths for a moment, then nodded. "Okay Iri. I trust you. If you tell me I can't, then I won't. But once we get home, this farce is over, okay? I'm done lying to everyone. Letting Frost and Ember go through the motions of trying to prove themselves to Mother when they don't need to."

"I agree. It's time. You're ready. Just...not here. Not now. Not with them."

Slowly, she faded out of my vision, and I realized I wasn't breathing.

Iri had used her own powers to stop time and speak to me. To stop me and warn me about...something she didn't know? After we'd just addressed her demanding I not tell anyone about our bond because she was testing me, part of me thought I should press this.

But no. She'd never appeared to me before. Never used her own powers like that. Something about it felt almost panicky to me, and I never wanted to make her feel like that. I never wanted to make anyone feel like that.

It was perhaps in some part that child I'd been, the one Mother had spoken of, who joked to distract the family from their arguments, but I didn't think it was only that.

I wasn't him anymore, wasn't ever going to be the distraction, the clown, again. I was going to be a family head, and I needed to act like it.

Iri was worried, and I wasn't going to disrespect that.

"What the hell?" Tempest asked, and I turned to find her looking back at me. "What just happened? You...moved."

"Nothing," I denied. "And I changed my mind. We aren't going to tell them. Not unless we absolutely have to."

She blinked at me in confusion for a moment but nodded.

"When we get home," I promised. "We'll deal with it then. For now, we continue as we planned before."

Tempest, bless her, just nodded again, taking the change in stride and moving right along. She was the best.

Now I just needed to figure out why I couldn't tell the people here the truth, preferably without doing so. Also, without starting a war. No problem at all.