Page 79 of When Day Breaks

"In all honesty, we're not even sure what to expect right now," Lucynda chimes in, careful to raise her voice while still tucked into me.

"We could just be following around a lost puppy for no reason at all. We have no idea what we are even looking for," Troian adds on to my wife's theory. Her voice sounds a bit disappointed. Maybe because dejection swarms her at the idea that this could all be for nothing or maybe because the person she'd been cozying up to might, in fact, have some part to play in all of it.

"We're looking for someone to fucking blame for this mess. And whoever it is has us running around like morons." Travois is still shaken from the revelation that someone has been screwing with his head. It's messing with him because he thought he was stronger than to let someone intrude upon him.

"I say we still follow her, maybe we break off and we-"

"No, we are not splitting," I interject as Lucynda started to suggest a plan. "Travois has no mind of his own and I just got my wife back," I add on for good measure. There's no world where I am going to risk losing her again.

"Rivian, maybe she's right," Troian explains. "Maybe we can get ahead of whatever is in store. I'm sure that whoever is behind the treason, Trav's compulsion, and the truth behind Ameliana will show their face tonight. They'll want to ensure that Trav ends up paying for all of this, framed as intended. And maybe whatever else they have planned will all come to fruition. We have to be one step ahead." I watch my sister as she gives me reasons as to why we have to pursue this. And I know that we have to do something but I don't like the sound of this.

But I know she's right. I look over to Cyn whose head is hung in defeat. She tried to give a suggestion and I shot her down, not even giving her a chance to finish before I rejected her offer.

"Fine," I agree. "But my wife stays with me." I feel her eyes pull up to my face and I meet them. She has to know I won't let her go again but something tells me she needs me to.

"Actually, I'd like to finish my conversation with Travois." Lucynda steps up to face me with her request. I think about what they were talking about in the Gilded Hollow and grow curious to what the subject of their talk was.

"We'll be fine. Troian can go with you and Kacian can stand guard," she nods at him and he happily accepts her order.

I'm trying really hard not to do what I crave to do and argue with her request. But I have to let her have some say. I have to let her lead the way she deserves to lead and hope to God that it doesn't fail us.

"Okay." I sigh. I see the appreciation light up in her eyes as I allow her this request. But I despise that my wife won't be under my protection. "You follow the direction Birdania went and we'll go this way." I hook my thumb to the opposite direction. I don't know what will happen tonight. Everything has been left up to the unknown. But I have to believe that of any threat we may face tonight, Birdania might be the weakest of them.

"If you need me, if there's any trouble at all, just say my name," I whisper to her as I pull her into me.

"I'll be fine," she whispers back and leans up to kiss me. I miss her the moment she steps back but before I can protest, my sister is already eager to break off.

"If none of us finds anything within the next forty-five minutes, meet back here," she twirls her finger around the air to signal our meeting spot.

Travois steps back with Lucynda while Troy commands with her eye contact before looking back between the five of us. "If someone doesn't show up . . . it's war."

Lucynda

Back at the Gilded Hollow, Travois greeted me with a story. A memory. Or rather his knowledge of something I've been wondering for a while now.

I never really allowed myself the pain of holding on to the question, but it rattled in the back of my brain and now, as I realize I have no chance of getting any answer . . . it's all I've been thinking about.

Did my mother ever think about me when she was gone?

A lot of my heart break doesn't come from my abusive father. Or my bully sisters. It doesn't come from the lies I've been told or the way I've been used. It comes from the loss of someone I loved more than anything.

When I think about that feeling, I think about how Rivian must have felt. How I felt the same. How Travois was right about the both of us and how we each used that pain differently, manifesting it into who we allowed ourselves to become.

Now, in the aftermath of it all, Rivian has forced himself to truly forget the way it felt to experience that loss, and has completely shut himself to the idea that his shattered heart might be mended. I have no hope for closure. If Ameliana is truly dead, I will never know the one thing that will now torture me forever, and forever for a vampire is a very long time.

But when Travois approached me back at the party. He had something to tell me.

The first time he met Ameliana he penetrated her mind. He was curious about her and he didn't mean to intrude, but he did.

"You were there . . . in the center of her mind. You, me and Troian. We were all there,"he had told me, recalling what he'd seen in our mother's thoughts. She was thinking about us. No specific memory, as I'm sure there weren't many. But she was holding us close.

That was the moment when he knew of my existence, he told me. And that's why he approached me at the masquerade party that night; he'd known who I was before Rivian even revealed me.

"Do you think she had a real reason for running from us all?" I ask Travois as we walk discreetly down the hallway behind the Great Hall, leading to a second set of stairs that descend to the basement.

"Why does anyone run, Lucynda? Only because they are afraid of something,” he answers me but I can tell this is the first time he doesn't really have much to say. There's no way of knowing what she's going through or what any of her motives are. The only way we'd ever know is if we got to ask her, but that time has come and gone.

"What happened to your hand?" I decide to ask him, switching the subject as we continue to travel through the hall.

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