Page 35 of Rose and Shadows
He hadn’t needed the latter as I’d suspected. Cassius would have facilitated access to me when he’d performed the spell to protect my home after the nightmare battle, so my blood had sufficed. Cassius had actually done more than that. Remnant had reported to me when he’d returned that Cassius had rebuilt my entire home with his power, exactly as it had been. Of course he had.Thank you, Cas.
I downed more of my coffee, thankful that with magic-wielders also being a part of what most considered thevampiric underground, there were actually beverages other than just blood down here—and food.
Although with my magic no longer being bound, I didn’t technically need the jolt of caffeine, it had become a ritual of sorts.
I put the cup down in the one free spot clear of papers near the back of the desk, then snatched up the spell I’d written just before I’d headed to the Canteen to shovel down some oatmeal, then grab this coffee.
The chamber door whipped open and closed in rapid-fire motion, and I looked up from the spell to see Remnant nowstanding in the room, arms folded across the chest of his worn leather jacket as his gaze darted astutely around.
“You appear to be in much better spirits.”
He had eyes on me then.
He was talking about me swaggering through the tunnels.
“Attending to your guilt and trauma after so long burying it has helped, no?”
I eyed him steadily. “Finally stabilizing after the transplant didn’t hurt either.”
Of course he didn’t engage or follow along with my attempted deflection. Instead, he continued on our current conversational path, even deepening it.
“Have you allowed yourself to recognize that the guilt of what transpired at Glasswake Settlement does not belong to you?”
“I wouldn’t go that far.”
“You were set up to fail. Any way you paint it, no matter what you’d done, how you’d acted, that entire situation had been manipulated to ensure you lost. You were the ammo, not the weapon.”
“That’s a very forgiving way of looking at it.”
“It’s a similar way in which what happened at the CRS facility should be viewed.”
“And, let me guess, it should also be viewed as Morien’s responsibility, his manipulation and involvement leading the way and forcing the outcomes—so many deaths at my hands?”
“Deaths, might I add, that would have happened either way, even without your direct involvement. Those at Glasswake, if you hadn’t shown up, would have been murdered by Corvin that night anyway. Furthermore, he would have then used yet more innocents to lure you to another situation like Glasswake. And, as for the Dark Fae, they were doomed the moment they entered the service of Morien. He uses then discards. Death is always the price those who ally with him pay in the end.”
“I’m well aware of Morien’s MO.” My fingers tightened around the spell I was clutching. “And I appreciate you working to reframe what happened, but I don’t need it. Now I’ve allowed myself to feel the guilt and… trauma, now that I’ve forced myself to analyze it, instead ofburyingit—as you put it—I know I can carry it.”
“Yes?”
I nodded.
“It takes practice, like any skill worth developing.” Emotion briefly flickered in his eyes, before he schooled his expression. “Yes, a skill. Being who I am, doing what I do, there is a weight to bear. There are things that are expected of me, things that must be done, which not many can execute without breaking. And as Commander of The Shadowed, I must remain steady. I cannot allow guilt to make me falter, nor to compromise my judgment or the actions that I take.”
“That’s well understood.”
“I’m sensing that from you, yes. Now that you’ve ceased such heavy compartmentalization.” He dropped his arms and stepped closer, gesturing at the spell I was holding, and I noted him scanning the magical formulas, symbols, and notations I’d made. “You’ve already found a solution to the tether.”
Yeah, when we’d arrived here, he’d told me that another reason he’d brought me here was to find a way to breakNexus Letale, the tether that existed between him and Victor Halrow, one of our chief targets—the bastard who’d hurt and threatened Lazriel, and the fucking fool who was currently instrumental in keeping Morien Morgrave hidden from us and supernatural authorities.
“This isn’t an equal-weight tether. Of course, it was made to appear that way, but the truth of it was hidden with a Death Veil, the caster only wanting you and anybody else who tried toinvestigate the nature of it to believe that was the case.” I glared at him. “That caster being Corvin Morvain.”
“You identified his magical signature.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
He arched an eyebrow.
“Right. Because of Glasswake. Well, as you can see, we’re beyond that now,I’mbeyond being affected by it. In fact, he’s already come up several times before this. I even had to talk Ketheron down when his involvement in a lot of this insanity of late became known to him, somebody who was horrifically abused by him more than anybody else.”
