Page 129 of Lady of Ashes

Eliza and Cyrus both glanced at Sorin, concern and confusion in their eyes, but Sorin shook his head, telling them to leave it, his mouth pressing into a thin line.

“Luan sent a note,” Cyrus said after a moment of silence, extending a piece of parchment to Sorin. “Said they needed to postpone our meeting a few days.”

“It does not say why,” Sorin remarked, reading over the words.

“Is that odd? For her to not explain herself to you?” Scarlett asked, tossing her pear core into the sea before starting on her biscuit.

“I suppose not,” Sorin admitted, incinerating the note and letting the ashes ?it away on the breeze. “It is odd, however, that she is postponing this meeting. She was pretty livid when she left yesterday.”

Scarlett hummed an acknowledgement, still staring out across the water.

“I found it odd they didn’t specify another day and time,” Cyrus said, his arms folding across his chest.

Eliza let out an annoyed huff. “Apparently, she still thinks we must drop whatever we are doing when she decides it is convenient for her to meet.”

“I suppose we will deal with it when we need to. We have other things we need to focus on in the meantime,” Sorin replied.

“The Contessa?” Eliza asked, one of her brows arching. She’d been itching to go to the Night Child territory since Scarlett had brought it up. Apparently it had been too long since she’d gotten to shed a little blood, despite having done so days ago in Baylorin.

“That is one of them, yes,” Sorin said. He turned back to Scarlett. “Are you ready, Love?”

She’d ?nished off her biscuit and had her arms wrapped around herself, her hands running along her upper arms as if trying to warm herself. Her shadows seemed to have thickened.

“Do you think the stars are cursed to be stuck in the sky?” she mused, and her words had Cyrus and Eliza looking back at him with the same concern that had been there moments ago.

“No, Scarlett,” Sorin answered. “I do not think the stars are cursed to have to stay in the darkness when they love it there.”

“Maybe they only love it because they do not think they can leave,” she said thoughtfully.

“Maybe they love it so much they have never felt the need to seek anything else. Maybe they have looked down from where they reside in the night and found that there is nothing that compares,that their curse is anything but,” he challenged. Then he closed the space between them, tilting her chin up with his ?nger and forcing her to look at him. “Maybe the darkness needs to accept the fact that the stars do not want to go anywhere. And maybe the darkness needs to tell the demons that haunt it, that the stars have already staked their claim and there is nothing left for them to have.”

Her eyes fell closed, a small shudder wracking her frame. When she reopened them, there was some semblance of clarity there, as if the noise in her soul had ?nally quieted, ?nally stilled.

“Are you ready to go back?” Sorin asked quietly. “Yes,” she whispered.

“Why do I feel like we just witnessed an entire conversation with Ashtine?” Cyrus cut in. “I swear to Anala, Scarlett, if you start speaking like her …”

Scarlett pushed past Sorin, beginning to make her way back to the Black Halls, but she paused by Cyrus, the hint of a wry smile pulling at the corner of her lips. She reached up and patted his cheek patronizingly as she said, “Don’t worry, Darling. The winds don’t speak to me, only the stars. And they’re awfully annoying most of the time, so I tend to just ignore them.”

Sorin barked a laugh at the look of bewilderment on Cyrus’s face as she continued past him, and Eliza fell into step beside her, the two females speaking in low voices to one another.

“Did you really understand what she was saying?” Cyrus asked, when Sorin came to his side.

“She was saying you are annoying,” he answered with a slight snigger. At his blank look, Sorin clari?ed, “We are her stars. She is struggling with us willingly choosing to follow her. To face these threats, this danger, with her.”

Cyrus was quiet for a moment before he asked, “Is she all right now? After speaking with you?”

“No, she is not,” Sorin admitted.

Cyrus cut him a quick glance before his eyes continued to track the females as they climbed a sandy dune. “What do we need to do?”

“I don’t know,” Sorin answered, pushing a hand through his hair. “She is not the same as when she left. She is different. In so many ways.”

“Has she spoken much of what she experienced? What they did to her?”

Sorin shook his head, and they began to follow the same path Scarlett and Eliza were on ahead of them. “She needs Cassius to wake up. He knows parts of her I do not, things the Assassin Lord would target.” He watched as Scarlett let out a small laugh at something Eliza was saying, but her shadows didn’t lessen. He sighed heavily. “She needs Cassius to wake up.”

CHAPTER 30

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