Page 116 of Of Stars and Lightning
Slowly, with each mouthful of roasted carrots and broth, the darkness in her mind gently cleared. Even the room seemed to lighten slightly, as if the rays of sunlight were no longer afraid to graze it. Cas's Shadows remained out but were thin and lazy across their feet.
After a while, Sol set the cup on her nightstand. “I failed her.”
The words were almost jarring in the silence, but she kept her composure, biting her cheeks to keep from crying. Cas glanced sidelong at her. “You did not kill her. Ezra did.”
“I’ve done nothing to help these people, when that’s what I swore I would do.”
Cas sighed, bracing his hands behind him, but saying nothing.
Sol let herself fall back on the bed, her legs dangling over the edge. She inhaled slowly. “Ezra isn’t the first person I’ve killed.” She didn’t let him answer or let herself take the words back. Instead, she let them all spill out. “When I was fifteen, my friend Leo and I snuck out after hours to a local tavern. We didn’t drink or anything like that, we mostly went to dance and meet the students from his school.” She closed her eyes. “That night, I decided to leave early, right before sundown. Leo told me to wait for him, but I didn’t.
“By the time I got into the town square, it was dark. I don’t really remember what the man looked like anymore—only how much everything hurt after it happened.” Sol paused for a moment, shaking away the haze of the memory. “I only told my mom what happened. She begged me to report it, but the man let me go, and I never wanted to see him again, so I refused. Fiveyears later, that same man came into the Hound with some other sailors.”
She dared a side glance at Cas. He watched her silently, jaw set and eyes hard as steel. His hands gripped the quilt beneath them in fists.
Sol looked back up to the ceiling. “He didn’t remember me. So I made sure to make him cozy and left the inn with him. I told him my cottage was closer. Took him down the same alley he took me, and I killed him.”
Cas was silent for a long while, so long Sol had to look over to see if he was still there. Wards crackled around his shoulders.
“Good.”
“Not good, Cas. He had a family, I later found out, and I took a life out of pure vengeance and hoped that it would heal whatever he had broken inside me.” Slowly, she sat up, wiping the sweat from her palms on her knees. “It didn’t. It only made it worse.”
“Not everyone deserves to live, Sol. Especially people like that.”
“Everyone deserves to live.”
“Not anyone that hurts you…” His Ward winked out. “Ever.”
She sighed, wanting to continue explaining how it wasn’t about her. That it was about morals, about how they couldn’t play gods as they had. But she didn’t. She kept his gaze long enough for his expression to soften, despite the rising heat, the intimacy of it brewing in her chest.
Finally, Cas stood. “Let’s take a walk.”
They walked through the Villa silently. Sol was pleasantly distracted by the way it seemed to transform in the nighttime. The moonlight gave the spaces a sort of divine glow that was missed during the day, and she wondered how many beautiful things she had missed by avoiding being out at night.
They went to the kitchens to pick at bowls of fruit left from breakfast and chocolate pastries that had a small card stating they were from the Semmena Court for the remaining prospects. Sol almost didn't eat them out of spite, but chocolate.
They ended up at the library. How Cas knew it was the one place within the Villa that didn’t totally agitate her, she didn’t know. Butnow as she looked at the couches in its center, all she saw was Zeri’s ghost.
She turned into one of the bookshelves, inhaling and exhaling the soft scent of knowledge.
Cas followed suit. “I’m not a huge fan of libraries, but they always smell… peaceful.”
Sol pulled out a yellow-spined tome. “I used to love spending time in the Archives of—” A pointed look by Cas. “Graniela,” she finished.
“Tell me more about your life there.”
He leaned against the bookshelf to face her. His eyes beamed, the darkness around him curving in to caress him, reminding Sol of stars against a night sky.
She pursed her lips and grabbed another book. “Not much to say. I’d work at the Hound and hang out with Leo and his sister.” She moved to the next shelf. “Definitely not as luxurious as life in Rimemere.”
“Trust me, there is nothing luxurious about it.” Cas followed behind her, also inspecting the shelves.
“What is your favorite thing about it? About Rimemere?” Sol kept her attention on a book titledFAILED PLEASURES.She frowned and looked around. She hadn’t seen these titles the first time around.
“I often visited the coast,” he said, blowing a puff of dust off a particularly sad-looking journal. “With my mother and sister.”
“With Samara?” she asked, grabbing another book.
