Page 169 of Between Despair and Hope

Nearly a week later, we woke to news of Lord Kennon’s passing overnight. He’d gone in his sleep—peaceful. Emma hadn’t been able to get any words out of him for several days before he died, but she’d stayed by his side the entire time. Mister Carson had been the one to knock, just after dawn, and I was careful not to rouse her as I rose to answer the door.

Crawling back into the bed, I had pulled her into my arms and gently woke her. When I told her the news, the first thing I felt was her relief, followed on swift wings by guilt. I’d done my best to reassure her how normal those feelings were for someone grieving a recent loss of a loved one, let alone someone with whom she shared a complicated history. I didn’t think it helped her much, but I also knew she’d have to muddle her way through it, as I had with my own father these recent weeks. Although, I surely hadn’t felt nearly as much guilt as she did.

When she asked me to handle the burial with Mister Carson, I didn’t hesitate to help her. She’d been by Kennon’s side for nearly two weeks, and I wanted her to rest—mentally and physically. If I could give that to her, I would.

Which was how I found myself with Mister Carson, standing in the lantern’s light in the Highclere family crypt. I hadn’t been down in it when they laid Lucia to rest, but I’d been outside it. Northeast of Ravemont, it was closer to Tuaman Cliffs than I remembered, just far west enough to be dug into the rolling hills which graced Eastern Vesta. The Highclere ancestors must have desired a nearness to the sea. I swore I could hear the waves crashing against the shore even from our distance away. There were a half-dozen different iron doors inset into the hills, and I remembered the vivid green grass which sat beneath the inches of snow. The last time I’d been here, it was early summer, a year after Lucia died. Dewalt had asked me to come along with him, and I couldn’t tell him no. Once he and Ven bonded though, it was her who went with him when he visited. At first, I wasn’t sure how Mister Carson kept them all straight, but as he explained which ancestor each crypt housed, it was clear the Highclere family just expanded in order each time. Pointing out the door farthest to the north, I’d only hesitated a second before following the man.

“It needs a bit of a dust-up, don’t you think?”

I grunted in assent as I leaned Kennon’s sword against the wall. Though the interior walls were the same limestone rock Ravemont was built from, the work was patchier, allowing dirt from the earth above to fall between cracks and flake to the ground.

“Cover your face,” I ordered, doing the same for myself with my cloak, and I coaxed a breeze down which carried much of the dust and debris along with it. A few stubborn cobwebs clung to the walls, but the exterior chamber appeared clean enough.

“There’s only three vaults in this crypt; theirs is the one on the right,” the butler explained as he used his lantern to light a torch he’d brought, placing it in a sconce.

Following the man’s instructions, I left the entryway, and I coaxed a tiny flame into my hand to light my path. A moment later, Mister Carson’s footsteps echoed behind me as I turned through the archway into the vault. I stopped short as I saw the four tombs resting on platforms within the room. Two rested in the center of the chamber, flanked by an aisle on either side, and then two more sat flush against each wall. There was room for more, but this vault had clearly been outfitted for Em’s immediate family. It made my fucking skin crawl. Crossing the threshold, I urged the flame in my hand to grow. It resisted, and I huffed in irritation. I wasn’t very good at it yet. The divine statuary at the back of the vault was in bad shape. Aonara had fallen into Rhia, and her arm had broken off. Ciarden was covered in cobwebs, and Hanwen’s face had crumbled to dust.

After repeating the earlier process of using my divinity to clear out the vault, I traced my fingertip over the name on the tomb beside me. Natara Highclere had no fanfare even in death, her name carved with no indication of who she was when she lived.

“I suppose this one is his?” I asked Mister Carson, nodding toward the tomb beside Natara’s.

“Yes. They’ll etch his name when they seal it,” he explained, joining me beside the long, narrow box. “The stand beneath it is for resting this piece, if you’ll help me place it there?”

He set down his lantern on the ground beside us as I let the fire in my hand extinguish.

The stone top was heavier than I’d anticipated, and once we finished moving it, I peered inside the empty box, not sure what I expected to see.

The sheer emptiness jarred me. The thought that everything Kennon Highclere had ever been would rest inside a wooden casket, then inside this stone tomb, inside the vault, inside the crypt had my breathing growing shallow. I glanced up, looking at the tomb which belonged to Lucia—or perhaps it was the empty one which would have one day belonged to Em—and I leaned heavily against where Natara rested.

Was there a service when my father was placed in the royal crypt? I hadn’t even asked, and no one had mentioned it. When it came to me, I had wanted death, been pleading for Declan to give it to me, and was prepared to face it and welcome that eternal slumber. But staring at the quiet finality of it made me squirm. I needed to be outside.

“All done?” I asked. Before Mister Carson even answered, I was pushing off from where I stood to open a rift, but the sound of stone scraping behind me had me turning around. “What—” I cut off my own words when I saw the stone top had slid from my touch, revealing a glimpse into Natara’s tomb. I conjured a flame in my hand once more, far too big, and leaned over to look down into it. It wasn’t right. “Where is the casket? Why isn’t this tomb sealed?”

“Your Majesty?”

“It’s not sealed, Mister Carson, and I don’t see a gods damn casket.”

I started sliding the stone top, my heart racing in my chest. The butler moved to the other end, frazzled the best way to describe him, and helped me move the top to the stand beneath it as we’d already done for Kennon’s tomb.

There was nothing inside it.

I took a step back, wiping my hand down my jaw. “Explain.”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t here when she died; I was visiting my sister. Imogene handled all of it. She told me they put some of her belongings in here, at least.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, since there was no body, Imogene said they—”

“No body?”

“They never found her, just the note.” He looked at me in confusion, as if I should have known what he was talking about.

“I’m going to need you to explain.”

“Surely, you know—Lady Highclere jumped from Tuaman Cliffs.”

I was taken aback. Em had never mentioned it, and I vaguely remembered Natara’s cause of death being described as a sudden illness all those years ago. “So, there was no body,” I drawled, my words slow as I struggled to piece it all together.

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