46. Forty-Six

Forty-Six

I woke to sunlight and open space.

I was alive.

I was not supposed to be alive.

Bile plunged up my throat and just as I swung my head over the bed, I vomited. There was no pain, my body felt— normal.

I sat up, looking around the chamber. Open archways led out onto a balcony looking over what seemed to be a castle. The white flowing curtains billowed in the subtle breeze as I took in the smell of fresh, untarnished air.

The curved mahogany door pushed open.

“Hyacinth,” Landers’s voice flowed to me on a quiet breeze. “When did you wake?”

“Just now,” my voice was hoarse.

All the screaming . . . all the screaming.

I snapped my gaze to him, pushing the blankets off of me as I scurried out of the bed, and he took quick steps toward me until I threw my hand up, demanding him to stop.

Stop.

Stop.

“Are you still in pain?” His eyes filled with fear as they scanned my body.

“Where is Ardan?” It was a dream. It had to be a dream.

Ardan was not dead.

He couldn’t be dead.

His face fell to a canvas of heavy shadows and down-turned lines at my question. The weight of grief etched into his features as he took another step toward me.

“Hyacinth,” he said my name slowly, like he was trying to calm an animal before it attacked.

“No. No—” I retreated a step, as if the physical distance could somehow undo the truth.

No.

The world tilted on its axis as the memory came crashing down like a physical blow; a merciless punch to the gut that left me gasping for air.

My heart didn’t just stop its beating—it shattered into a myriad of fragments scattering to the darkest corners of the void consuming me.

My knees buckled, and I found myself on the ground, but I did not feel the hardness beneath me, only the fracturing inside.

In a heartbeat Landers was pulling me into his arms, engulfing me in his strength and warmth.

His scent welcomed me back to him.

We had been here before—me shattering in his arms—breaking apart, bit by bit before his eyes.

He had taken the pain from me then. Siphoned it out of me until I was free, but I wouldn’t let him take it this time. This torment was mine.

Mine to feel every grain of misery—of suffering.

A second wave of agony rippled through me.

Ata.

Oh Gods, Ata.

I looked up at him through tears, gasping for the oxygen that had abandoned me.

“Ata.” A sob. “I need to see Ata.”

My body wasn’t big enough to hold this kind of anguish. There was no room left in me.

I had no more room.

A wail tore from the depths of my being. A raw, harrowing sound that seemed to echo the fracturing of my soul. “I have to tell her,” I cried, grasping the collar of his tunic as I buried my face into his chest. “It was the only thing he ever asked of me.” I panted between words. “I have to tell her.”

“I’ve got you,” Landers whispered into my curls, cradling me in his lap. “Let it out, Hyacinth. Let it out.” Another cry left my body at the sound of his words and I screamed into his chest. “I’m sorry. I am so, so sorry,” Landers chanted over and over between the splintering of my heart.

His hand caressed the back of my head; a touch meant to soothe, but I couldn’t feel the comfort.

His heart thundered steadily against my cheek, and his chest rose and fell in sync with each of my sobs.

The room spun around me—a dizzying swirl of colors and shapes, as the ground beneath seemed to sway. Every sound was muffled, every sight dimmed, except for the piercing clarity that I would never see my friend again.

In the days that followed, the weight of grief was a constant companion, manifesting itself through sleepless nights staring up at the ceiling. In the loss of appetite; the aimless wandering from corner to corner of my room, as if searching for something I could no longer find.

My mind replayed our last conversation, a loop of memories tinged with regret and longing. The sound of our laughter turned to echoes, and the future we had planned together crumbled into dust.

The breakdown was silent. A crumbling of the spirit that left me hollow. I moved through the days like a ghost—a shell of my former self—grappling with a reality I could not accept, and a loss I could not bear.

Landers came and went, never pushing me to speak.

Never pushing me to do anything other than exist through this. But today, as I slid out of the bathing room and saw him sitting at the large oak desk, pouring over texts and maps, I knew I had to speak.

I slipped past him through the archway leading from the bedroom to the sitting room. Pouring a cup of coffee from a kettle that ever seemed to empty, I leaned against the pillars that separated the open room to the veranda.

He turned in his seat, watching me with careful, caring eyes as I looked out over the mossy rolling hills.

“Where are we?” I asked quietly. My voice seemed foreign—hollow—but he smiled to himself at the sound of it.

“Nethkar, Locdragoon’s capital,” he said simply. Landers stood and walked toward me, mirroring my stance as he leaned on the pillar across from me.

“So it’s true then, you are a king.”

His jaw tightened at my words and his eyes followed mine over his kingdom before answering. “Yes.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I brought the coffee to my lips.

“Because when I am not here, I get just a moment to be me. I do not have to be the man the title demands of me.” He sighed.

And in some strange, distant way I understood that. I had felt it when I left the academy.

I nodded as I took another sip. “How am I alive?”

He hesitated, looking at me, not with judgment, but with fear that his words would bring on more suffering. “When you released that last surge of power, you healed yourself. By the time I tethered you here, the poison had left your system. It just . . . disappeared.”

I turned my head, finally meeting those beautiful, emerald eyes. I held his gaze for a long moment then closed my eyes and lifted my chin into the sun. A smiled played across my lips and I knew. I knew what he had done for me.

“I didn’t heal myself,” I said softly, slowly opening my eyes.

His gaze was still on me, waiting for me to tell him what I knew.

“It was Ardan.” Tears pricked at the corner of my eyes at the sound of his name. But they were not from grief. No, these were tears of love. Of gratitude. “When he . . . when he died, I felt his soul leave his body. Then my pain was gone and I felt him around me, holding me. I felt the calmness that he had always given, wash over me.” I wiped a straying tear from my chin.

Landers looked at me with a swell of emotions as I slid my gaze back over the balcony.

“Ata . . . is she okay?”

He ran a hand through his hair as he pushed off the spire and took a step into the open air. “She has refused to see anyone. We had to sedate her the first two nights here. She will not allow anyone into her rooms.”

I nodded in understanding. “Can I see her today?”

“Of course,” he said quietly, looking back at me over his shoulder.

“Calista and Cai . . . are they safe?”

“Yes, they stayed behind in Ithia. There is a healer there that is trying to help them remove their masks and heal the scarring from them. Once they are ready, I told them they have a home here.” Relief flooded through me. I had not had a chance to thank Calista for everything that she had done for me; for risking her life—her family’s life—to get me out.

“Can I write to them? I would like to thank them for everything.”

“Anything you want, Hyacinth, it’s yours.” The words felt heavy as he said them, like he was holding back an emotion he was afraid would pour out at any moment.

“And the dragon?” I asked quietly.

The corners of his lips lifted, but the smile did not reach his eyes. “She is here, waiting for you when you are ready to see her. Andrues is trying to mend the wounds she sustained in the pit. She won’t let anyone else near her.”

“What is her name?”

He turned back to me then, reaching to tuck a loose curl behind my ear. “Nithra. Her name is Nithra.”

Ata had not let me see her. I had waited for hours, sitting at her door, silently praying the lock would click and she would let me pull her into my arms. But she had left me there and I did not blame her.