Page 195 of Between Despair and Hope

“My queen,” he murmured into my shoulder. I closed my eyes, letting myself dwell in the moment, before staring up at the stars through the skylight above. I couldn’t tell which constellation I looked at, but that didn’t matter. I’d love him beneath it all the same.

Chapter 50

Rainier

“What’sthis?”sheasked,toeing the rubble from the statue she’d broken. Back in her robe, hair a tangled mess down her back, I watched her as I tugged my breeches back on. Between her breaking a statue and my ass somehow detaching the cushion on the throne, the entire room was in a state. I couldn’t help my grin over it. I hadn’t been allowed in this room until I came into my divinity, and I would have had my ass singed if there was any damage done. We’d done more to it in an hour than had probably been done in the past thousand years.

Pants on and barefoot, I approached, glad she’d slipped her shoes back on before coming to inspect.

“I believe it was Larke.”

“No, I know,” she said, melancholy emanating from her. “What’sthat?”

Pulling divine light into her hand, she gestured toward the base of the statue. Larke’s disembodied stone hand still clutched a likeness of a rolled-up piece of parchment, evidence of the treaty broken by her demise. Most of her arms were in tiny pieces on the ground, but the rest of the statue remained intact.

Bending over to grab the piece, ready to tell Em what it was, I stiffened when I saw the stone treaty was open, a hole no bigger than my fingertip at the end of it. Bringing it closer to Em, using her divine light to see, I heard her intake of breath when she saw what I did. There was a tightly rolled scroll shoved within the hollow interior. I took a closer look at the opening, realizing it wasn’t broken, but there was a spot for a lid. I didn’t know how many times I’d seen that damn statue, not even realizing there was a hidden compartment.

“Can you try to get it out?” I asked her, knowing her smaller fingers would be better suited for the task. After letting her divine light fall away and leading me to the center of the dais to use the moonlight, I held up the piece of statue as she got to work.

“We’re going to be lucky if I can get this out in one piece, Rain.”

“I know. What do you think it is?”

“Maybe a copy of the treaty?”

“That would be pointless.”

“What else could it be?” she whispered, tugging cautiously. It was a tight fit, and the scroll had opened a bit inside the thin opening, so she had to be gentle with it.

“Maybe something about what happened with Larke?”

“I’ve always wondered…” Suddenly excited at the prospect of an answer to the five hundred-year-old mystery, she perked up, a small smile curving her sensuous mouth. I let myself stare at her as I held the heavy stone, and she made incremental progress.

Being with her in the quiet dark, doing something which felt an awful lot like something I wasn’t supposed to be doing, reminded me of those long nights at Crown Cottage. Sneaking around, stealing wine and moments with her. Gods, I had loved her for so long, and it took me far too long to realize it. Everything would have been different if I only spoke up sooner. I dismissed the thought just as quickly as it had come. We were going to have to stop thinking about the past. All it did was haunt.

Finally finished, Em pulled the scroll free, dropping to her knees in front of me for the second time that night, and I took a moment to adjust my already hardening cock as I placed the broken piece of statue back with the rest of the debris. She was going to be the death of me.

By the time I returned, she was gently unrolling the scroll in the patch of moonlight from above.

“It’s hard to read. If you want to hold it open, I’ll use my light. Unless you want to try?”

I shook my head. Though we’d practiced since Ravemont, I didn’t have nearly the level of control she did. It was humbling and amazing to see how much better she was than me; and she made it look so simple. The healing came more naturally to me than the light, though I still wasn’t as good as her. Kneeling, I held the parchment open, careful not to be too rough with it. It was small, barely wide enough to warrant it being wrapped so tightly. Her eyes must have been better than mine though, because I could barely even see the writing on the page.

Once she held the fire in her hand beside me, we both leaned over it, trying to make out the words.

My sweet star,

I know now you … received my letter. If only I could have … …. after it happened, perhaps you wouldn’t have done this. Perhaps you … have chosen to take the only light in my life away from me. And … I do not know what to do with myself. How can I be ex … … … to … … on? I would have loved ... and the … even if it belonged to him. I would have done anything …. I know you know this now. If only you knew sooner. … I think you knew, and you did this anyway. Those are my weakest, angry moments. Please … give me for them. I will forever mourn the … of your light.

S.

Though parts of it were illegible, the gist of the note was clear.

“Is S…” Em trailed off, sitting back on her heels, dropping her fire and looking to me for an answer.

“It has to be. My father had to have written this.”

“Alright, alright. Imagine a candle,” Elora said. “It’s steady, right? It’s not flashing or smoldering or, I don’t know, doing whatever it was you just did.”

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