Page 73 of Curse of Darkness
I can’t see a thing, but I know she warded the room. Thalia’s gifts run toward vocal, auditory, and wards. Before she lost the power of her saltkissed voice, she could sing the sea into submission. Now her gifts are a shadow of their former self, but when it comes to information, she’s an absolute master.
“What do we need to talk about?”
Thalia eases me into a chair, gathering handfuls of my hair and drawing it behind me. “Stop doing that,” she clucks.
“What?”
“You’re allowed to smile. You’re allowed tolive, Vi. Thiago wouldn’t have wanted this for you. He would have wanted you to be happy, no matter what. And if this… this thing today doesn’t work, then that’s what you’re going to do. You’re going tolive.”
“You don’t think I’m taking a foolish risk just to see him again?”
Eris sprawls on my bed. “Fairly certain we’re beyond that point.”
Iknow. But the pressure boils up inside me, a veritable storm hammering within my chest. We’re so close. Today’s the day I make that bargain with the Mother of Night and get him back, and….
What if it goes wrong?
What if it doesn’t work?
“Hush, you.” Thalia threatens Eris with the brush, then strokes it through my hair. “If there was even the slightest chance I could get him back, then I’d risk anything. I’d even challenge Prince Kyrian to a duel, and we both know how that would end.”
I think about the Prince of Stormlight and the way the two of them faced off against each other the last time they met.
“Naked?” I suggest. “Rolling around in a bed together?”
“You’re supposed to be on my side.”
“He looks at you like he’d like to eat you all up,” Eris drawls.
“For dessert,” I point out.
Thalia tugs a bunch of my hair in retort, then begins braiding it. “I’m going to ignore that. I’m going to pretend you are both my dearest friends and would never even plant that suggestion in my head.”
“We are your dearest friends,” Eris points out. “And I’m fairly certain that suggestion was planted long ago.”
Thalia groans. “It’s those fucking leather breeches he wears. I swear you could bounce a copper off his ass.”
“Or sink your teeth into it.” The words feel hollow. It’s like I’m trying to play at our old sense of camaraderie; but that’s all it is. An attempt at normal.
“I can’t even remember what that feels like,” she says with a sigh.
“I’m fairly certain you had several males dancing with you the night the city celebrated me as queen.”
“Yes,” she says. “But then a Fetch kidnapped you, and the last thing I was thinking of was how handsome my current dance partner was.”
“Sorry.”
She sighs. “It has been an eventful few months, hasn’t it?”
Eventful doesn’t even come close to describing it. I just want to crawl into my bed and never get out. I want to close my eyes andnotsee him falling for just one night.
“It’s all right not to be all right, Vi,” she whispers, as if she can see where my thoughts went.
The steady methodical movement of her hands is soothing. She doesn’t have to do this—I have maids, after all—but I know what she’s doing. Thalia feeds us when she’s upset. It gives her something to do with her hands when I know her heart is full of grief too.
I shake it off with a deep breath. I don’t have time to grieve.
I have my husband’s soul to resurrect.
