Page 131 of The Ballad of a Bard

Crimson bit her lip as they quirked sideways. “Nor would I.” She felt the flush as it stained her cheeks.

War’s body lay below them, untouched save for the giant, gaping hole in his abdomen.

What they would do with it, she wasn’t sure.

“I’ve never actually seen one before.” He admitted sheepishly and brushed through his wild hair that was slick with sweat. “I know what mine feels like, what to do with it somehow. I assume your father implanted that knowledge when he created us, because it’s always just been there.”

Crimson surveyed him, trying to find any sign of his true age underneath his wrinkle-less features. “How long have you been alive for?”

He blinked, mentally counting. “I think four centuries, if my numbers are correct. It’s hard to keep track of something like that when you live forever.”

She pocketed the heart and took his hand in hers. He lowereda kiss to her forehead and drew her in close. Without the gloves, she could make out the unfamiliar markings better. He examined them as well. There wasn’t a full gap of space, but fingerless gloves that remained permanently etched on her pale skin. They darted up the back of her hand from a low V in ribbon-like shapes. As she shucked off her jacket, pulled up her sleeves, they both saw that they wound up her elbow and faded off on each arm.

“Well that is going to take some time to get used to.” Crimson groaned and put her leather coat back on, fixing the buttons back into place.

“I think it’s rather becoming.” West crooned down at her. “Every Saint earns their markings, and now you have yours. It only adds to your beauty, Crimson.”

She blushed.

“I think it’s high time we cure Cobalt and kill a Prince. What do you say, Heartstrings?” He asked and she let out a light chuckle.

“I think that sounds good to me.” She responded and made for the exit of the Pits with one last look around. She’d spent quite a bit of her life here, and it felt good to close that chapter.

With West at her side and a Saint’s heart in her pocket, Crimson looked forward.

Sixty Four

When they returned to the Palace, Crimson wasn’t surprised to find Cobalt in West’s rooms. During the long trek back through each of the gates, in which the Saint held her hand for most of it, he explained what had happened during her imprisonment. She’d bitten her lip approximately three times in anxiousness at Cobalt’s two episodes, sighed in relief as he explained how he’d handled them and that he was okay. But she was eternally grateful to him for everything he did.

In exchange, she told him everything that happened in the cells. Her meeting with Connor, which he stated that he wished he’d been there for, and she agreed. There was a burst of desire to see her father, one that she’d listen to after she brought the heart to her brother.

West listened as she nervously told him about Altivar’s true motives and how he tried to control her. How he tried to get her to admit that she’d been the one to kill Muse, and then how he’d admitted it right before her first fight. His power flared, hisfootsteps burned into the stones but he didn’t fling any of his anger at her for it.

Instead he simply told her that he wouldn’t have believed it, no matter how hard Altivar might have made her try.

It only made her love him more.

If that was even possible.

When they reached the castle, West found Thalias in the training yard and asked him to retrieve Connor from the cells. The man nodded and informed them that Altivar had arrived only twenty minutes prior on horseback. Something that they’d handle after Cobalt.

Crimson’s heart was the thrum of a harp, the twang of a violin string as she approached the apartment doors, West by her side.

“Are you alright?” He asked, noting the concern on her face as her thumb absent-mindeldy fiddled with the glass jar.

“I’ve been wanting to heal him foreight years”She sighed, sneaking a peek down at the glittering black dust that would change everything. There was no power vibrating from it, nothing to signify that it was anything other than a jar of sparkling dirt, basically. And yet within it, was the power to change her entire world.

“It feels a little…”

“Unreal?” He filled in her blank.

Crimson giggled softly. “I’m in love with a Saint, I’vebecomea full Saint, my father reappeared and I somehow found it in myself to forgive him, to want him back. And yet the biggest surprise of it all, the one that feels unreal when itallshould, is the fact that my brother will finally get to live as a normal boy.”

“Then let’s make sure that he has that opportunity.” West turned the handles down and pushed in.

She didn’t believe in luck, in prayers or coincidences. Everything was meant to be, meant to happen a certain way.Everyone had their own path to follow that grew from their own choices. And yet, as she walked in and found her brother asleep in the bed, she contemplated the sliver of an idea to allow some mystical force in. After all, shewasone now.

Crimson propped herself on the left side, gently stroking the inky hair that fell into his face. “Wake up Blue.”

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