Chapter 24

CHAPTER 24

Reid waited with hands gripping the wooden chair beneath him, hoping something had changed and that Amalie and Vaasa would join the members of the coven on stage by the end—some spectacular display of their growth in numbers. His wife had always been a fan of dramatic entrances and exits. Each second that ticked by was a testament to his composure.

The crimson curtains closed, and the Veragi witches disappeared upon the enormous theater’s stage.

Legs pulling him to stand, Reid turned to Mathjin. The advisor furrowed his brow as if he had the same question. Kosana, who stood at the entrance of their box, stepped forward with a familiar look in her eye. At her side, Esoti was all rigid muscle and concern. “Where is she?”

“She went with my mother,” Reid said as he stormed into the hallway and whipped his head around. Panic began to rise in him, but he denied it space, instead focusing on the more logical possibilities. Maybe she was waiting down the stairs; maybe they’d changed their mind about having his consort display such power. Maybe Amalie could not face Ton or the rest of Wrultho, and Vaasa had stayed with her. His mother would know.

Kosana and Esoti trailed him closely as they descended the stairs and walked around the back of the theater, not a guard flinching at their presence or their intrusion. Melisina shuffled out the back door, Romana and the rest of the coven close behind like a flock of birds. Panic started to bubble again as he watched his mother scan the gardens.

“Where is she?” Reid asked the moment they were in earshot.

“She went to find Amalie.” His mother plunged into the gardens. “Something is wrong. They should have been back by now.”

If she thought something was wrong, Reid knew better than to question it. His mother’s instincts had always been far better than his own—he’d learned to listen closely to them, even when he didn’t want to. “Scour the property and the sodality. Find her,” he said, voice cracking as he turned to Kosana and Esoti.

The latter was already in a sprint, having not waited for an instruction before going after Mireh’s consort.

After his consort.

“Reid, you may not want to hear this, but is it safe for you to be anywhere unguarded?” Mathjin asked as he walked up to Reid’s side, having emerged from the theater at the same time. “If something has happened to the consort and the heir of Veragi, perhaps it is best—”

“I did not ask for your input,” Reid snapped at him. Normally, Mathjin’s levelheaded frankness was something Reid depended on, but tonight he was in no mood for it.

Mathjin bowed his head and took a step back.

“Fuck,” Reid snarled beneath his breath as he trailed after his mother’s long robes. He knew more of the dangers Vaasa faced than anyone else. Fear curled in his muscles. “ Fuck .”

This terror was different from anything he had ever known.

Something was wrong. He didn’t know how he knew that, but he did. He knew it.

He sprinted to the main building and started with their room, eyes scanning the length of it. He noted the untouched dressers and armoire, the wooden door leading to the bathroom, still closed as he’d left it. Then he looked to the glass-enclosed patio and the white gardenias creating walls of their own. The starlight sprinkled upon the couch where he’d finally had her. Where he wasn’t such a fool that he’d missed her little omission.

She’d never promised him a lifetime.

He’d intended to change her mind.

“It seems you know something I do not,” his mother said from behind him.

Reid turned, meeting her stern eyes and feeling for a moment like a child. That same power that surrounded her and had made it impossible not to fear her at times threaded the air. He gritted his teeth. “Dominik… he will kill her. He plans to kill her.”

“Why?”

“Because Asteryan tradition proclaims that if he is dead, her husband is next in line for his throne. As long as we are married, she and I are the greatest threat to Dominik’s reign.”

Melisina Le Torneau was impossible to catch off guard. She had always held her composure better than any person Reid had known; every movement, every feeling, was controlled. Even in the wake of his father’s death, he had not seen her crumble. He’d resented her for it then, before he had known Vaasa and seen how her emotions ruled her. How they could destroy her.

So, when his mother’s face twitched, he felt the gravity of it as if the world had quaked.

“Does she know you plan to kill her only living relative and steal an entire nation?”

“Of course. It was her idea.”

“You’d better be telling the truth, Reid Cazden, or I will wring your neck.”

His father’s last name pounded against his chest, something his mother intended. A small reminder of the expectations his father had placed upon him, and that no matter how large he became, his mother was larger. He’d needed those reminders as a young boy. He no longer needed them. But there was a glimmer of something in his mother’s eyes he couldn’t ignore, and it lit the determination in him once again. The fear.

His mother loved Vaasa, too, and she would hold him accountable to protect her.

“If I don’t find her, I will burn all of Asterya to the ground,” Reid assured her as he swept past his mother’s dark robes and descended upon the High Temple of Dihrah.

“Kier!” He bellowed louder than the sound of his steps echoing off the stairs. His mother trailed closely behind.

He found the headman and Koen in the main foyer, eyes wide as they took in his rage. At the swirls of darkness coating the stairs.

He didn’t stop for condolences. “Lock this entire city down. I want the port armed and every inch of this building searched.”

“Reid—” Koen said.

Reid spun.

Lifting his spectacles with that calm demeanor of his, Koen nodded. “It already has been.”

Reid could not find her.

It was three hours past the stroke of midnight when he could hardly stand, eyes bleary as he dragged himself along the stacks of books to the table where he’d been told she first spent her time. He’d thought her foolish then not to change her location frequently; to return to the same table on this same floor was the smallest of mistakes she’d made. The one that had allowed him to find her.

Recently he told himself she’d done it on purpose. That she always did everything on purpose. There wasn’t a single move that wasn’t calculated or planned with some sort of goal in mind. He told himself she wanted to be found. That she’d been waiting for him, had been as hopelessly enthralled with him as he was with her after their wedding night, even if she wouldn’t say it out loud. Even if he’d bled quietly on that bed, wondering if the most curious thing in his existence had just slipped out the window.

He knew she hadn’t been waiting for him, not really, yet as he stood next to that table in the Library of Una, it was the only comfort he allowed.

His eyes scanned the stacks. Landed on the exact place she’d managed to pull a knife on him again, to the spot where he’d pushed her back against them just so he had a chance to beg her to come along.

He told himself she was still waiting for him. That she was hoping he would come and find her. Because otherwise, he might have to face the treacherous thought starting to form in the back of his mind.

What if Dominik hadn’t taken her at all?

What if he’d gotten too close, let his hopes get too high, and she’d run away, like he’d always thought she might?

Fists tightening, Reid darted toward the witch’s tower, where his mother and her coven were working. Through the iron gates and down the corridor, he discovered Leanan and Brielle hosting more than just his mother. At the large rectangular table were the high witches from every sodality, each gathered around and working together for perhaps the first time in living memory.

His mother’s voice floated across the room to him. “You are no good to anyone like this,” she said. “Go back to the High Temple, get a few hours of sleep.”

Suddenly his knees felt weak. Hot anger and sadness flooded behind his eyes and he choked it down, fingers curling into a fist. His mother eyed his movements. She separated herself from the rest of the witches and grabbed his elbow, leading him down the stairs.

“Zuheia magic takes time,” his mother told him. “They are trying to sense life, but this is a big city. It is difficult to narrow it down.”

Reid met her eyes, an unspoken concern lingering between them. Perhaps that sort of magic is contingent upon her still being alive. It was a thought he would never say aloud.

“She is my wife,” Reid finally said.

“And we will find her.”

“I am in love with her.”

His mother sighed softly, leaning back against the iron railing. “I know.”

“She’s going to leave anyway.”

“I know.”

His voice caught, but he forced out the traitorous words. “What if she already has?”

Silence.

Reid turned, a tear escaping the side of his eye as the lump in his throat tightened. “I want—” He stopped, swallowed. “I want what you and Father had.”

His mother’s face softened. Perhaps she thought of the love he had seen, one that wasn’t just true in the rose-colored memories of childhood. A love that was hard at times. A love that meant they chose each other over and over again. One that could look upon the nightmare of mortality and transcend the most brutal laws of nature. One that still existed now in the shadows of grief he saw cross his mother’s features. He knew now that just because she had not outwardly crumbled when they’d lost his father, it didn’t mean parts of her hadn’t chipped away.

He felt those very parts inside of himself now, appearing like eroded stones in the bends of the rivers.

“She has pulled you from a grief,” his mother whispered. “One I questioned would ever leave you.”

Those years after his father’s death were grim. He had not gotten to see Reid ascend to the foremanship or make any of the changes they had spoken about in the east. It was his father who had led him safely through those battlefields. Who had taught him that the most powerful fight was the one a person chose, not the one they fell into. Reid kept choosing the path forward. But no matter what ambition he chased or ladder he climbed, he was not fast enough to escape the past. He was not fast enough to avoid his grief. He’d dedicated every waking moment to this new dream, and Vaasa had come along and changed that.

He saw past the headmanship. Saw past those ten years.

And now he could not see past the hour.

Eyes closing as if she might crack, his mother took a deep breath. “She went for Amalie, and neither of them can be found. I have learned a lot about Vaasalisa, and one is her affection for that girl. She never, and I mean never , would have put Amalie in danger. If she is gone, it is not by choice, my son.”

Her words made his heartbeat quicken. Vaasa wasn’t the only one afraid of hope. “You believe they are together?”

“I believe it would take a force of nature to rip them apart.” His mother lay a nurturing hand upon his shoulder. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but if we can’t find her, you have a better chance at leveraging an army if you win the election. It is in your best interest to go tomorrow. To win. That is what you can do for her.”

Reid tapped his finger along the wooden shelf. “You mean to tell me that the councilors haven’t already gotten word that my wife is gone?” He shook his head. “I don’t know if I stand a chance at winning without her.”

“You knew weeks ago that you would win, regardless of her presence.”

After Marc had spontaneously arrived with Kenen and Galen. Reid had known then that he’d all but clinched the election—but that was the night she had established herself as necessary, perhaps not for the election, but for him.

“Somewhere along the way, I decided I didn’t want to,” he whispered.

Sadness coated his mother’s brown eyes, but she swallowed and nodded. A fierceness washed over her wise features; while he had inherited his father’s brown and gold coloring, it was his mother’s determination that he’d spend a lifetime developing. Shuffling forward with her robes dragging along the floor, she stopped on the staircase just long enough to look over her shoulder. “There is still one more thing that I haven’t tried.”

It was both a promise and a threat. One Reid wasn’t sure he could believe in.

But he had begged Vaasa to hope, so it was only right he do the same.