Page 89 of Curse of Darkness
The other doorway is empty.
Only the sound of bare feet slapping on flagstones echoes through it.
Amaya is gone.
Baylor slowly sets his cup of tea on the table. “I’ll go after him,” he tells me.
And with the wake of everything exploding in my face, I run after my daughter.
19
After a morning with Amaya, reading through her fairy tales and my book of lore on the Old Ones, I go searching for Thiago. He hasn’t returned to the castle, though I know Baylor has. He merely shook his head at me, saying Thiago wanted some space.
Finn knows where Thiago will be, and offers to escort me.
The bridge between being a mother and being a wife has never seemed so difficult. Amaya had to be the priority this morning. She’s nine. And afraid. She sobbed in my arms until I could calm her.
But will Thiago take it as rejection?
“I’ll stay here,” Finn says as he helps me down from my horse. A sigh escapes him. “He needs you more than ever, right now.”
“I know,” I whisper, starting toward the rusted gates ahead of us.
They were shut many years ago upon the death of Queen Araya—Thiago’s mother. I’ve never been here. No one comes. This place is a silent mausoleum to a long-dead queen.
The gates hang on broken hinges. Once they were carved with a myriad of images; moons, stars, and tangles of roses and thorns woven around the edges. I can’t stop my fingers from grazing over those thorns. It feels like a physical embodiment of our marriage, or perhaps a prophetic one. I’ve never seen the stars and moon of the Evernight banner mingled with the roses and thorns of Asturia on any kind of artwork here in Ceres.
Pushing through the gates, I walk into what was once a garden. Alabaster towers gleam in the distance beneath a golden sun. Every window in the palace has been shattered by time, but if you don’t look too closely, you can still see the past glory of it.
I find Thiago standing on one of the terraces in front of the palace, staring into a silent pool of still, black water. He’s wearing the long black velvet coat I tend to identify with his ‘Prince of Evernight’ moods. It comes from an entire separate wardrobe full of clothes for state occasions and visits. All of it black. All of it slightly intimidating.
Thalia truly is a master at creating the right kind of wardrobe for every occasion.
Elegant embroidery adorns the hem and winds around the open collar of his coat; golden peacocks and phoenixes chasing stars through a tangle of knotwork. A small golden chain holds the coat closed at his throat, with two gorgeous gold pins on either side. Little crescent moons.
He chose the coat himself this morning and I can’t help wondering if it’s some subconscious need to protect himself—to present a picture of aloofness and strength—or because the darker half of him is in ascendancy today.
Either way, he’s not okay.
Sliding my arms around his waist, I press my face against his back and breathe him in. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“No.”
Stubborn, snarly male. “Okay.”
A hand cups mine, squeezing gratefully.
And we stand like that, swaying in the breeze for long minutes, simply listening to the sound of wind whispering through the garden.
“I used to dream of holding our child in my arms,” Thiago finally admits. “She would have dark hair like her mother, and green eyes just like me. And she’d smile at me, her little finger curling around mine.” A roughened, bitter laugh rumbles through him. “But it was just a dream. Because I knew, in some secret dark part of my soul, that I would never be able to touch her.”
Resting my face against his back, I close my eyes and breathe him in. I cannot imagine how it would feel to have yearned for so long for a single hug from his own mother, only to be denied the same with his daughter.
“She’s beautiful. She’s exactly how I imagined she’d be. Your face. My eyes. Your smile.”
“Your soul,” I whisper. “She’s wild and free, but she will hide with her hurt, never daring to let others see it. I’m slowly working out all her favorite hiding places. They’re usually in some place that gives me heart palpitations. Like the highest tower. Finn thinks it’s her Darkyn side yearning to fly.”
His head half-turns as though this little tidbit of information about her is a lifeline.
