“You really think so?”
“Why are you worrying? Of course I think so.”
“I just hope your right. Zayden hates me.”
“Oh, I’m sure he doesn’t.”
“He does. That child couldn’t have even been in her long enough to have its own brain and Zayden thinks he lost Seth forever.”
“And he’ll get over it when he has that again.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure.”
“There you are.” Jaylyn said in a whining voice. “Oh, look at you. You poor thing.”
“I’m okay, Jaylyn. Really. I deserved it.”
“Maybe not all of it. It was terrifying when he was beating you. I thought he was going to kill you. You don’t deserve that.”
“Difference in opinion, I guess.”
“Come over here and let me help you.” She took my arm rather forcefully and led me to the couch by Troy.
“How is he?” Troy asked.
“Awful.” It was the only answer I could give but I knew it was right. I just didn’t know how long it would be before that changed.
Chapter 40
Zayden
“What happened? The last thing I remember was yelling.”
I didn’t even notice Adele was waking up until she actually did; I was too caught up in the events but I answered her like she wanted, not mentioning anything I shouldn’t. “She pushed you and you hit your head but you’re okay now.”
“No, I’m not. I’m sorry I put you through this, Zayden.”
“It’s okay, Love. I think it’s best if we just put this in the past.”
“How can you say that? I thought you stopped loving me.”
“I never said that, Love and I will never stop loving you for any reason. You should know that.” I hoped my explanation would help but she only started to cry harder and I took her in my arms. “Hey, it’s all right, Love. Let’s just put this all behind us and move forward. I don’t want this to get in the way of our future and it will if you keep holding onto it.”
She pulled away and took a few deep breaths. “I just don’t want things to be weird between us.”
“It won’t be.”
“I mean with Ruby and Darius. I want things to be back the way they were and should have stayed.”
“It’s late to start thinking that now.”
“But you hate him, don’t you?”
“I’m disappointed in him.”
“If we’re going to move passed this, Zayden, you know you can’t be forever.”
“I know. I’ll just need more time with him. He hurt me on a level I can’t explain.”
“Okay, I understand. He’s your brother. I’m kind of in that boat myself.”
“You should get through the first step with her to see how it goes.”
She sighed to my advice and looked around. “Now?”
“When you’re ready.”
“Could you get her for me?”
“If you want it to be now, of course I will.”
I kissed her forehead and headed to the first floor where they were gathered.
“Ruby?”
“Is she awake?”
“She’d like to see you but due to obvious circumstances, I can’t allow your visit to go unsupervised.”
“Zayden, I wouldn’t—”
“Just taking precautionary measures.”
“Okay.”
She was the only one to speak to me and she was the only one to come with me back to Adele.
“Adele?”
She turned her head from the window and saw who was with me. I stayed by the door and tried to be invisible so they could have their moment together.
“Ruby, I’m sorry.”
“No. I think I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it to go that far. I was just really mad and hurt at the same time.”
“I understand. I would have wanted to do the same thing.”
“But I was wrong to do it. You’re a sister to me, you always have been and I don’t want us to change, not because of this.”
“It’s my fault, Ruby. I let this happen. At the time, I knew it was wrong but I don’t know what it was. Something kept dragging me closer to believe it wasn’t.”
She smiled and spoke what I already knew. “That would have been Darius. He’s had that kind of effect on women his whole life and I don’t blame you for falling for it either. That’s what I did, remember?”
“But this is different now. You’re married. He belongs to you and I should never have been with him.”
“Adele, you need to stop feeling all of this regret. You know that everything happens for a reason. Fate has something planned through this.”
“It couldn’t be anything good.”
Ruby laughed. “Listen to me. I’m not mad anymore. We all know how lucky we are to have found someone like them but it’s still not wrong to want to try something different every now and then. Zayden is pretty good looking.”
My eyes rolled to her joking tone. I knew she was just trying to make light of the conversation but it didn’t really help.
“That wasn’t my intention at all, Ruby.” Adele said. “It just happened. I didn’t plan it this way nor thought about it ever prior to.”
“It’s fine, Adele. If anything, now you know how lucky I am.”
“Easy, Ruby.” I said from a distance.
She only looked back briefly to smile. “See how okay I am with it? We can joke about it.”
“Let’s not make a habit about that.” Adele said. “I would like to move on completely and not look back.”
“All right. We can do that and don’t worry, Darius and I are okay.” She turned and started to walk out.
“Ruby?”
“Yeah?”
She walked over and hugged her. “Thanks for understanding.”
“Of course. We’ve never let anything come in between us before so why should this be any different?”
I let her walk out of the room and Adele came over to me next with a hug.
“I love you, Zayden and I do feel better.”
“I’m glad. Now I think it’s time for a rest.”
“Yeah. I am feeling like I could use it. My neck is really stiff.”
I didn’t know why she would feel that from Ruby breaking her neck if Jaylyn healed her but maybe it was because she healed her dead.
“Where?”
“Right here.”
She put her hand on the back of her neck just above where you see her spine and I tried rubbing it for her. “How’s this?”
“It’s better. You’re hands feel nice.”
“Let’s get you laid down to rest it.” She nodded and let me lead her to the bed. “You should give it a few days before you do any activities on the balcony too. I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”
“You don’t have to be worried about me, Zayden. I’ll be fine.”
“I’ll always worry about you. I care about you.”
“I’m glad you’ve said it.”
“I’ll always care about you. No matter what. Now get some rest.”
She nodded and closed her eyes to get the rest she needed. I made sure she laid down as much as possible for the next few days and even when I left the room, Rift was right there to watch her for me.
With everything that’s happened lately, I realized that I haven’t really seen much of this place since we arrived. I spent the morning taking in the spectacular views Adele had once described to me and it was like I was seeing it right out of her vision. The only problem was, I didn’t know if it would happen anymore.
The sound of a horse echoed clearly through the mountains, drawing my attention. Someone was coming. I moved my position and saw an approaching messenger on a white horse. News from my father I guessed. He needed us already?
As the messenger crossed over the bridges, I jumped off the cliff to meet him but he didn’t see me until I was safely on the ground.
“Prince Zayden. Urgent news from the King.”
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I was handed a folded piece of paper and the messenger rode off. “Thank you.” I opened the paper and read the message. I wasn’t ready for this. I quickly headed inside and scaled many flights of stairs to the back balcony. Adele was actually out there with the others and Rift so they could all be told at the same time. “We have a problem.”
They stopped what they were doing and turned to me.
“Is that from father?” Troy asked. “What’s the news?”
“I hate to bring up the past but it would seem Princess Bianca never made it home.”
“Well, you are the one that said you sent her home. They were bound to notice sometime.” Ruby said.
“So, is that the problem?” Adele asked.
“Kind of. We’ve been assigned to look for her.”
“Well, that shouldn’t be too hard.” Jaylyn laughed.
“Don’t laugh. This is serious. My father assured the King that we would find her and return her home.”
“Well, what are we waiting for?” Ruby threw down her stick and started walking toward me. “Let’s go get her and bring her home.”
“Are you suggesting digging her up and bring her all the way to Lecca?”
“Yeah, why not? They didn’t specify how she was to be returned, right?”
“Well, let me think. I’m sure there’s some things they’re bound to notice. She was clearly murdered.”
“Well, do you have a plan?”
I paused and sighed. I didn’t have a plan. Taking Bianca’s body back to Lecca was pretty much the only way to get around this by saying we discovered her like that. I just wished we didn’t have to. “All right but we’re going to regret this later, I’m sure. There are many things that could go wrong.”
Jaylyn smiled. “Well, that’s what’ll make it fun. We haven’t gotten that in a while. Besides, there’s nothing we can’t handle.”
“I’ll remember you said that.”
I still wasn’t pleased with this plan but I agreed and now we had to get ready. Hopefully, this was just what I needed to forget about a few things.
Everyone headed inside and seemed pretty excited about it. Maybe it was just the thought of leaving. We haven’t done that since my father first showed us the place but it seemed I wasn’t the only one having doubts.
Adele stood back, letting the others walk right passed her.
“Come on, Love. Everyone’s going inside.”
“Yeah. Okay.”
“You don’t seem as happy about this as they are.”
“I don’t know. Maybe I just don’t want to leave. I’ve grown to like it here.”
Her tone was expressing worry and I pulled her close while we walked to our room. “I know you have but we’ll be back. This is our home. We’re just going on a short trip and believe me, we could all use it.”
“Short? We’re going all the way to Lecca.”
“Short as in just a couple weeks taken from the rest of our lives. It won’t be forever.”
“All right.”
We got ourselves ready and met outside in the stables.
“Okay, we’re going to make this quick.” I said. “Since we have to go to Randal to get her, we’ll take a carriage from there down to Nindor so we’ll be able to sleep through the nights and get there in less time, got it?”
“Will you be taking us there quickly?” Ruby asked. “To Randal at least?”
I was hesitant. I didn’t know if I should yet and expressed my concern for it. “I probably shouldn’t. I’ve never travel that far before like that and I have no idea how it will affect me. On this trip, it would be best to have everyone at their best. We can’t predict what we’ll run into.”
“Okay. Let’s go then.”
Our horses were ready and we were off—slowly.
Chapter 41
Adele
I feared this trip. I never wanted to do this; I never wanted to go back there. Being in Lecca will bring up things of my past and I wasn’t ready to tell Zayden about them. I got by one trial but I didn’t know if it were a good idea to bring up this one. I’ve been there before; I’ve been there with someone before and he would surely see me. We were after all, returning his sister.
“I’ll distract my father while you go get her.” Zayden said to me when we had finally arrived back in the White City. “And make sure that no one sees you.”
“And we’ll put the horses on the carriage.” Troy said.
We nodded to the plans and went our separate ways.
I took a small covered storage cart around the palace with Jaylyn and Ruby to the spot where Bianca was buried.
“This is it. Be on watch.” Ruby and Jaylyn stood around me while I uncovered the body. “Okay. Move. I have to put her in.”
“That’s weird.” Jaylyn said. “She still has her full color.”
“It might be from the salt in the soil, preserving the body. Just get out of the way so I can get her in.”
They slowly backed up and I used my gift again to lift Bianca’s body up out of the ground and moved it into the carriage.
It made a loud thump when it was dropped and Jaylyn shivered. “Gross.”
“Let’s go. Zayden should be coming out by now and the other carriage should be ready.”
I filled in the hole and we went back to the front of the palace just as Zayden walked out. “Done?” I nodded. “Good. Let’s go.”
“What did you tell father our reason was for coming here?” Troy asked.
“Maps.” Zayden smiled, holding up a rolled up parchment. “If we’ll be searching for her, we’ll need to know more than just what road leads us to Lecca. Who knows where she could really be.”
“Good and he bought it?”
“Of course. Now, let’s go.”
We attached the storage cart to the back of the carriage and climbed into it once we were completely ready and started the journey. Ruby was at the reins of the four white horses first and we traveled quickly since it would take several days and nights to make it to Nindor, the Leccan capital.
Summer was now well upon us and the hot air became almost intolerant while being trapped in such a small place together. No one really even thought to talk because it would just get hotter but the situation itself wasn’t at all easy. This close space made it more noticeable that Zayden and Darius weren’t communicating and at times, it made sitting here with them uncomfortable.
Zayden had little Rift on his other side and kept his focus on him most of the time. I wanted to say something to get them to talk but I didn’t know what I would say or if it would even be a good idea. It made the ride feel that much longer.
The days were scorching and made me look forward to the night’s cool air. That’s when we would stop for a bit of rest.
I created an underground shelter to sleep in that had more room than the carriage and was wide open to let any kind of breeze travel through.
“I’ll stay on first watch tonight.” Zayden said. “We’re in bandit country now.”
“Who’s going to want to steal a dead Princess?” Ruby asked.
“You’d be surprised.” Troy answered.
“Well, I’m the one that rode in the heat all day. I won’t be taking second.” Ruby went inside the shelter just so no one could even suggest it.
“I’ll take second.” Darius said.
“No.” Zayden cut in. “Troy will take second.”
“Why? I already said I would.”
“Because him I can trust.”
Zayden turned away and left us all in an uncomfortable silence.
“It’s okay, Darius.” Troy said. “I’ll do it.”
He never agreed openly but his eyes were still in Zayden’s direction and he came off more sad than angry about it. He really didn’t like this separation between them and I knew what he wanted to do.
Chapter 42
Darius
I couldn’t live like this; Zayden hated me. He had his reasons but I’ve already said sorry and would
do anything to fix it, except he won’t let me. I had to make him let me. I waited until everyone else fell asleep then went outside to grovel if I have to.
“Zayden?”
I was looking around the carriage but didn’t see him.
“What?” He jumped me and I looked up. He was sitting on top of it with Rift next to him. “It’s not time yet and you’re not Troy.”
“I know.” I climbed up on the carriage and sat turned around in the seat so I could see him. “I just think we need to talk.”
“Funny. I don’t think that whatsoever.”
He had an obvious attitude but I didn’t care. I came out here to try to make things right. “I do. I just—I don’t like this distance you’re putting between us.”
“You mean the distance you put between us.”
“I don’t know what you want from me, Zayden. You have to talk to me without all of this negative bullshit.”
“I don’t want anything from you, Darius. In fact, I’m completely done with you.”
“No. I won’t let you be. I want to fix this.”
“There’s nothing to fix.”
“Yes there is. There’s a lifelong friendship that I’m not about to let you toss aside. We’ve been through too much together for you to give up on it because of something this stupid.”
“Stupid? Is that what you think it is?”
“It surely wasn’t wise of me, was it? I should have known better but I was stupid.”
“You think this is still about Adele?”
“Isn’t it?”
“When she was crying and being hysterical about telling me, I thought: I couldn’t possibly have anything more to lose and then she died and to get her back only proved me wrong. Now I have nothing more to lose.”
“Then it should mean you have everything to gain. Why are you acting like you can’t have that again?”
“I never said I couldn’t but who knows how it changed the future? Everything I’ve ever seen and looked forward to could be wrong because you couldn’t keep your dick to yourself.”
Forgotten Days (Fate's Intent Book 6) Page 18
