Page 98 of Angel in Absentia
“To ask me to help you win this war against cien in all its finality is to ask everything of me,” he said.
“Then I will ask for everything.”
Strangely, his smile only widened and then he released her at last. She turned, watching him curiously. “Very well,” he said, “then so begins the end.” His fingers found her chin. “I suppose you gaining an agreement to usher in the close of things is more believable than escaping alive after a failed assassination. That will satisfy them and clear you ofsuspicion.” He looked her over slowly. “Though of what, I’m unclear. Aren’t we king and queen as of the Solar Solstice? I think your people would rather you celebrate the night’s festivities,” he said with a grin.
She watched his face and exhaled slowly. “For a moment you’d think it possible for us not to be such a catastrophe.”
He seemed charmed, responding only with the whisper, “We were always meant to be the end of each other. You came here wielding the knife, not realizing that you are the knife.” He kissed her one last time, her mind lingering on words she didn’t quite understand.
He stood, grabbing a change of clothes folded on the adjacent bed. She watched as he put them on while she finished changing as well.
When they were both done, he spoke up, “Prince.”
Prince appeared again. It took a moment for Alkerrai to share his next words. “She’s asked everything of me, it seems. I suppose this was your hope from the start?”
The mask shuddered almost in excitement as if Prince knew exactly what the words meant.
Lovely, lovely choice, Princess,Prince said, his voice full of so much eagerness and hunger that it sent a chill down her spine.
An eerie feeling of her own autonomy moved through her; she could almost feel the strings of fate guiding her form like a puppet. She got the sense that time was nonexistent and she had a strange window into the past and future.
Her request no longer seemed like a request of chance.
Ryson looked at her, and they exchanged glances. She could hear Prince and Alina’s words, whispering from another place in her mind.
She understood, now, the truth.
In attempting to follow through with her obligations and kill him, she’d confirmed that she was unwilling to yield to her own vices.
She had passed, and had she succumbed, escaped with him instead into the forest, she would have ruined herself to the darkness and failed in all the ways he had.
She realized then that there was a chance Ryson had waited to give everything, waited for her to ask for it, and whatever everything meant, there was a picture much larger than herself that she’d only just set in motion.
“It’s time,” Ryson said. “Let’s find your body.”
Prince vanished, and Ryson looked at her one last time.
“I’m afraid and pleased,” he said, “your request has urged me to pursue what may very well be the greatest illusion of them all. The illusion of my own origin, and the one that felled me,” he explained. Intently, his voice quieted, and in the silence of the temple, he imparted like a sacred prayer the very same history Tenida had told her in Ruedom.
It was, at last, the truth, and in it, he finished the tale, saying what they’d needed from the start was a healer more powerful than the one they had, one who would not be consumed when tempted by the darkness of The Eating Ocean.
Chapter 30
The Key
LEA WAS RELIEVED to find the empty stairs as they descended together, and then startled at the sound of Ryson’s voice, which sounded surprisingly light. Everything was. The air, the morning light, the liberty she felt in her own body, and even Ryson beside her, hand looped around her waist.
It was the first thing Iris seemed to notice when she turned the corner and met them at the bottom of the stairs. Iris looked between them as if unsure what her first question should be. Clea spared her the suffering and asked one instead.
“Where is everyone?” Clea asked.
Iris looked around almost cautiously “Well,” she started, “Prince appeared at one point to usher everyone off. Dae took it as a threat and then was dragged off by Prince’s skeletons from our catacombs. No one really stuck around after that. So, the healing went well?” Iris seemed to be restraining any inflection.
“Um, yes,” Clea said, looking away and trying to restrain a creeping blush.
“Yes,” Ryson echoed with a smile and much more normalcy than she felt she could manage. “Iris, would you mind taking her for a meal? I need to make some arrangements.” Clea was surprised when he slid a gentle hand under her chin, nudging her closer and guiding her head toward him. In a low voice, he said with a subtle smile, half question, half comment, “I imagineyou’re quite ravenous?” He then leaned forward and kissed her, a motion that felt so natural and welcome, yet at the same time, in Iris’s audience, Clea couldn’t help but stiffen. He leaned away and released her, saying, “Come see me in the council room when you’re done.” With that, he walked off.
Clea’s neck felt like it was made of clay, chipping with every uncomfortable rotation in Iris’s direction as she grimaced in embarrassment.
