Page 82 of Seized to Sacrifice
‘I didn’t know Gaila could have …’ Nyx began, but Rye cut off his words.
‘She destroyed it,’ Rye said quietly, the agony in his expression and Thorne’s too much for her to bear.
She closed her eyes but didn’t cry anymore. The more she learned of what had happened, the more the sadness seemed like it would never abate. It didn't matter how many tears fell. They’d never ease the hurt.
Nyx approached. ‘We don’t blame—’
Elle held up a hand to stop his words. She didn't want his hollow comforts. She loved them, or at least the Gaila of old had, but Elle was looking at them with different eyes now. There was just so much …
Nyx’s face fell. ‘We know that we betrayed you, Elle,’ he said.
He kneeled before her. ‘I vow that we will spend the rest of our days making this up to you. We have been false, and made you pay the price. We were foolish and selfish, but our time in this realm has made us different … more worthy, and we will prove it to you.’
Elle gave him a small smile as he rose, mostly to placate him. She was confused, her emotions from the past few days and Gaila’s intertwined. She needed time to make sense of all of this, of everything she now knew.
Nyx didn't come any closer. Instead, he looked at Thorne.
‘Are you going back to the archives?’ he asked.
Thorne nodded.
‘I’ll go with you,’ Rye said.
They both walked out of the tent without saying anything, and Elle watched them leave. She looked up at Nyx with a guarded but questioning expression.
He took a step back. ‘They both want children. They tried to have them many times over the years, but they were never able to … I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have told you about the other—’
‘No,’ she interrupted, eyes wide. ‘Gaila assumed you’d take lovers here. She never begrudged it.’
Elle went to the table and sank into one of the chairs. ‘She even did once when the loneliness became too much for her, but she quickly realized that she only wanted you three.’ She worried the edge of the smooth wood. ‘Didn’t you want any? Children, I mean? You only mentioned Thorne and Rye.’
‘Of course, but I thought Gaila couldn’t, so I’d already accepted that I would never be a father … I meant what I said. We will prove to you that we are worthy of you, Elle. I promise you that. When all of this is done, we’ll start again, be together as we should have been.’
She gave him a sad smile. Was it too late for that, she wondered? She needed to understand more of what the vessel had shown her. She needed time alone to think.
But time was something that they were quickly running out of. How long before the Light Realm was destroyed or thosethingsthat had been following her found her again and brought her to her enemy? How long before Ceres got his hands on Rye, Thorne, and Nyx? If that happened, all that Gaila had sacrificed would be for nothing.
* * *
Rye
Rye and Thornewalked from the tent, and Thorne glanced at him.
‘She wants nothing to do with us.’
‘It's what we deserve,’ Rye said, looking up at the clear sky ahead. ‘We’ve been callous and cruel. Nyx was right and I take the same vow as he did.’
‘As do I,’ answered Thorne, and Rye looked at him in surprise.
‘Your hatred turns to love quickly, Brother,’ he observed, hoping his tone wasn’t as bitter as his thoughts.
But when Thorne looked away in shame, he knew he hadn’t been successful.
‘So does yours,’ Thorne said.
Rye winced at the truth in Thorne’s words. They’d both been awful to her these last weeks.
‘Even the Beast tried to tell me what a fool I was being,’ Thorne said, ‘but I wouldn't listen. I was too wrapped up in my own grief. My petty jealousies. It's true what Nyx said. We don't deserve her. Perhaps I least of all.’
