I recognized the names of those they had brought in, but I had no desire to see them. To allow them to see me. Not after Aeriden and Father Marcus, both of whom were horrified by me, by the shadow I’d become.
My eye caught on a small bassinet on the other side of the bed, a mobile with stars and moons hanging above. I moved to leave when the smallest, softest sound cooed from the opposite corner of the room.
I looked to the source and started as I found Nerissa’s tall form leaning against the wall that curved inward toward the adjoining sitting room. I joined her and peeked around the armoire to find Ronan, his light, curly hair a mess, dark bags beneath his closed eyes, reclining in a velvet chair. His curvy lips were parted as he breathed heavily, with his head bent forward. And there, in his strong arms, was a babe of only a couple months. Tiny and delicate. Fresh.
The babe was awake, his little hands reaching out of the snug blanket Ronan had wrapped around him. A soft snore rolled from Ronan’s throat, and the babe responded with his own heart-melting coo. The tiny hand reached up, fingertips brushing against Ronan’s stubble.
Emotions threatened to surge at the sight of the ex-queensguard and his nephew.
Loss for what might have been, those days in the Lumerians when I thought I’d been falling in love with him. And an envyI didn’t exactly understand. Pain at the words Bayne spoke last year in Rivaner…
We are not the same,chanted often in my mind when I spiraled into a pit of self-doubt, self-hate, and led to the painful conclusion I’d come to over the past year…that I was not enough.
Self-pity gave way to rage as my thoughts flowed… Rage at Queen Antares for her manipulation, disbelief at Bayne for binding himself to her. Anger at him for not believing me, at myself for not pushing harder, for losing something I’d never had.
I watched them for several long moments, when out of nowhere, a tiny sliver of emotion drifted toward me.
Pain… Regret.
I blinked, doing my best to clear my head as I looked at Nerissa, whose skin glimmered with a single tear as it eased its way down her cheek.
I reached for her hand, lacing my fingers in between. She allowed the connection to stay open, and I gently pushed my own feelings back. She knew what I’d lost with Bayne. Her fingers squeezed.
“It was always him,” she breathed, nodding at Ronan.
My throat bobbed as I dipped my chin in acknowledgment. She’d always love Ronan.
“We need to leave,” she murmured after a moment.
I swallowed, continuing to stare at the small babe in Ronan’s arms.
“You could stay,” I whispered back, knowing she didn’tneedpermission, but feeling as if she might need to hear it.
Nerissa blinked, a few more tears chasing the first down the side of her face. She shook her head, her loose brown hair swaying. “We need each other right now. And Bayne needs us both.”
A surge of warmth swelled in my chest.
I nodded, the truth of her words steeling me. Bayne was a Bellator. He needed us as we needed him.
I replayed the words of Olienna’s prophecy that Nerissa had spoken over a year ago as we climbed the foothills of the Lumerians.
If shadowed and dark,
Death to the Monarch.
Olienna was right.I was shadowed and dark, and Death came to the Monarch of Sultira. The rage that funneled deep into my core, into the chasm that housed the dark and the light, continued to spark like the warrior’s eyes. And I would come for the rest of them.
“Dark King Daimos first. Then Queen Antares.”
