Page 56 of Angel in Absentia
That is all I can answer for now. Is there anyone else you want to ask me about?
Prince continued, as if trying to rescue her from her own spiraling thoughts.
The world felt so dark around her and she felt alone in it.
Clea swallowed, stifling anything akin to questions, knowing who she wanted to ask about.
The silence lingered between them for a moment.
“Ryson,” she said, and saying the word out loud sounded like sharing a secret. “Is he—” she started to ask.
Well? Alive?
She couldn’t finish the sentence.
Why do you not ask?
Why not?
Because if she asked, if she knew where he was, she was certain she’d ask him to take her back into the woods, away from this place of restraint and suffering. She’d ask to return to the forest, to a place of authenticity and honesty, like a secret space reserved for them both. She’d ask for that while the world collapsed around them.
She exhaled, wiping her face as she looked out at the darkness.
“Thank you, Prince.”
The silence lingered longer.
I will promptly deliver your message.
“Very well,” she said, and the bodies began to walk off.
She watched Yvan’s body saunter away and grabbed the arm. Yvan’s corpse turned back toward her, and it tortured Clea to see her leave.
She felt like she was abandoning her.
“She died for me,” Clea said, knowing Yvan had died for a greater cause, but unable to resist the sentiment.
What makes her precious to you also makes her precious to me,Prince said, and she jolted as his face swelled and whipped in front of her.
Unless you want to withdraw our deal?he asked, a razor in his voice as if he’d been possessed. She witnessed the depth of his addiction to death, drawing an animal out of him when threatened. She felt the air grow cold around her.
Lighting lit the horizon in patches. Her eyes widened as she saw miles of towering ghostly limbs, expanding out as far as the eye could see. Prince’s mask was now only a small portion of his body, his expansive form revealed as the lighting lit up massive columns of limbs in one direction and then the other.
She swallowed down the terror of the sight, knowing the deal she was making had already been made.
“No,” she said.
Prince’s mask fluttered, and his entire form seemed to soften and withdraw. Lightning flashed again in the distance, and the world was now free of those ghostly, spidering columns.
You will hear from us soon, Prince’s voice echoed as the army of corpses marched into the storming darkness.
Clea eased down into the grass, staring out at the night as it began to rain, thinking of how to explain the missing bodies, and knowing she would have to refuse to.
If her plan didn’t succeed, the questions wouldn’t matter, and neither would the answers.
Clea returned wordlessly to the castle, and restlessly, at last, she slept.
Chapter 18
