Page 102 of In the Ravenous Dark
“I almost lostyou. Lydea, I promise I’ll never ask anything of you that I’m not willing to do, ever again. I’m so sorry I was selfish. After this, I’ll help you go wherever you want, gain whatever you want, even if I have to fight my way through everyone who stands against you.”
A faint smile quirks her red lips. “Are you my guardian now?”
“I’m whatever you want me to be.”
We stare at each other for a long moment, and then her forehead creases. “Are you really dead?”
I grimace. Nod.
“But… how dead? You’re still here. Still moving. I can feel you.”
“I have no heartbeat. I don’t really need to breathe, other than to speak. I heal quickly, I can use death magic as well as blood magic, and I, uh, drink blood.”
“Huh,” she says. I expect more questions about that, but then she asks, “And my father is gone?”
I nod again.
“Good riddance,” she nearly spits. “But what happened? They all say you tried to assassinate the king and that you succeeded with Kineas.”
“He, the undead king Kadreus, actually killed Kineas, because your brother discovered who—what—he was. The king is actuallyworse than your father, believe it or not. He’s a revenant, like me, but insane after four hundred years of ruling this kingdom while his father, bound to him, rules in the underworld. Before I knew who Kadreus was, I was trying to use Kineas to get to him.”
She shakes me. “Why?Why did you attack him like that?”
“I’m sorry about Kineas,” I say, even though I’m not, really.
“I’m not,” Lydea says. “He deserved everything he got, and more. The pig.”
His death must not be what’s upsetting her, then. “I know I drew more attention to you. I made it so you couldn’t escape on your own, and—”
“I’m not mad about that, either!” she interrupts. “I’m mad because you got yourselfkilled.How could you put yourself at risk like that?”
She still cares about me. And she accepts what I am now, just like that, like she always has for those she holds dear.
I swallow. “My mother is dead.” It’s still hard to say the words out loud, too horrible for me to think about. The pain will overwhelm me, and I can’t have that right now. “The king killed her. Back when I believed he was your father, I thought I could get revenge.”
Her eyes close, and she drops her forehead against mine. “I’m so, so sorry.”
“If it weren’t for Ivrilos, I would be completely dead, not halfway there.”
“Ivrilos?” Her eyes pop open. “I thought you hated each other.”
“We… um… don’t. He’s actually been trying to help this entire time—to help the living for as long as he’s been around. He’s as little like his family as you are, or as Japha is.” Which might explain why I love the lot of them. Or how we all found each other. “We might actually care a lot about each other.”
Her eyes widen. “Likethat?”
There’s nothing else to do but say it, so I do, in a rush. “Yes. I fought it as long as I could but I can’t anymore. Not now that we’ve joined forces and that I’m… like this. We can touch each other now. We’ve actually touched each other a lot. And yes, likethat.”
She stares at me for a long while. This is where, in one of those horribly dull tragedies as Bethea called them, someone would murder someone in a jealous rage or swallow hemlock in grief, and then someone’s head would end up on the chopping block. Except Lydea…giggles.
“I didn’t know shades could do that,” she says, swallowing her laughter. I keep waiting for the explosion, for her to pull away, but then she asks, “How was it?”
“Lydea.”
“Fine, you don’t have to kiss and tell. But you still have to kiss me. I mean—” She falters, utterly unlike herself, her grin fading. “If you want to, anymore.”
“Of course I want to! And, really, if you never want to see him, you don’t have to. I mean, he can choose not to appear around you. But I just had to tell you what we did, before you and I go any further. It’s less weird than it sounds now that I’m dead, too—”
Lydea taps my nose with her finger, interrupting me. “Rovan, shut up. I love you. And if he does, too, I’m fine with it.”
