Page 71 of A Veil of Gods and Kings

I chuckled, and we fell quiet. Winds hushed through tree boughs, clattering branches, tangling lazy flowers together that sighed as their petals rippled into a sea of color. “It was my mother”—Hyacinth broke the silence—“that made me fall in love with poetry. She’d bring me out here to the gardens and read or”—his expression brightened—“recite it for me. She knew hundreds of verses by heart. Maybe more. And the gardens were always her favorite place. She planted many of these flowers herself. So, she taught me to love both.”

His eyebrows had pushed a v-shaped dimpled between them, his lips turning down. I cleared my throat and spoke the words gently. “I haven’t met your mother yet.”

“No.” He bowed his head. “I’m afraid you won’t. She passed away several years ago. An illness swept through the city and spared very few families.”

“I’m sorry.”

He tangled his fingers together, his rings glimmering. “I am as well. It was difficult”—he swallowed—“for our entire family and my father especially. They had one of those rare marriages that was founded in love and friendship. Her loss scarred all of us in different ways.”

We reached a hilltop, mountains, and valleys stretching out past the palace walls in the distance wreathed in evening mist. “I understand,” I said. “My mother passed away giving birth to Temi when I was only a toddler. I wish I could have had her longer.”

Hyacinth nodded. A bush jerked and trembled behind him, and I walked over, kneeling down, lifting a branch. My heart thundered. A rabbit, young from the looks of its dainty, curved ears tucked back away from its head, had gotten snagged in a vine, a thorn ripping into its leg, blood matting and staining its fur.

“Shh,” I said and reached a hand out towards it.

The rabbit jerked, pressing the thorn in farther, its body trembling.

“It’s all right,” I whispered. I pulled the thorn out and scooped the creature into my palms. “Shh,” I breathed again. I tapped into my magic, the powers surging through me as its leg healed, the rabbit’s heart slowing. “There you are.” I eased it into the grass, where it sprung forward, slipping out of sight.

I rose to my feet. Hyacinth’s mouth gaped, and he shook his head. “You have healing powers?”

I made a sound in the back of my throat. “Minimal. I don’t practice enough to make anything worthwhile out of it. Like I told you, I’m not ready to ascend yet.”

He nodded in the direction the animal had run. “Is that why you don’t eat meat?”

I sighed and ambled onto the path.

Smoke from my past wafted through my mind. Piercing screams. The moon rising to frown at it all.

“Partially,” I said, my voice becoming gravelly.

Hyacinth tucked his hands behind his back, that king-like look, all decision-making and deciphering, tightening his features again. “Pip tells me your sister is a huntress.”

“She is.”

“Does it not bother you?”

I climbed to the top of another grassy hill and dropped my pack from my shoulders, letting it fall to the grass before I sat beside it. Hyacinth joined me, lifting his robes and then easing cross-legged by me. “No,” I said. “It doesn’t bother me. She has reverence for every animal’s life she takes. We have similar perspectives; we’ve just landed on different conclusions.” I snapped a limey blade of grass and tangled it into my fingers.

Hyacinth bobbed his head, the long line of his neck shadowed by the forest beyond him. He sighed and pushed up off the ground. “We should go in.”

“No.” I snagged his hand.

The world froze.

Sometimes I felt like I was the sun. The powers within me would course up like heat, trickle through me like sweat, glimmer like morning light.

At that moment, I believed it more than ever.

My limbs caught on fire, like the roiling flames of that bright star glided through me, burning away every inch of what I knew about myself, leaving me scorched and hollowed out.

For two shaky breaths, Hyacinth kept his palm on mine, his fingers—surprisingly rough—draping against my knuckles.

Then he snatched his hand back as though I’d burned him, not just imagined it. He laughed breathily. “Why?”

“Why what?”

His forehead puckered. “Why should we not go in?”