“Indeed.” Another deep breath and Mother's eyes closed before she turned back to face Cassius Merope. “My homeland is poised to launch a terrible crusade upon your shores. I offer myself in service of the land that welcomed my daughter with open arms.”
Cassius seemed surprised by this. “You want to fight? Against your own countrymen?”
“Yes.” Mother's eyes burned with a cold sort of wrath that I'd never seen before. “There was a time when I was considered one of the most powerful mages in the Empire, when House Alcyone was one of the most influential and well-respected among the Imperial Court. Years ago, I very nearly became the Grand Mage of Solaria.”
“I begin to understand your position,” Cassius mused. The enormity of what my mother had lost, simply for following the leanings of her heart and joining in union with one of the fey, seemed to reassure any lingering doubts he might have had.
“Will you accept my offer?”
“It's not entirely up to me,” he hedged, but gestured toward the mess that was his desk. “I can make some calls, talk to my friends in the Ministry of Magic. Fialla as a rule doesn't rely upon magic-users in a military sense.”
“What about the Cabal?” I suggested. “Wouldn't it be easier all around to have Mother work with them?”
Cassius shrugged. “That would be something your Master Shimizu—”
“Yukari,” Yuka cut in, making a face. “I hate my title, and yes, I can speak with the other masters about finding a place for someone of Lady Alcyone's talents. A healer of her power would be a boon in the coming days. The Cabal will care little for the problem of politics.”
At her words, my mother's expression seemed to relax considerably.
“Thank you, Yukari.”
“Don't thank me just yet.” Yuka adjusted her glasses and grinned. “My fellow masters of the Cabal are bothersome and obnoxious. I hope your patience is long and your tolerance for frustration is high.”
Mother rolled her eyes. “Do recall that I've lived in the Empire my whole life, all while dealing with the Solarian nobility on a daily basis.”
“Point taken.”
“For the interim,” Cassius said, gesturing toward the door leading back out of his office, “you're welcome to avail yourself of one of our guest suites. Once the paperwork has all been taken care of, we'll be able to help you find a place of your own in the city.”
My mother nodded and glanced at me. “What about you? Will you continue to stay with Rose?”
“Do you really have to ask?”
“I suppose that's a 'yes,' then.” Mother gave me a very specific look, unique to mothers perhaps, and I wilted under her gaze. She held it for a moment before letting her eyes drift toward Rose, then Yuka. “Take care of her, both of you. I can tell she means the world to you both. Trust that she means even more to me.”
The implied threat wasn't lost on either of them. Both Yuka and Rose voiced their solemn agreement, and I nearly groaned aloud.
“Mama, you're embarrassing me.”
“I know. It's part of the job,” she retorted, casting an imperious look my way.
*
After Cassius and his people arranged for Mother's quarters, Rose, Yuka and I bade her goodbye and left the Merope family manor in Rose's car. As was our usual habit, Rose was behind the wheel with Shion in the passenger seat. Yuka and I sat together in the back seat, curled around each other contentedly.
“You sure you don't want me to drive so you can be back there with your girlfriend?” Shion offered.
Rose let out a snort of laughter. “You realize how long my legs are, right? I'd have to fold myself in half to fit. Besides—” Her eyes caught mine through the rear-view mirror, “—those two have no concept of 'personal space' whatsoever. Must be a fairy thing.”
“Hey!” I objected. “You don't seem to mind too much when we're in bed together!”
“That's because we're in bed together,” Rose retorted, bemused. Her eyes went back to the road as she sent the car swerving around a slow-moving cargo vehicle. “Ordinary humans like me like to have a little bit of a break from constant physical contact, you know.”
I kicked playfully at the back of her seat. “We're part human, too, you know.”
“Really? I hadn't noticed.”
“Rose!”
“To be fair, she does have a point.” Yuka's lips were warm on my neck and I groaned as her teeth scraped against me. My cheeks went hot, and I sank down a little in the seat so Rose couldn't see the scarlet staining my face.
“Aaah—”
My retort was lost to muffled and wordless sounds as Yuka kissed me, effectively preventing any further argument. My awareness fogged over from the sensations pouring through my body and my soul, and I while I could hear Rose say something that was probably rather sarcastic, I couldn't parse the words themselves.
A moment later, Yuka drew back and adjusted her glasses. To Rose, she said, “I'm happy to meet Lily's needs whenever I can.”
“Good.” Rose nodded as the car pulled into the underground parking garage beneath her apartment complex. “You mind staying over at my place and sleeping with her tonight? Shion and I would like to go to the gym and punch each other in peace.”
Yuka failed to suppress a giggle. “Of course. I am at your service.”
“ROSE!”
Those two very cruel women burst into peals of laughter at my expense, and I sighed in exasperation. The car came to a stop in Rose's customary parking spot. Yuka and I stepped out onto the concrete flooring. Rose and Shion remained in the car, but as I approached the driver's side of the vehicle, the window rolled down.
“Have fun, little red lily,” Rose insisted.
I was certain my blush hadn't disappeared yet. “You'll come home soon, right?”
“In the morning, probably.”
My expression must've fallen, because she reached out and took hold of my chin. “I'm too wound-up right now, and not in the right way for what you need. I need to go work off some of my less pleasant emotions.” She leaned out the open window and dropped a quick kiss on my lips. “I'm so glad that Yukari will be with you tonight. I'm just not in the right head space for that sort of thing right now, you know?”
“Tomorrow, though?” I fixed her with a hopeful look. “When you get home?”
“After I sleep the hangover off.” Rose placed a hand to her forehead in mock exasperation. “I swear, Lily, you're insatiable.”
“Oh? It must be a 'fairy thing,'” I shot back, my voice heavy with sarcasm. I stepped back and waved goodbye to her as Yuka moved closer to nestle in against my side. “Have fun beating each other up and getting extremely drunk afterward. Don't bleed all over the place when you come back in the morning.”
Rose waved a dismissive hand. “Yes, yes, I won't. I'll make sure to do all the bleeding at the gym, don't worry.”
The window rolled back up before I could respond with more sarcasm. Rose dropped the car into gear and pulled back away from the elevator that would take Yuka and me up to Rose's apartment.
Well, it was my home now, too.
I felt fingertips brush against my cheek as I watched Rose pull out of the parking lot with an unnecessary amount of acceleration. Turning toward Yuka, I gave her a tired smile. We'd all slept on the airship flight across the sea, but I still felt incredibly weary. Not just physically, but emotionally and spiritually.
I still hadn't had time to properly figure out why I was able to draw power from the spirit blade as opposed to the inverse. Every other time I'd drawn Eiri's sword, it drained every last drop of aether it could, but it had been completely different when fighting against Claire inside the condemnation chamber.
Yuka tapped the button on the elevator and the doors retracted. We stepped inside and waited in silence as the lift ascended. Neither of us seemed to be overly tightly-wound on the surface, but the gravity of Yuka's soul had caught me in its inexorable pull. It was all I could do to keep my hands off of her until, f
umbling with the keypad, I opened the door to Rose's apartment.
“It's a nice place,” Yuka observed. “Much larger than mine.”
I shut the door and turned to her. I was sure the avid look on Yuka's face was mirrored in my own. After all the fighting, all the stress and strain of encountering a sibling I didn't even know I had, one who hated me simply for existing… I was spent. My emotional reserves had been completely tapped, and I understood now why Rose had retreated with Shion.
All I wanted was to fall into a warm, gentle embrace, to feel her fingertips on my body, to lose myself in the echoes of hearts filled with love. I suspected that if I had been fully human, I would have slept, as Mother did, or become driven to work through my emotional turmoil through violence, as Rose did.
“Lily,” Yuka murmured, biting her lower lip.
“What is it?”
She adjusted her glasses and glanced away from me. “I'm afraid.”
“Me, too.”
Yuka's body felt as if it were melting into mine, and when she spoke, it was in a small voice I never heard her use. “I'm afraid for you. You've never seen war… as it should be. No one should ever have to.”
“I'm sure Mother and Cassius will try to keep me out of it.” I chewed my lower lip, nearly losing myself in her scent. “But I get the feeling that won't work. Claire, and Cyrus—the rest of House Alcyone seem to be exploiting the crusade for their own gain, of course.”
Yuka turned back and gazed into my eyes with such an intense focus. It was so unlike her, so unlike me; we both found it difficult to meet the eyes of others. It felt… too intimate, too revealing, leaving our hearts open and vulnerable. As Rose would have said, “it's probably a fairy thing.” Even having grown up surrounded by only humans, I never was able to feel comfortable looking them directly in the eye.
Well, except Rose, but just as it was with Yuka, I was not afraid to bare my soul before her; I had already done so quite literally.
“They're going to come after us,” I murmured. “The hatred in Claire's heart is too deep, and my great-uncle won't consider his vengeance sated until he presents the Empress Altair with Mother's and my heads.”
“I know.” Yuka smoothed my hair with her fingertips and kissed the crown of my head. Those fingers traced down the line of my jaw and beyond my collarbone, trailing gentle heat down my left arm until her fingers interlaced with mine. “You know that I'll protect you. So will Rose.”
I managed a small smile as she pulled me toward the bedroom.
“I'll protect you both, too.”
Chapter 36
Blue Awakening
The next morning, I felt rested and my heart was at peace—at least, as much as it could have been with war looming on the horizon. I strode through the Merope manor's halls with purpose, slipping past crowds of people that suddenly filled the corridors. Cassius and his people were preparing for a sharp increase in their workloads. The Merope consortium would undoubtedly be called upon by the Governing Council to handle logistics for the military, and ever since we'd returned, Rose's childhood home had been overrun with strangers.
As I pushed past a knot of Fiallans, I was acutely aware of the respectful distance they kept. Word had already gotten out about our “daring” assault on the Panopticon, though the rumor mill seemed to not have realized it had all been a trap.
More than just a trap, but a test—for Claire. She'd been given no forces to command, save for the leash placed upon Willow Corvus. When we encountered her and her alone in the condemnation chamber, I knew that there was more at play than simply crushing the rebel forces.
A small part of me wondered what her masters in the Celestial Prophecy would do with her after her failure to kill me, but it was of little use to speculate on such matters.
More importantly, we now knew why the Empire sought so fervently to exterminate all who possessed miinari blood. The peculiar combination of abilities—the fey's deep understanding of resonance of soul coupled with a strong dark Aspect—permitted me to reach into the minds of those shackled to another's will and shatter their yoke.
I couldn't help but think of Claire. It was impossible, logically contradictory even, for a person to possess both a light and dark Aspect simultaneously. Dual Aspects were uncommon to begin with, and such an adversarial blend of magicks seemed somehow wrong.
And that was why I was in the Merope manor today, even though Rose was not. Mother was still staying in one of the guest rooms, and I had to talk to her. About Claire. About my elder sister that I never knew I had.
I nearly ran headlong into the ample waist of Devon as I rounded a corner.
“Lily,” the seneschal greeted with a pleased smile.
“Hello, Devon.”
Cassius's old friend and longtime right-hand man was no longer content to spend his days chauffeuring Rose and her father around. With the mobilization of the family's resources and personnel, Devon was now rarely far from Cassius's side, acting as his adviser and handling much of the administrative tasks that continued to pile up exponentially.
“What brings you here today? As far as I know, Rose is not here.”
“I came to talk to Mother,” I explained. Truthfully I didn't owe him anything further, but he was wise and insightful. I'd already unburdened myself to him once before, and his counsel then proved to be invaluable. “About… what happened in the Panopticon, with my sister.”
A look of understanding entered Devon's eyes. “Ah, yes. Cassius told me what transpired in the Imperial prison. What a dreadful experience.”
“She never told me I had a sister,” I mumbled.
“I suspected as much.” Devon paused for a moment, searching my eyes. A pensive look spread across his face. “You are upset by this.”
I scowled. “Wouldn't you be? I had a sister all this time and I never even knew. Mother never told me. I never knew she even had a pa—a husband before she was… with Eiri. I never knew any of this, and now…” I trailed off, unwilling to finish the thought, but it echoed within my mind all the same. I have a sister, and she hates me. She tried to murder me and offer my head to her god.
“Have you considered why Lady Alcyone would not wish to discuss this?”
“I suppose.” My tone was thoughtful, and he had a point, but I still felt sharp twinges of rather unpleasant emotions carom around in my heart. “I don't know all the particulars, but Claire has a strong dark Aspect—not an undeveloped affinity, either. It's almost as strong as mine. She's been trained.”
“Under the Empire's laws against necromancy, she should have been purged immediately after testing,” Devon noted. His voice was gentle and reassuring, and I felt much of the hostility start to drain out of me. “It appears as if these laws are selectively enforced, and that the Celestial Prophecy is clandestinely training dark Aspects that are believed to be dead. Very troubling.”
“I know, but even if Mother thought Claire was dead all this time, she still should have at least told me I had a sister!”
“Losing a child, especially one so young, would break a mother's heart. It was a wound that couldn't heal, so Lady Alcyone chose to conceal it, push it from her mind. She chose to forget, to leave the pain behind so that she could move forward.”
Devon didn't try to look me in the eye, for which I was grateful. I don't know how he knew, but it was a relief nonetheless.
“Thank you, Devon,” I said in a small voice. “I… need to go now.”
He offered a sad smile as the distance between us widened.
*
The door to Mother's quarters opened after a few seconds.
“Lily? I wasn't expecting to see you here so early.” Her face was haggard and weary, but she managed to smooth some of that exhaustion away upon the sight of me.
“I needed to talk to you.”
“Of course. Come on in.”
I stepped into the small but elegantly-appointed bedroom that Cassius had given my mother. It was one of the several guest rooms wi
thin the Merope family manor. Unlike the others, it was much smaller and located nearer to the kitchens, away from the nigh-constant flow of people that poured in and out of the compound.
I knew Mother had chosen it for a degree of privacy and anonymity, especially since she was very obviously Solarian. My reputation was quite good in Fialla, as a ward of Merope and Rose's beloved, not to mention my fey blood marked me as a symbol of everything the Empire despised. Few people knew anything of Juno Alcyone, however, and the presence of a highborn Solarian lady would be awkward in these circumstances, to say the least.
Closing the door behind me, I walked across the room and sat down on the divan. Mother was sitting on the mattress of her loaned bed. For a long moment I just took in the sight of her, studying the way her limbs drooped, the dark circles under her eyes. Her hair was disheveled, something I'd never seen in my entire life. Mother was always beautiful, but now she seemed to be consumed by pain and grief.
What little was left of the petulant anger in my heart withered at the undeniable proof of my mother's suffering.
“You want to know why I didn't tell you about Claire, about her father.” It was not a question, but I nodded without speaking all the same. The words seemed to contort Mother's features with remembered agony, but the moment passed quickly.
“I'm sure you've managed to put some of the pieces together already,” she continued.
“They—the Celestial Acolytes took her from you when she was a baby.” I didn't meet her eyes. Even my mother's eyes were difficult to look into. “You thought she had been purged for her strong dark affinity.”
“Not thought; knew,” Mother corrected. Her expression softened slightly. “Or rather, we'd been made to believe that. It was the law, after all. One of the gravest laws of the Empire. Every legend, every story, every history we learned—all proclaimed that the Forbidden Aspect is the manifestation of evil, and that those with a strong connection to it are too dangerous to let live.”
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