Page 124 of Fae Reckoning

Languidly, I stirred the water with my other hand. “No, it’s not that. It’s…”

“Everyone we lost,” he supplied readily.

Even with his face behind me, I could too easily picture the exact shade of his sorrow; it had been swirling through his moonlit eyes the rest of the day and all night as we’d labored to rescue any who could be saved. Next came the work of saying farewell to the countless who’d died in the name of the Mirror World—in the name of the light. Grief and exhaustion had forced us to stop an hour ago, leaving most of the others to do the same, many claiming a bare patch of floor somewhere in the palace or on its grounds for a few hours’ rest.

“Yeah,” I eventually said, rubbing at my heart again though the ache didn’t go away. “It’s everyone we lost. I just … I can’t believe they’re gone.” I wasn’t sure whom exactly I was referencing this time when there were so many.

“Ry jumped in front of West ‘cause of Ramana,” Rush said in that same quiet, devastated timbre. “Because West just got her back, and Ry knew how much they love each other.”

I turned in his embrace to gaze up at him. His hair was shorn short. He, West, Roan, and even Reed had sliced off their hair to honor their dead brothers. In the way of the fae warrior, they’d used their fighting bladesto mark their mourning. West, whose hair had already been short, had cut it even shorter.

Without his long, silver hair, the planes of Rush’s face were sharper, more severely masculine, though still hauntingly beautiful. His skin, like mine, shone continuously now, a permanent luminescence that shone like faint moonlight. It also swept through his eyes and along his skin whenever his tattoos flared, which was happening often with his emotions so raw.

His eyes met mine. He brushed a wet hand gently, almost reverently, along my cheek. His smile was so very deeply sad.

“And Hiro jumped in after Ry ‘cause we brothers never abandon each other.” His throat bobbed as he swallowed.

I reached up to run my fingers along the thin silver hair of his chest. “You know you didn’t abandon them, right?”

His brow furrowed; clouds obscured the moon in his eyes.

I prodded him with a finger. “You do know that, don’t you?”

Seconds passed before he shrugged. “I do.”

“It doesn’t sound like you do.”

He shrugged again and glanced toward the open door of the bathing chamber, which we’d left wide open to the bedroom and its windows. A diffuse light was brightening the chamber, suggesting the sun was rising beyond it.

“West didn’t go in after Ry or Hiro either,” I pointed out.

“That’s ‘cause he has Ramana to consider.”

I waited for a few seconds. When he didn’t add anything else, I said, “Andyouhave not just me, but an entire realm that needs a whole lot of help to get back on its feet.”

“I know.”

“You still don’t sound like you do. Why’s it an okay excuse for West not to go in after them but not for you?”

His eyes snapped back to mine. “It’s not an ‘excuse.’ It’s a reason. You don’t know what West went through when Ramana supposedly died. It was awful.”

“I can imagine it all too easily.” My own throat bobbed. Since arriving in Embermere, practically my every lesson had been painful and hard-learned. “You suffered Ramana’s loss too. She’s his mate. But she’s your sister.”

I rubbed his chest over his heart, trying to ease his suffering though it hadn’t helped to do the same for mine. “Do you think there’s any chance Ryder and Hiroshi are still alive?” I’d been working up to ask the question since we’d lowered ourselves into the tub.

His lips pressed into a grim line. Finally, he shook his head, the short strands barely moving. “If they are alive, it’ll be in a world of Talisa’s making. Even if Braque’s the one who performed the spell, she would've been the one to direct its terms. If they’re not dead yet, it’s probably best that they die soon.” His voicesqueezed, as if sorrow were strangling him. He sniffed. “Better that way.”

“That’s … awful.” Then, it was all so very awful, wasn’t it? We’d secured our victory, but its cost was too steep to bear. Even so, what other choice did we have? Surely no better one.

Rush’s eyes glistened, the twin moons glazing over like crystals. “If they find each other in there, they’ll soon take care of each other.”

My breath hitched; my finger stilled near one of his nipples. “You mean, they’ll kill each other?”

“Aye. If it’s all that’s left to do, better to free their essences so they can travel to the Etherlands. They can’t stay trapped where they are. Who knows what it’s like there? They might linger forever. No, better that they end it and start over, free of any of Talisa’s taint.”

“And you’re sure there’s no getting them out?” I’d already asked the question many times.

“Anyone with any kind of applicable power has examined the mirrors, even Ivar. There’s no way. Maybe there was before the dragons sealed them, but now there’s not.”

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