Page 74 of What Blooms from Death

He cracked one eye open. “All of the courtiers who had started planning for an abundance of heirs to the Elarithian throne would have been disappointed to hear that.”

My cheeks flamed at the thought. But I refused to dwell on what might have been had my arranged marriage ever taken place. “She seems to like you, though,” I said, nodding at the girl, who was now busy trying to teach Phantom how to offer his paw for shaking—a trick he was pretending to be entirely ignorant about.

Zayn shrugged. “Well, children are easy to impress and entertain. Much easier than the grumpy asshole of a cousin I’ve spent most of the past seven years with.”

My smile brightened, though my stomach twisted at the mention of Aleksander; I’d hoped I might run into the grumpy king in question, but I hadn’t seen him since watching him disappear into his room hours ago.

We needed to talk about what had happened. I should have trackedhimdown rather than this girl, maybe, but I hadn’t been able to bring myself to willingly seek him out.

The girl was equally confusing, but she felt less dangerous than the Light King, at least.

“Still no words from her, I’m guessing?”

“Not a single one.” Zayn’s face scrunched in concern. “Poor thing. Can’t even get a name out of her. I’ve just been calling herRedbecause of her hair.”

“Very creative.”

“I’m a simple man with simple tastes.” He gave me his usual easy grin, but I couldn’t help noticing how it didn’t light up his eyes the way it normally did. He went back to staring at Red, his expression clouded over in thought…and longing, maybe.

“That wistful look on your face…she reminds you of someone, doesn’t she?” I guessed.

“I have a little sister, back in Elarith,” he said, after a pause. “She was only a year old last time I was there.”

“…So she’d be around the same age as our mysteriousRed, now.”

The pain that flickered in his eyes was brief, but obvious. “Yeah. I guess she would be.”

“What was—is—her name?” It was so easy to speak of the ones in the living world in the past tense; even after only such a short time down here, it felt as if my very existence had flipped. Like everything above was now dead and gone, while this strange world around me was my only existence.

“Wren,” he said.

“Like the songbird.”

He nodded, the motion heavy—with regret and memories, I assumed.

I tried to make my smile encouraging. “Hopefully, you’ll get to see her again soon.”

“Hopefully. Though she won’t remember me, of course.” The words seemed to tumble from his mouth before he could stop their fall. He hurried on, as if trying to escape them. “What about you? You don’t have any siblings, as I recall.”

I hesitated. “I did have one, actually. A twin. He died when we were just babies.”

He tried—and failed—to cover up his shock. “Oh. I…I’m sorry.”

I waved the words away; I never knew what to do with apologies about Bastian. I couldn’t even remember my brother. The loss of him was just a part of my identity, as simple as the raven-wing color of my hair, or the way I was left-handed; I rarely gave it much thought.

I wondered if it was the same way for Zayn when it came to his sister. Seven years of time he’d lost with her—but he hadn’t really everhadher. There was an absence there, same as my loss of Bastian, but how did one grieve something they’d hardly known?

“Although, apparentlydeathisn’t as permanent as we might have thought,” Zayn mused, his gaze trailing back to Red. “Not sure if that makes it any less painful to experience. But…it’s interesting to think about, no?”

I hugged my arms tightly around myself, trying to fight off the sudden sense of disorientation I felt.

“No idea how you two did it, huh?” he asked.

I shook my head. “Before—when she was still a shade—she came to me alone. Following me, I thought. She seemed upset, so I tried to comfort her, and I saw something when I touched her. A vision.”

“A vision?”

“Divination is a skill some necromancers possess. I’ve never been very good at it, myself, but the power seems to be awakening more and more since I’ve been in this realm.”

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