Page 47 of From the Myths of Kings

Soon, they’d be reunited with Saoirse and Hasana. Rook’s stomach clenched at the thought. He recalled Aurelia’s words from the beach, blunt and scathing as a knife: Have you ever considered that allowing yourself to love again might bring you the most healing? You’re being selfish. To withhold yourself from Saoirse after she gave up everything for you is cruel.

Aurelia had been right. He was being selfish. He was licking his wounds like an injured animal, keeping everyone at arm’s length just as Raven did with him. He was a hypocrite. He accused his sister of being close-minded and blinded by her own hatred, but wasn’t he being equally obstinate by putting walls up against Saoirse? He felt oddly guilty at the prospect of tearing down those barriers with her, of allowing himself to love her. It was as though he was choosing Saoirse over his sister. Besides, he didn’t deserve happiness after betraying his kingdom and abandoning Raven to the madness of the Elders, did he?

“Do you think?” Rook began. “Do you think Saoirse will forgive me for being such an ass?”

Aurelia smiled, her face illuminated by the warmth of the hearth. “Now those are the real questions you should be asking.” She pulled a blanket up around her shoulders and stretched her fingers to the fire. “Should she forgive you? No. Will she? Yes. Saoirse is good like that.”

Rook felt a flutter in his chest. He didn’t deserve her, that much was clear.

“Why are you so afraid to be vulnerable, Rook?” Aurelia looked at him with an expression that seemed to pierce right to the center of his soul. He found it extremely unsettling that she could read him so easily.

“Everything I love turns to ash,” Rook replied after a beat. He’d already confessed to the strange dreams he was having. Aurelia had proven herself to be trustworthy so far, and he had nothing to lose. And oddly enough, he felt lighter with each confession.

“I loved my parents fiercely. They were taken from me before my very eyes. My best friends, Eros and Veila, kept secrets from me and tried to kill me in the end. Saoirse?a girl that I was falling in love with?was secretly trying to kill me. And my sister…” his voice thickened with emotion.

Tears gathered in his eyes, hot and mortifying. He tried to blink them away. That familiar claw of anxiety lodged in his throat and threatened to pull him under. He couldn’t let Aurelia see him this way. Couldn’t let anyone see him this way. He had to keep everything locked away inside.

Where his heart was safe.

To his utter shock, Aurelia stretched her hand across the space between them, settling her fingers reassuringly over his own. She urged him to continue with an encouraging nod. That small act of kindness broke something inside him. She was supposed to hate him, to loathe everything he’d done to her best friend. Instead, she offered him a listening ear and an earnest gaze. He’d been so hungry for any scrap of honesty that Aurelia’s genuine concern opened the floodgates of all his pent-up emotion. Tears burned trails of fire down his cheeks.

“My sister’s betrayal somehow unearthed all of the trauma from my childhood, I think,” he confessed, voice hitching to a mortifying sob. “When Raven chose the Crown over me?over her brother?, I began to see all the ways that she’d manipulated me in our youth. I started seeing the hollowness in our relationship. All the unhealed pain of my parent’s death rose to the surface, made even more painful knowing I was alone. Seeing the vision from the night they died showed me I never really processed their murders.”

He wiped at his damp cheeks, feeling oddly relieved as his pain was brought to light. Even so, he felt mortified to be blathering in front of this Mer captain who barely knew him. “I don’t even know why I’m telling you all this. I’m sorry.”

“You don’t need to apologize. You’re telling me because you need to. You’ve reached the end of your rope. You can’t go on like this any longer. If you don’t ask for help, the grief and sorrow will consume you.”

Rook realized he hadn’t cried since being rescued from the Stone Circle. He hadn’t allowed himself to weep over his friends’ betrayal, nor over Raven’s rejection. He had hardly even mourned his parent’ deaths now that he thought about it. He’d always been told to be strong and impenetrable, to never let anyone too close.

You have a good heart, little brother. You always have. But it has been your weakness for far too long.

Raven was wrong. He wanted to have a good heart, he realized. He wanted to be good like Saoirse and Aurelia. Like Hasana. None of them were weak. They were the strongest warriors he knew. Did he even have the capacity to heal from his pain? Could he learn to trust again? To ask for help?

“Vulnerability is not a weakness, Rook,” Aurelia said, seeming to read his thoughts again. “I can be hard-headed and stubborn. I’ll even admit that at times I can be vengeful. I’m prone to giving into foolhardy impulses. But I am always vulnerable with the people I love. There aren’t very many I love, mind you, but I gain nothing from building up walls between those I care about.”

Rook felt the barrier in his heart crack under the weight of her scrutiny. That carefully constructed wall began to weaken. But instead of feeling exposed, he somehow felt stronger. Perhaps being vulnerable really was a strength.

“If you love Saoirse, you should tell her,” came Aurelia’s soft voice. “Do not run from your feelings for her. I know you’ve made mistakes?we all have?but that doesn’t make you any less deserving of love.”

Rook wanted to roll his eyes when a new wave of tears poured down his face. It seemed his body was revolting, forcing him to give in to the alluring vulnerability Aurelia spoke of. He almost wanted to laugh at how quickly he’d fallen apart. To his surprise, that shadow of anxiety had dissolved into nothing.

“Thank you, Aurelia. For letting me cry and not condemning me for it.”

“I’ll only condemn you for your shoddy swordsmanship and your cocky attitude,” Aurelia laughed. “And your stupidity, of course. I’ll never miss out on the opportunity to call you a numbskull.”

Rook smiled to himself and buried deeper in his bedroll. The mystifying scene of Cira and Aris played out behind his eyelids. In Revelore’s darkest hour, hope had returned like a blooming sunrise along the horizon. If hope had been restored then when all had seemed lost, perhaps he did have some light left in him. He vowed to face his fears when he saw Saoirse again. Perhaps she would find something worth loving in the rubble of his heart, something that could be redeemed.

And if she couldn’t find something in him worth fighting for, he’d find it himself.

For the first time in a long time, Rook slept through the whole night. On a threadbare bedroll in an abandoned merchant’s storefront, he had the best night’s sleep he’d had in years. But even though he felt a thousand times better than he had before, Saoirse and her companions still hadn’t arrived. As the pale fingers of dawn crept over the frosty dockyards of Raj’s Point with no Tellusun merchant ship in sight, Rook mentally prepared himself for the arduous flight ahead.

He would be lying if he said he wasn’t nervous. Joya had given him several jars of golden root salve to use daily on his wound. Though the salve helped to reduce the pain, he knew that flying for several days on end would take a huge toll on him. He prayed no nightmares would spontaneously attack him mid-air. So far, he’d only been plagued by visions of the past when he was asleep. But he had no way of knowing how his decline in health would progress, nor if the side effect of having strange visions would get worse as his wound festered.

Only time would tell.

“You’re leaving then?” Aurelia’s turquoise eyes shone in the sunrise that trickled in through a broken window pane. She peered out at the empty harbor and blew out a breath when she didn’t see Saoirse’s ship. Her exhale fogged in the cold air like a cloud of dust.

“Yes,” Rook replied as he counted the jars of salve in his leather satchel one last time. He stored a few other provisions in the pack, including strips of salted meat, a dense loaf of bread, and dried fruit. He had no idea how long it would take to locate Saoirse and the others, so he had to be prepared for an extended trip.

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