Astraea walked, her chin held high with her sight never leaving the glittering black castle that drew closer. Her steps were tired and her eyes fluttered, but she pushed on in silence, and I didn’t disturb this moment for her.
Coming home.
We still had the gods to send back, but for now this was victory.
On the castle courtyard, guards littered the grounds, but we paid them no attention. I stiffened when the first one moved, but… he lowered to one knee, head bowing.
“Long live the queen,” he declared. The first strong voice in our trek of somber silence, and there were no words more perfect.
One by one the guards started kneeling, uttering the same devotion.
Astraea’s tears were flowing now, and I wished I could sense they were happy, but something was polluting that emotion.
Only when we made it past the castle doors did she break.
I hugged her tightly, letting her cry into my chest, hands covering her face, until her sobs ran dry.
“What do you need me to do?” I asked gently.
Her arms circled around me. “They’re all talking as if it’s over. As if I’m here to stay,” she whispered.
“Then let’s live like we are. Until the very end.”
She squeezed me tighter, and I pulled us through the void then, taking us to her rooms. I lay her down on the bed and I had to see…
Peeling the torn piece of her tunic up, I tried not to buckle under my wave of cold panic. Her wound had gotten so much worse, with the skin around the puncture site a dark shade of gray, and I couldn’t see the end of the vines carrying my blood toward her heart. In my flustered desperation I removed her top layers, finding the end of the graying vines that stopped between her breasts.
“That bad?” she asked quietly.
My fingers traced over her ribs, lingering under her breast until my thumb touched the top of the mark growing to kill her.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered.
It was my blood that would do it, and that fact scored a deep wound in my soul.
“Please don’t say that. I can’t bear it.”
Astraea tugged at my forearm, and I read her signal, leaning over to bring my mouth to hers.
She said, “Lie with me.”
“I’m going to get a healer.”
“I’m not in pain anymore. I just want you to lie with me.”
I knew that was a lie. Whatever my father and Fedora had done to her had made her fatal wound worse and further weakened her body that needed to recover. Her pleading eyes were too much to deny.
I took off her boots first and brought a blanket to cover her naked torso with.
“Your father is dead,” she stated more than asked, but her words were gentle.
“Yes.”
“How are you feeling?”
“I’m… not sure.”
She nestled her head against my chest more, tucking herself in comfortably.
