Page 95 of Curse of Darkness
Sound bursts out of nowhere like an explosion.
I’m halfway to my feet, heart hammering, shadows slicing around me before I realize what happened.
Thalia freezes, her teaspoon rocking on the table. She must have dropped it on her saucer.
“Thiago?” she asks.
I have to get out of there.
Everyone is looking at me. Finn. Thalia. Baylor.
Eris is at the warfront, thank the gods, and Vi is somewhere with Amaya, but they’re all watching me. Gaping. Wondering.
“I need air. Continue… dealing with the supply issues. You don’t need me. You know what to do.”
Yanking at the door, I practically shove my way through it. It’s too tight. This fucking collar is too tight. Tearing at the buttons there brings me some sensation of relief. I press my back against the door and try to breathe, hearing the flurry of whispers through the door.
I can’t stay here.
Prowling through the castle, I can’t stop myself from reaching for that little beckoning seed of light in my heart.
Vi. Instantly, I’m in her head, seeing through her eyes.
She strokes Amaya’s hair off her forehead as our daughter lays in her lap, listening to some sort of story. Gorgeous, gilded images are painted across the pages of a book. Fairy tales, no doubt. Ancient myths. Old legends. They’re the books Vi loves the most.
She pauses with her fingers on the pages as if she senses me, and then she’s reaching back, linking with me on the psychic plane. “Thiago?”
“Sorry.” I try to disentangle with her thoughts, but she traps me there, sending me threads of golden light. Threads of warmth and love.
“Come and find us,” she whispers down the link. “Amaya’s getting hungry, but she wants another story first.”
I know what she’s doing.
Trying to let me know my daughter through her. Acting as the buffer. Easing us toward a relationship with each other.
“I can’t.”
I can sense her chewing over that thought. “You can. You won’t hurt her.”
It’s time we both faced the truth. “She won’t want me there.It’s… discomforting for both of us.”
Vi gently strokes Amaya’s hair again, resuming her reading. “Perhaps, with frequent exposure, it will become better. But it won’t improve unless you both try.Please try. For her. Because you’re not the only one staring at your parent and yearning for something from them that they can’t give.”
I cut the connection.
She doesn’t understand. It’s safer this way. I’m not the prince I once was.
Thiago died in the Black Keep.
I am all that remains of him.
But, as if her words conjure the memory, I see my mother seated on her throne, her shoulders square and her face expressionless.
“You’re sending me away?” I demand, one hand resting on the hilt of my sword. “Why?”
My brother, the Crown Prince Arawn, saunters forward. “Who are you to dare question the queen’s commands? She wants your warband to ride for Eidyn and station yourselves there.”
“For how long?” I ignore him, searching her face for answers.
