The two remaining Gods disappear into the ether shortly after, and Griffin, Kaia, and I ride back to Castle Tarva in total silence, leading Piers’s big roan horse behind us. I don’t know where Griffin’s thoughts are leading him, but I hope they’re far from mine. Even after everything that’s happened, and the Elpis stunner I still can’t quite wrap my head around, all I can think about is how his attraction and devotion to me are somehow not his choice. If the Gods hadn’t intervened, would he have looked at me twice? Would I still have been his first, his only choice?
Somehow, when Griffin would insist, low in my ear with a rasp in his voice, that I was made for him, I found that alluring, shiver-inducing, and safe. I reveled in it as much as I reveled in the feel of his big, sword-roughened hands skating up my bare ribs, and I started to crave those words like I craved his possessive touch.
Hearing that, in essence, he was made for me makes me feel like rocks are churning in my stomach. If the Gods had never given him his immunity to harmful magic with our common future in mind, an alteration that eventually brought him to Castle Sinta and then to me on that fateful day at the circus fair, would his heart and soul have carried him toward someone else?
With my thoughts still spinning in useless circles, we eventually sneak back into Castle Tarva—not an easy feat with so many people camped out around the royal residence. My feet drag, and exhaustion weighs me down, both physical and mental. All I want to do is stagger up to our room and then sit down on something that’s not a horse, but Griffin has to tell the others what happened, and for better or worse, I’m part of this family now and can’t avoid the painful parts.
We go to the great room first, finding Flynn, Kato, and Carver playing a game of cards. Jocasta sits near them, sewing, but Ianthe sits alone. She stares into the fire, not moving at all. Bellanca and her younger sister Lystra, the two Tarvan ex-princesses we appear to have kept along with the castle, are nowhere to be found.
Jocasta’s joy at seeing Kaia again quickly turns into tears and then into the far-off, vacant look of the emotionally overcome. Carver shuts down completely and goes for the wine before Griffin is even done relaying the day’s unhappy events. Prior to his near-death in the arena and watching his lost love wave him away from the Underworld rather than welcome him with open arms, I’d never seen Carver reach for a glass of wine, not even at a meal when his cup was always full. Now, he reaches for a drink far too often—and not only at mealtimes—and stares at people without seeing them at all.
Carver tilts the earthenware jug directly to his lips, and my heart aches even more. Griffin watches, too, and looks helpless. Maybe even afraid.
Guilt is a thousand daggers hitting me all at once. Without me in their lives, none of this would have happened. Carver would be laughing and joking instead of drinking his weight in wine. Piers would still be at home in the library, shuffling through scrolls, muttering about ancient history, and getting ink stains on his hands. Kaia and Griffin would never have been in danger today. No one would have lost a brother. Or a son.
Oh Gods. Nerissa and Anatole. Egeria. There are still parents to devastate. Another sister as well. We’ll have to go to them. Or send a message home. What do you write in that kind of letter? How is that even done?
I swallow past the tightness in my throat, watching Flynn and Kato quietly rage. The rest of Beta Team. My team. They weren’t particularly close to Piers, and their anger rather than grief reassures me that perhaps I’m not entirely to blame. Piers made his own decisions, after all. No one forced him to dig up ancient scrolls or to use a series of words no one should even remember now, let alone utter out loud. And no one forced him to sacrifice himself in the end, either.
Bleary-eyed, Jocasta watches Flynn pace back and forth across the room, his boots clomping. He’s agile and fast, but Flynn has never had a light stride.
“Stop.” Her voice is no more than a tear-thick whisper, but the big auburn-haired warrior halts mid-step. He sets his foot down quietly this time and then turns to her.
“I need air,” Jocasta says, looking right at him.
Without a word, Flynn goes to her. Jocasta takes his offered arm, and he leads her from the room. As far as I know, that was the easiest interaction they’ve had in years.
Kaia, who’s no dummy, looks straight at Kato, the man she secretly adores. Never one to ignore a lady in distress, Kato offers her his arm, and she takes it. I think she’s grown even taller since we’ve been away. Her dark head already reaches his chin, and she angles it toward him as they leave the room in the opposite direction from Jocasta and Flynn.
Watching them go, I can’t help a small frown. I hope Griffin never catches on to his fifteen-year-old sister’s obsession with his Adonis-like comrade in arms. For that matter, I hope Kato never catches on. He’d be forced to break Kaia’s young heart, and he’s far too soft on the inside to ever want to do that.
Ianthe is the only one who hasn’t said anything so far. As opposed to me, my younger sister doesn’t shift restlessly in her seat or try in vain to offer comforting words. She sits silently and observes. Ianthe never knew Piers, and I only reconnected with her recently myself. Underneath her rather stiff reserve, though, I wonder how fierce the storm is. As usual, her green eyes are shadowed, like she’s wondering where she fits in here—or if she fits in at all.
“Ianthe,” I call softly. “How good are you with a sword?”
She turns to me, her quiet strength an almost visible force around her. Or maybe a brittle barrier. “Better than you are.”
She would know. She saw me in the Agon Games. “Jocasta and Kaia will need distracting, and they like to train. They’ve been doing it for a while now. I’ve taught them to handle knives, but they’ve only just begun with swords.”
Ianthe nods. “It’s always helpful to hit things.”
Despite years of separation, my sister and I are strikingly alike. “So we understand each other?”
She stands. “I’ll plan a schedule for the next week. They’ll be too bruised, dirty, and exhausted to think.”
“Thank you.”
Ianthe nods. She leaves, and I close my eyes, still seeing her in my head. She’s me—younger and with different magic—but still so similar in so many ways that I don’t know if our likeness warms me in a peculiar, panging sort of way or scares the ever-living magic out of me. Even I know I’m reckless and extreme, and I think she’s even more so.