Skye
I’ve been in the southern Allied Kingdoms–mostly Moonrise–for a little over a week but haven’t faced my father yet. I anticipated that. I knew he’d be busy helping make arrangements for Isaac and Maddy with my grandpa Sydney. What I didn’t anticipate is this.
Ryatt stares at me from across the coffee table in the castle in Crescent Falls. He’s dressed in his usual black but looks like a modern man in a finely fitted black suit and tie compared to his cape and rugged dark ensembles I’m used to seeing him wear in Eastonia. He hasn’t blinked in what I’m sure is several minutes. His acute, quicksilver stare bores holes in my reserve, but I refuse to be the one to fold and start the conversation he wants to have.
After several days of travel on the royal train, forced to witness the epic fights between Fallon, Naomi, and Maeve, I could sit here in silence and play this game with him for hours.
Family members, both closely and distantly related, filter in and out of the room, but no one pays us any mind. I’m sure my dad will be arriving soon. He’s at the temple currently helping prepare for the public funeral taking place this evening.
The private affair for family and close friends is in an hour, here at the castle.
I fold my intertwined fingers over my kneecap and tilt my head while peering at my… great-great uncle? I’ve lost the lines of connection somewhere in the aether. It doesn’t matter, though. His genetics run deep and strong in Maeve’s line, with Sterling being an absolute spitting image of his great-grandfather to the point I often confuse the rare pictures of Ryatt in his early twenties with Sterling. Sterling, who is currently hovering in the archway that leads to the private drawing room on the second floor, watching our staring-contest with interest, isn’t a Shadowsynger–not like Aris and his sons, at least. Some shadow magic curls between his fingers, but it’s the fire in his mismatched eyes that has made me wonder what exactly he’ll be when he’s old enough to shift, which could be any day now if he’s an early wolf like a lot of the men in our family.
Still, he narrows his silver-blue eyes on Ryatt and then glances at me, arching a brow as the mind-link connects between us.
“Need assistance?” he asks.
I shake my head, and Ryatt turns his head, noticing Sterling lingering, and glares. He ducks out of the room and into the shadows without a second's hesitation.
Ryatt slowly looks back at me.
My phone buzzes in my purse, like it has been doing all morning, but I’ve been too busy with family to check. I missed a call from Alex last night, too, which is really throwing off my senses. Irritated, I lean back against the cushions and cross my arms beneath my chest. “Mind-link? Or should we do this out loud for everyone to hear?”
Ryatt rises, his voice booming through my head. “Follow me.”
“Fine,” I grumble out loud and collect my belongings. I follow him through the castle, which is absolutely buzzing with lifted conversation. The air is scented with rose petal tea–Maddy’s favorite, and no one but me and Ryatt is wearing black. That’s because Maddy specifically stated that when she died, she wanted it to be a party where people laughed, smiled, and hugged–not wailed and cried until their cheeks burned.
I suppose we get a pass as the black sheep–or wolves–of the family.
I nearly trip over three of Josie’s golden-haired children as they speed down a staircase leading to the fourth floor, not a single tear in sight.
Maddy would be delighted.
“This is Isaac’s worst nightmare,” Ryatt says, closing us into Ella’s old painting studio. Cobwebs hang heavy from the rafters, shimmering with dust, which glimmers in rays of sunlight peeking through cracks in the boarded-up windows, but my eyes light from within, turning the otherwise dark room into shades of deep violet and silver.
Ryatt takes in the room, running his fingertips over the ridge of a severely aged canvas, tucks his hands behind his back, and faces me. “How did you do it?”
I decide not to dance around the subject. “I cut his thread in the tapestry to match Maddy’s.”
“Was it that easy?”
“He was a very old man, Uncle Ryatt. You can imagine how thin the threads become when they’re no longer weaving and knitting into the… grand scheme of things. He wasn’t an active player in the Goddess’s game anymore.”
He searches my eyes for understanding, I presume. I’m sure the average person wouldn’t be able to even remotely understand what I just said, but he does, in his own way.
He’s Isaac’s age, but the Goddess isn’t done with him yet. I’m sure he can feel it, which is why I keep that to myself.
“He didn’t feel any pain,” I add, and Ryatt nods.
“I’m sure the pain of losing Maddy and living on without her would have been worse than death.”
“Then you understand why he asked me to do it? I wouldn’t have just killed him if it hadn’t been what he wanted.”
“I know.”
“Then why stand there and glare at me?”
“Because I’m trying to understand what makes you so different from your father, let alone the rest of our family.” He paces to what’s left of the windows, prodding the graying wood keeping the room dry and in darkness. “Blake is extraordinarily powerful, but you haven’t shown the same signs he did when he was young. Still, I’d be willing to bet that you’re closely aligned with his level of power.”
I shuffle from foot to foot. “If you’re wondering why Dad didn’t do what Isaac wanted, you’ll have to take that up with him.”
“I have.” Ryatt leans his shoulder on the wall and fixes me with a rather serious look. “And there’s something that needs to be discussed after the funeral.”
Unease skitters through me like the mice that now inhabit the room. “What do you mean?”
“It’s about your future and how that plays into what the mystics have seen since Isaac’s death.”
“What are you–”
“There you are!” Misty steps into the room, disrupting decades’ worth of dust in her wake. “You know the floorboards are thin enough to hear you walking around and murmuring? The kids are now convinced there’s a ghost up here.” I hold Ryatt’s gaze. Misty quiets, cutting herself off abruptly. “Am I interrupting something? Sarah’s about to start the funeral. Everyone’s gathering in the ballroom.” Ryatt’s nostrils flare, but he turns and leaves the room, his shoulders rigid with tension. Misty frowns after him but turns to me. “What happened?”
“I’m not sure,” I murmur, catching her eyes. Then, I bow my head and quickly step around her to join the family in saying goodbye.
After this, I can go back to Lunaria. I can continue on with my life and my research. I can pick up where I left off with Alex, and while sitting in a chair between my mother and Grammy Leona, watching Dad, who immediately picks me out of the crowd and gives me a withdrawn look that skitters up my spine and blooms into unease, I think about him. Alex. Not my grandparents. Not the slideshow of pictures being presented for close friends and family who gathered here today. Just him.
I wonder if we’ll have a chance to sip coffee in the morning together like the intimate picture of Maddy and Isaac, so young, with Maddy pregnant with my grandpa and great-uncle Ryan, her hand resting on her belly. But of course, we won’t. Alex doesn’t do coffee because he’s a vampire and drinks blood, and also when we had sex, he made it sound like–
“Skye?”
I blink, and the numerous chairs around me are totally empty. Voices drift from the garden, where early winter light spills through the grand doors leading to the perfectly manicured rose garden, where guests are now gathered.
Dad sits beside me while I straighten and look around. How long was I trapped in my head?
“Were you having a vision? I noticed you’re no longer wearing your bracelet.”
I blink several times to wet my eyes after so long spent staring off into space. “No, I wasn’t. I was just–I lost track of the moment. I’ve had a lot on my mind.”
Silence threatens to settle between us like we let it settle in the two weeks since their deaths, give or take a day or two. I’ve never gone this long without speaking to him since I was a child, and it feels strange and unnatural.
I’ve also never lied to my dad.
I have to start.
“I don’t think what you did was wrong,” he says, admitting defeat, which I know is hard for him. “I reacted the way I did because I worried about how you’d feel after the fact.”
“Why didn’t you do it? He asked you. I saw it. He showed me everything while Maddy was dying.”
“Because he’s my grandfather, and the idea of–” He bites down on his lip and turns his head to look at the small shadow edging into the ballroom. Mom gives him a tight, but knowing, smile, nodding at him discreetly to continue… like she knows he’s been walking on eggshells around this conversation.
I feel almost bad for her, given that she’s mates with the most stubborn man in the Allied Kingdoms, who also has an inability to express his emotions, and their daughter is exactly like him.
“I felt sad that they died, but I didn’t feel like what I did was unforgivable, if that’s what you’re worried about. I’ve been fine.”
I can feel him staring at me. I finally meet his eyes–identical to mine. Swirling with the same power.
“Has your….” He looks away, his cheek going a deep, rosy red. He clears his throat and looks like he wants to crawl out of his own skin when he asks weakly, “Has your boyfriend been supportive?”
“My boy–Dad!”
“It’s all anyone can talk about.”
“Who told you?”
“Misty caught a male scent on your clothes.” He grits his teeth like this is the most uncomfortable thing he’s ever had to do–and this man has been tortured, nearly killed several times, and essentially abandoned his family… twice.
But he knows nothing else because Fallon kept her word, like I knew she would.
“I’m twenty-eight years old, Dad.”
“I am aware.”
“I also don’t have a mate in my tether, which you know.”
He rolls his eyes to the ceiling. “It can easily be wrong.”
“You know that’s not true. Anyway, yes, I am seeing someone, and he’s… he’s a good man.” I cringe at the last word. Dad looks at me, scanning the pained expression taking ownership of my face. Before he can pick me apart, I go into as much detail as I possibly can about Alex. How he’s a scientist, a biologist, a paleomicrobiologist at that. What he’s studying currently and his research into the Goddess particle. I even tell Dad about how Alex thinks I’m made of it–the same exotic matter I’ve been chasing in the heavens, trying to map. But the more I say, the more I realize that… Dad will never meet Alex.
Because Alex can’t come to a place like this.
That truth sinks into me like an anchor, fixing me to the chair.
“Your mother and I look forward to meeting him,” he says, but it’s clear he’s not looking forward to the idea of any man being within five feet of me.
He’d be losing his shit if he knew what Alex is.
Which is why he never can.
But… I’d have to choose between them, wouldn’t I?
Not if I stayed in Lunaria forever. Not if Alex remained, somehow, tucked away somewhere safe where he’d never age while I turned into a wiry old woman that he had to push around in a wheelchair.
“Skye, you’re doing it again. What are you seeing?”
I think I might actually be having a vision now because my thoughts tangle, those screeching voices ripping through my head despite my attempts to keep them subdued. It’s so easy to stay in control when I’m with Alex or researching. My mind is a single track–not outside noise. But here? With hundreds of tethers now dancing in my line of sight and the tapestry fading into… white curtains lifted in a smooth breeze. Sunlight–so much of it. A bundle in my arms. A baby’s cry, and my mom’s hand squeezing mine.
The sound of ice crackling overwhelms what Mom whispers to me, and the vision fades before it even begins, turning to the violent blue of the deepest tunnels in Alex’s labs, and the sensors that… don’t work.
I gasp as the vision screams to a stop in a shatter of ice. Dad grabs my shoulders. I can feel his powers trying to press past the wards I’ve been trained to keep up since I was only a little girl.
“I have to go!” I shout, my voice trembling. I shove him off and let my powers rip through me like a rogue wave, praying I’m wrong.
I’m rarely ever wrong.