10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

A private audience with the Queen of Reykr was not something Cyril expected on her second day at the palace.

Or ever, truthfully.

Even for all the unsettling warmth and kindness she showed at their arrival the previous afternoon, the queen had to be a busy woman with no shortage of people vying for her time.

And Cyril certainly had not expected the king himself to offer a personal escort to the Royal Archives to meet his wife.

He wanted to stretch his legs, apparently, after a morning confined to counsel, and Cyril wasn’t in a position to decline. Even if Bron had cut her a withering stare she was sure said, I told you not to go anywhere alone with anyone .

But if she couldn’t even trust the fucking king long enough to walk her in plain sight over to the archives, this trip was going to be an ordeal. So she took the risk and followed his lead out of the war room. Dion at least looked pleased with her decision when she took a final glance back.

Beside her, Lars walked in silence with his hands clasped behind his back. The picture of poise and rugged grace save for the flicker of wariness she spotted in his eyes. That made two of them.

“Does Dion usually assign such work to you? Research and the like?” Lars asked, as quiet as she was sure he could manage, once they were out of earshot of the offices.

“Usually, yes. He…” Cyril hesitated, lips parted. A fine line she had to walk, speaking honestly about her uncle to people whose loyalties seemed to lie with him. “He prefers I work more behind the scenes.”

“I see.” Lars nodded slowly.

He was thinking, she could tell, as he fell silent again. It wasn’t until they had ambled down a few more halls and up the half-flight of stairs to the atrium that he stopped and looked down at her.

He hesitated this time before he spoke.

“You’ve received… training at the guild?”

Cyril nodded.

“An extensive amount, in all areas.” He’d understand what that meant, hopefully.

Lars’ thoughtful hum and shake of his head spoke volumes.

“I can’t say I’ve always entirely understood your uncle.”

“That makes two of us.” Cyril forced a chuckle, and the king treated her to a wry smile and a huff of a laugh.

A sliver of common ground.

Lars guided her in silence for the rest of their walk until they reached a set of polished steel doors that Cyril vaguely remembered Runa pointing out during their whirlwind tour.

“You should find my wife somewhere inside.” Lars smiled and dipped his head. A show of acknowledgment she still wasn’t quite used to. “If you have any problems, the scribes will know where she is.”

He was already halfway down the hall—just a few strides for a man of his size—by the time she stopped staring at the doors and turned to thank him. She’d have to apologize for that later, lest he think her both lazy and rude.

As she extended her hand out towards the door—engraved with the same sort of winding pattern of whorls carved into the wooden doors of the palace, and a pair of birds in flight—the surrounding air surged with that sickly, dark feeling.

Her stomach lurched halfway up her throat and Cyril swore.

The steel groaned as the doors pulled in, and any irked thoughts Cyril had about the Kallan’s method of opening doors floated away like an ember in the wind.

She had underestimated the archives.

Immensely.

From the doorway, a rich royal blue carpet pulled her eyes right down the center of the room. A dozen or so worktables, each expansive and well-loved and dotted with chairs, ran the length of the carpet. They ended just before a modest sitting area set in front of a stained glass window that left Cyril awestruck.

She was walking straight towards it before she even realized.

It had to be twice as tall as she was, if not more, and almost that same width across, swooping up into a neat point at the very top.

At its bottom, jagged mountains were depicted in various shades of gray glass, with lush greenery filling the gaps between in rich bits of emerald and pine. Above the peaks, swathes of colors mingled. Sections of soft pinks and oranges and blues were all woven together, capped off with a crescent moon cut from pieces of a milky, opalescent glass.

A stunning depiction of dawn, Cyril realized, as she looked at how the light painted color over the cream fabric of the furniture placed in front of the window.

“That was a wedding gift from Lars. It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

Cyril bristled and cursed.

She’d been so busy gawking that she never noticed the queen herself standing beside her. Either the woman was deathly quiet, or Bron was going to be very disappointed with Cyril’s attention to her surroundings.

“I did not mean to startle you.” Runa smiled empathetically and rubbed Cyril’s arm.

“It’s alright, I—” Cyril loosed the breath held tight in her chest. “It’s more than beautiful. And this”—she gestured broadly at the room—“is amazing too. I’ve never seen anything like it...”

The Helia family archives, which also doubled as Dion’s office, had no shortage of bookcases and shelving, but none of them were two stories tall. Or had spiral staircases. Or greenery-shaped bits of ironwork trimming the railings of the open second floor.

They had one sliding ladder, she supposed.

“I’m quite fond of it here, I’ll admit.” Runa glanced around the room, beaming at the few people dotted along the workbenches, their noses buried in tomes.

She turned back to Cyril as she said, “Did Lars say why I wanted to see you?”

Cyril shook her head.

“Ah, well, no matter. My motives are entirely selfish,” Runa said with a bit of a chuckle. “I have something I wanted to show you, and hoped you might join me for a bit of a walk in the gardens after. The clouds finally broke, and it is lovely outside.”

Even with the bit of discomfort that bubbled up in her, Cyril nodded and offered the queen a smile she hoped came across as eager.

“I’d like that.”

Another tenet of the guild—unsolicited gestures of kindness always have a price.

Where the main chamber of the archives was grand and spectacular, the private room housing the royal family’s records was surprisingly quaint.

One small work table with a handful of chairs and a set of plush armchairs occupied the center of the room, flanked by various cases and cabinets along the length of the walls.

Fae lights provided the only source of light in the room, the warm, swirling orbs dotted in carefully placed clusters on the ceiling. Cyril had only seen them a few times before, at some rather lavish parties back in the city, and it was equal parts fascinating and odd to see them used in such a mundane application.

Reykr’s frivolity knew no end.

Truthfully, she might have found a little enjoyment in it if the magic didn’t make her feel so damn sick.

While Cyril settled in at the table, Runa went to retrieve whatever it was she was so eager to show Cyril from behind the glass doors of a wall cabinet. She returned with a book bound in a plush, white leather, an intricate silver stitching fashioned like stars bordering its cover and spine.

The book was twenty-five years old, according to the date embroidered on the bottom.

Runa sat down with a bit of a huff and looked at Cyril. “Now, I am not sure if Dion explained much about…how we came to know each other?”

“Nothing, actually,” Cyril sighed. “Other than it was a long time ago.”

She couldn’t help the fledgling kernel of hope that flickered to life in her at the prospect that maybe, just maybe, the Queen of Reykr would finally be the person to paint a bit of color into her uncle’s history.

That hope died quickly.

“Ah, well,”—Runa gave her a small, empathetic smile—“his story to tell, not mine.”

Cyril scoffed at that.

“Dion is not fond of telling anyone stories.”

“He has his reasons, I’m sure. We all have things we’d prefer to keep beneath the surface.”

The queen slid her hand over the surface of the book, sighing softly.

It was only then that Cyril realized her severe lack of observation skills. The queen’s hands were tattooed , and heavily at that. Combinations of dots and lines and little symbols she did not recognize sat like ornaments on her fingers and the backs of her hands. They looked like they wrapped around her palms too.

“What I can tell you, though,” Runa continued, “is that through your uncle I had the immense pleasure of meeting both your mother and your father.”

Cyril blinked at the queen. “You—”

A knot took hold of her stomach, and it wasn’t entirely from the two meals she already missed.

“My parents?” she said with a rasp in her voice.

Convenient, for Dion to never mention that.

Runa nodded eagerly.

“They came with Dion at least a few dozen times over the years. One of the last times I saw them was when they came for my and Lars’ wedding anniversary.”

There was some sort of fond recollection in Runa’s eyes as she flipped open the cover of the book. Oblivious to the discomfort churning its way through every fiber of Cyril’s body.

This was not part of the deal, and Dion fucking knew that.

Cyril had a right to know what the hell was waiting for her here—a right to know that she might get fucking cornered about her gods damned parents.

But no.

Of course.

Why would the self-centered Lord Rhodea ever—

“It was a bit of a milestone anniversary, you see, though I’d prefer not to share which one to preserve a bit of my dignity.” Runa chuckled, and a smile forced itself across Cyril’s lips.

“That’s alright,” Cyril replied, as casually as she could muster. Her knuckles had blanched from how tightly she clasped her sweating hands in her lap.

“We had a wonderful party with guests from all over, and it was Lars’ idea to do this guest book.” The queen looked at her a bit hesitantly. “I…I wasn’t sure if you had ever seen any of your mother’s handwriting. Dion said—”

“There was a fire,” Cyril said hoarsely. “I’ve never…”

“He said as much.”

Had Dion told the queen everything, though?

How a few months after Cyril’s birth and her mother’s death, her father was so lost in his grief that he went back to their home on the edge of the Rhodea estate and burned it to the ground?

How, because of a single, selfish act of a cowardly man, Cyril’s mother was as good as a myth to her? There were no paintings or letters, no books or clothes or belongings. He wiped every trace of her mother from existence.

Had Dion also told the queen that he never had the balls to tell Cyril any of that himself? That he let her find it all out second-hand when she was old enough to ask questions? She doubted that.

Runa turned back to the book and started flipping through page after page of scrawled well-wishes. She finally landed on one, a couple of neatly written sentences, and slid the book over to Cyril.

“That is why I thought you might like to see this .”

But Cyril didn’t want to look.

She wanted to push back from this stupid table and book and leave.

But Runa watched her, her eyes brimming with such softness and warmth that Cyril panicked and let her gaze flicker up to the book.

The first glance at a beautifully signed Malia & Hector Rhodea had her swallowing thickly. Bile burned at the back of her throat, her chest already tight and aching.

Above that signature, Cyril got through “And even on the hardest days, remember that your love — ” before she had to take a slow breath to ground the nausea surging through her.

If Runa noticed, she gave no indication.

Not as she eased up from the table and ambled over to another cabinet at the far wall, rummaging through it with a sort of lightness that bordered on offensive.

“Understandably, your father preferred the company of Lars and Dion, so I admit I did not know him as well as I would’ve liked,” Runa said as she plucked out a leather sleeve and made her way back to the table, “but I spent plenty of time with your mother, and we wrote to each other often between their visits.”

Lithe tattooed fingers pulled out a stack of letters from within and spread them out in front of her. Cyril recognized the stationery right away, the same cream-colored parchment stamped with the family crest that they kept at the estate house.

It did nothing to help the unease clawing its way up her spine.

“I tend to keep things, the sentimental old fool that I am, but I’m especially glad that I kept these.” Runa gave the letters a thoughtful glance and picked up the fourth from last, holding it in front of Cyril. She took it cautiously. “This one in particular, I…well, truthfully, I wasn’t sure if I would ever meet you, but I always hoped you would see it someday.”

Even for the broad smile she wore, Cyril could see a flicker of sadness in the queen’s eyes.

For another moment she shoved down that budding urge to run, to get as far away from this room and this woman and these feelings as possible, and she let her gaze drop to the paper in her hands.

My dear Runa,

It is with overwhelming joy that I write you this letter.

After so many years of hoping, Hector and I are expecting our first child this fall. My sudden penchant for sweets and terrible sickness in the mornings means we are having a girl, or so the midwife said. I will be overjoyed if that is true.

I’ve convinced Hector to visit a seer in the city with me before I’m too round to travel. Perhaps they too will tell me I carry a daughter, and that she will grow to be a formidable force of nature.

My only disappointment is that I won’t be able to make the trip to see you for the foreseeable future. We had intended to visit this year, but that will have to wait. I will hold on to the hope that our next reunion will be a joyous one…

The letter continued for another few paragraphs, but Cyril had to set it down. Her hands were shaking and her vision blurred, and this was something she no longer wanted to be a part of.

Every bit of fond recollection Runa watched with fell from her face.

“I…I hoped it might bring you some joy to see—” Runa reached for her hand, but Cyril wanted nothing to do with that. “Oh, Cyril , I never meant to upset you.”

Cyril straightened in her chair, wiping at her face with her sleeve. Another slow, deep breath and she could pull herself together enough to get the fuck out of here. “I’m just not feeling very well. I missed breakfast and lunch, and the briefing was a lot to take in…”

She was rambling a bit, she knew, but it served its purpose.

Runa eased away, putting a healthy measure of distance between them. Her silver-blue eyes were full of so much sadness, but Cyril couldn’t find it in her to care.

“Of course. We can visit the gardens another day.”

Cyril nodded, every bit of her focus tethered on getting out of her chair and the steps she took towards the door.

She paused at the threshold.

“If it means anything, I…I’m sorry that I’m here and she isn’t.”

Runa’s eyes went wide and Cyril walked out of the room.