She was angry with him … but I could see in her eyes that Air could ask for the world and she'd deliver it on a silver platter. So for now, the thief was safe. Safe and also bound to me. I had no idea how this kept happening and at that point, I honestly didn't care. The only thing I wanted to do was crawl back up those stairs, climb into Air's bed, and snuggle up with Vex again.
Today, he was in town working on something for the Travelers' Guild, but he'd promised me he'd be back by nightfall. I had literally no clue why he'd want to spend his days with a soggy, weeping woman, but as long as he was content to offer his services, I'd accept them.
“Yes, Your Majesty,” Ame said, nodding her head in deference at the same time she cast me a scathing sort of look that said she wouldn't try very hard to resurrect me if I were the one in spirit form. I wasn't sure what I'd done to piss her off and … you guessed it: in that moment, I did not fucking care.
A feather popped off and floated around me, but I ignored it. Both my wings could go bald for all I gave a shit.
Everess moved over to stand beside us, my mother guarding the single door that led into the room.
The only people allowed in it were the ones standing there, and the three that had just left—Ame, her handler, and Ombre of Hellim. Other than Vex and two flesh whisperers sworn to secrecy, we were also the only people who knew that Prince Airmienan … was dead.
And Everess intended to keep it that way.
With the country of Vaenn dark, Scythia hostile and unstable, and our neighbors to the south and east total unknowns … the queen could not afford to let them know that her demigod heir was now a silent corpse.
She moved over to me and Jasinda and our collection of ghosts, slippers whispering across the stone floors of the empty worship chamber. It used to hold massive altars to the gods, but nobody prayed or worshipped like that anymore except priests and priestesses—those with only minor instead of major blessings. They didn't get to take the name of their deity nor did they get any gifts, like Haversey steel, nor many powers. So they worshipped and prayed and held ceremonies that didn't do a gods-damned thing.
Frankly, I didn't understand their motivations.
“She can't keep wearing the ring, you know,” Everess said, her voice soft and neutral. I felt my stomach twist into a knot so complex and violent that I almost puked on her silk slippers. I wondered how she would've liked that, having to clean my vomit off her perfect toes.
“I want to marry her,” Air said, his voice this even, quiet menace that echoed in the stone room. “It's her ring now.”
“And that's fine,” Everess said, so devoid of feeling that I literally had no clue how she felt about me or Air's proposal or … any of it. “But not yet. If people see that she's engaged to you, and you're not around, imagine the trouble they'd stir. We'll wait until you're whole and then she can have it back. You can propose properly then.”
Air was looking at me like he was trying to gauge my emotions.
He could stare all he wanted; I didn't have any.
Okay, so that wasn't true at all, but I'd cried and cried and cried until I felt like one minute, I was going to sit up, look down at the pillow, and find all my insides lying there in a bloody help. There was just nothing left inside of me right now. I needed sleep—peaceful sleep without nightmares—as well as a hot bath and some fruit and jelly rolls. Plus, a tankard or two of der Bösewicht so I could chug the foul liquor and then pass out.
That sounded nice—unconsciousness.
“Brynn keeps the ring,” Air said finally, reaching over and taking my hand. I let him do it, but I closed my eyes, too, trying to understand why I couldn't just be happy that he was still here with me instead of freaking out over the fact that … he was so goddamn cold. “But she won't wear it—yet. Once I am back, however, I'm putting it on her finger and we're getting married.”
“If she'll have you,” Everess said, and then both mother and son stared at me like they expected an answer right then and there. Quietly, I slipped the ring from my finger and shoved it into the pocket of my silk robe—I hadn't bothered to dress, not even for the queen.
Aaaaand I came this flubbing close to puking again.
Air was going to ask you to marry him! a secret, inner part of me squealed. Elijah was right—he did have a crush on you!
My lips pursed into a thin line as my cynical side popped up and reminded her, yeah, but now he's flubbing dead and the only way that'll change is if Haversey and Hellim swap realms, forgive each other their eternal feud, and bless me a million times over so I have the strength to cast this spell.
Hah.
Like that was ever going to happen.
But glancing over at Air, finding his shimmery, incorporeal form looking right at me … I knew that I would try.
Fuck, I knew that I would do whatever it took—including trade my life for his—to bring him back.
When he reached up to touch my face though, I turned away and glanced at the stone floor.
“The courier tried to deliver this a dozen times, but you two haven't been answering your door,” the queen said, reaching into one of the big pockets on her voluminous robes and removing a scroll tied with purple, red, and white twine. The wax seal on it was clearly from the Royal College, but it'd been broken and someone had retied the string. Probably the queen herself. “Pack up your things. I'm moving you”—Everess pointed back at the glass coffin, infused with a flesh whisperer's spell to keep things, uh, fresh—“and that to my personal residence on the Royal College campus.”
“We got in?” Jas asked, sniffling as she unfurled the scroll in shaking hands. I glanced over at her, but although I tried, I couldn't find enough joy in me to smile. Not yet. Not when I could still close my eyes and feel Air's hot blood on my hands, remember the sound of my own violent wailing echoing between the dance house walls.
“On your own merit,” the queen said, but she didn't smile either. “Orientation isn't for a week and a half, but you're moving tomorrow. Arrangements have already been made so that you'll have everything you need to get started on the spell. I don't have to tell you again how little time we have.”
“We'll do the best we can, Mother,” Air snapped, and I realized how much animosity was in that room, sitting thick and heavy over all of us. It was cloying and hot, scorching my throat and making my eyes burn. I didn't want this; this wasn't supposed to be how things were. I felt so stupid now, imagining my jealousy over Felixa, my constant stomachaches over Air's bed partners, and my refusal to acknowledge how gods-damn good I had it.
Now I knew.
And it was too late to change things.
“The more classes you miss, the more suspicious people will become,” the queen continued as Elijah bent low and tried to look me in the face. I wasn't sure if it was out of respect for Air or what, but he hadn't bothered to make himself warm or breathe or turn corporeal since All Haunts' Eve. But right now, looking into his eyes, I wished I could see their true color, that pale ice-blue that went so well with his raven-dark hair and lush pink mouth. “We have a month at most before I'll have to come up with something other than he's not feeling well.”
“We can do this,” Jasinda said, sucking in a sharp breath and letting the scroll wind itself back up. She clutched it in her hand like a sword and as I glanced up at her face, I saw her sapphire eyes shining with determination. “We will do this—especially now that the flesh whisperers have restored his body.” Jas looked over at the glass coffin, a scholar's gleam in her gaze, sharp and hungry. As long as Air's body rested inside of it, the magical contraption would keep him from … rotting.
Licking my lower lip, I felt my lashes flutter and my stomach churn.
“We've hired you an assistant: Matz of Affina,” Everess continued and I was surprised to see that in her melancholic but hopeful state, Jas' cheeks turned pink. Now that was a new development. Affina, the goddess of knowledge, wisdom, and memory. Honestly, I couldn't think of a better partner for Jas
than one of Affina's blessed. I wish they'd just realize how lucky they both are to be alive and fuck already, I thought as a feather peeled off my wing and went drifting to the floor in lazy swoops. “He'll be informed of the situation prior to moving.”
“He's moving in with us?” Air asked and I felt my stomach churn.
Us?
There was no us. Ghosts didn't need kitchens or clothing, washbasins or toilets. Talon, Elijah, and … Airmienan would be there with us on campus, but they wouldn't be moving in, not really.
“I'm having a room prepared for him on the first floor; the rest of you will stay on the second.”
“We all get rooms?” Talon asked with a sharp grin, his hair bloodred and his eyes as yellow as the sunshine streaming through the small windows on the right side of the room. Unlike Eli, he wasn't in mourning so he didn't bother to mute his colors.
The queen, who obviously had no trouble seeing spirits with her own magick, glared at him as he tapped inked fingers on the glass vials in his bandolier.
“Everyone gets a room,” she snapped, swallowing against what looked like a surge of emotion. “Air will sleep in a bed next to … next to his body.” Everess stepped back and then waited in silence for so long that I had no choice but to look up, my gold eyes meeting her sea green ones. I wondered, as I stared at them, if I'd ever get to see that color on Air's face again … or if I'd have to look at his mother and be forever stuck with my imagination. “Don't fail me, Brynn of Haversey,” she said, and I felt that ancient god power run through her mouth and straight into my ears along with her words. “You can't fail me.”
But if I succeeded in this … and if was a huge concession on my part … then I wouldn't be doing it for her. No, I wouldn't even be doing it for Air himself. If I wanted to make this work, I'd have to do it for me. Because this world was made for the living, and whether I liked it or not, I was still alive. True, if I could've traded myself out for Air, I'd have done it in a split-second. But until I could actually make that happen, I'd have to try the spell.
Reaching my hands up to my double necklaces, I felt both Haversey's and Hellim's power swirling around inside my chest, flickering up to peep through my eyes.
Both the Light Goddess and the Dark God were watching to see if I'd succeed … or if I'd fail not only them, but myself, too.
Jasinda answered the heavy knock at our chamber door while I was busy stuffing clothes into large, cloth bags. She'd put me in charge of the little things—like making sure all our jewelry was collected from the windowsills and various shelves where we often tossed it, and put back in the jewelry box. Meanwhile, she had a whole team of pages that the queen had sent up to move our things. Jas directed them like she was royalty herself, observing with shrewd eyes as they filled wooden crates with irreplaceable old tomes. It was going to take the six of them all day just to move her books.
“Is there anything I can help with?” Talon asked, squatting beside me and yanking a black bandana from a small leather bag attached to his belt. He slid the fabric under his fall of red bangs and the little braid on the left side of his face, and tied it at the back of his head. “I can't lift much seeing as I was hung for stealing underwear, but what I can do is tell dry jokes.” I barely glanced at him, trying not to compare the sea green silk pj's to Air's eyes … and the way he'd looked when he was making love to me in them. “Dirty jokes? I bet that'd work better,” the thief continued as Eli and Air 'sat' on the edge of the bed and watched me. “What do you call a man who can't get it up?”
“I'm not answering that,” I said as heavy footsteps approached my bedroom door. A second heavy knock followed, and I knew that it was Vexer waiting outside. Sacred and holy a bedchamber might be, but for the last four days, we'd been in Air's room and I'd been mourning. I was still mourning, but I had no idea what to do with this stranger I'd been so vulnerable around.
“You're not going to let him in?” Talon asked, apparently forgetting his dirty joke altogether. “After all that? He seems like a decent enough guy.”
“Which is why you tried to get him hung by revealing court secrets?” Air asked, but there was none of his usual … flavor, that self-assured confidence that always lit up the room like afternoon sun. Speaking of, I'd shuttered my windows in favor of torches and a roaring fire. I just didn’t much feel like sunshine right about then. Darkness and flickering flames seemed to suit my current mood better.
“I didn't think you'd do it, but I wanted a witness there, just in case. If you'd had Vexer of Reisender dragged off and imprisoned or hung, then I'd have known to make a run for it.” Talon shrugged, apparently ignoring all the ways his little test could've gone wrong—for him or for Vex.
After a moment, I stood up and went to the door. I may as well tell Vexer what was going on. After all, a stranger who was willing to simply lie still and let a girl he didn't know cover him in tears and snot was probably someone who should be treated with a fair amount of respect.
“Hey,” I said as I swung the wood door wide and swallowed against a lump in my throat. Just seeing Vexer standing there with his thick brown hair and gray eyes made me want to leap into those big arms again, feel his massive hands with their navy-blue tattoos rub circles against my spine while his rumbling voice whispered soothing words into my hair.
Good Goddess.
What the Hell was wrong with me?!
Well, you know, other than that my very best friend in all the world was dead and that he'd been planning to ask me to marry him before he died. I had a right to be a blubbering mess, didn't I?
“Brynn,” Vex said warmly, running his tongue across his lower lip and waiting there in the doorway like he knew exactly what it was that he wanted to do. He didn't seem unsure or wobbly like I was. “I almost didn't believe it when the guards told me you were back in your own room.” He looked around at the empty walls and their missing paintings, the cloth bags on the floor that were stuffed with clothes, and then at the small wood crate on my dressing table that had my hairbrush handle sticking out of the top. “You're moving out?” His voice had a deeply strained quality to it that I just didn't understand.
We were strangers, me and him.
Strangers.
We'd shared a business transaction (not that kind of business transaction! I meant the ride from Kohlmar to New Akyumen) and a single dance. That was it. Okay, that and four days of cuddling in pj's and feeling his arousal against my bottom and wishing I was the sort of person that could fuck away—goodbye feather—all their worries because he felt so warm and so strong and so alive that I could barely take it.
Still … where did that leave us, really?
“Jasinda and I were accepted to the Royal College,” I said, trying to force a smile. Maybe if I pasted on a happy face, this guy would stop worrying about me so much and … well, I didn't want him to go away, did I? But I also didn't want to start a new relationship when the one I'd wanted more than all the world was … fractured.
You need to talk to Air, Brynn, I told myself, but I was also fairly inconsistent when it came to taking my own advice.
Vexer smiled, his full lips irresistible buried in all that dark stubble. The fact that he shaved it off and that it kept growing … meant that he was still alive. And I needed that right now. Reaching up two bronze-skinned hands, I touched my palms to the scratchy surface of Vex's cheeks.
“Congratulations,” he rumbled with just enough enthusiasm that it sounded genuine, but not too much so that he sounded like a serious bum-hole that was somehow ecstatic about the prince's death. “But don't they open up the dorms on the Saturday before orientation?”
“You seem to know a lot about the Royal College for someone who's never been,” I said with a slight smile of my own, dropping my hands to my sides and glancing over my shoulder to find all three ghosts watching me.
Talon wore an expression of bemusement; Elijah was neutral; Airmienan was ticked all the way off.
I looked back at Vex.
“Come in,” I said, before he could respond. I stepped aside and watched as his huge frame strode into the bedroom with sturdy footfalls and brown work boots, leather breeches, and a sleeveless tunic that showed off his massive biceps.
“I've never been to the Royal College per se, but we do have schools where I come from,” he said with an amused chuckle, moving over to the edge of my bed and fingering the sheets. Just looking at them—and thinking about Air's body pushing inside of mine—made me feel sick again, and I glanced away sharply.
“If you'd just talk to me …” Air started, standing up off the bed, his feet sinking a few inches into the floor. “Brynn, please don't be sad. I'm right here.”
“You're not right there!” I screamed, even though it was probably a strange thing for Vex to witness, considering he couldn't see the man I was arguing with. Tears pricked the edges of my eyes as I looked at the prince's shimmering form and tried to keep a cool head. It felt impossible though, with him incorporeal like that, little more than a shadow. He couldn't even play around and convince me for all of five minutes that he was alive the way Elijah could. “You're not right there,” I repeated as Vex moved back across the room to stand beside me, like a shield. Like an anchor. He was a living version of that grounding cloak that Air had purchased for me, something with a beating heart to keep my soul tethered to the world around me. “You know that I feel this realm is for the living, Air. You know how I feel about ghosts.”
“But this is different,” Air said, moving toward me and kneeling low, bolstering his voice with some of that soothingly familiar confidence. I stared down at him and I wanted nothing more than to be able to drop to my knees and throw my arms around his warm waist, listen to his heartbeat, feel his hot breath stir my hair. That was it. My one and only desire. Nothing like wishing for the impossible, huh? “We will fix this, Brynn.” He smiled at me and my heart jumped wildly inside my chest. It was half-nerves and half-appreciation because, even as a ghost, Prince Airmienan was pretty.
Spirited_A Reverse Harem Fantasy Romance Page 17
