Page 122 of Phoenix Falling
“No, he didn’t. There must be something here that the shifter wants to return for in order to garner the will to make it happen.”
A shiver went through me. I stared up at the black void that was Grim’s face, fear making my mouth go dry. “And if he doesn’t return?” I managed to whisper.
Grim spread his hands at his sides. “Would you not return for your mate?”
Would he? No one knew what I’d said to him before the coronation. No one knew I’d pretty much rejected my mate. Oh, sure, I hadn’t told him we were over, but as good as. What if the promise he’d given me, to prove he loved me and would treat me well, wasn’t enough to pull him back to this life?
What if he believed I would never accept him back? Had I condemned my mate to death?
I didn’t explain any of this to Grim or Raine. I couldn’t. “Of course I would return for my mate.”
Grim nodded. “Then we need to prepare.”
Preparing for Sun’s funeral, apparently. Archai tradition involved the building of a funeral pyre, a symbolic representation of the flash of energy that burned the body of any shifter or psych whose spinal cord was severed. There was no body to burn, but the fire was readied nonetheless and burned in the shifter’s stead.
Sun would have a funeral pyre. And I was expected to stand in front of it, in front of his people, while they waited to see if the love he’d had for me was strong enough for him to return. They had no idea I might have killed that chance before Sun even died.
It was so tempting to use my glamour. To hide from all the people who would be watching me. But my mate deserved more than that. And so I donned the dress that was given to me, as well as the purple robe that Sun had left in the arena before he began the fight for his people. My hair was twined around my head, and the feminine version of Sun’s crown was placed on top. There was no questioning of our matebond. Sun had informed his council of it, and therefore it was accepted. I was his widow. I would be the one to stand in front of his pyre.
I stood first in front of the mirror, alone in the bathroom of my suite. The woman in that mirror was a fraud. She didn’t deserve to wear this robe or this crown. She didn’t deserve to be coddled and cared for because her mate had died. She felt the deepest agony, and she deserved it, every single ounce of it. She didn’t deserve the relief of tears or the comfort of others. She should rot in her pain forever, her own personal hell.
Because she hadn’t accepted him.
I glanced down. In my hands I held a bejeweled dagger, its weight heavier than I had expected. A ceremonial blade, Grim had told me. It was only used on one occasion, to create mourning cuts in the cheeks of those who had lost a loved one. Likely, since it had belonged to Sun, the dagger had last been used by him to slice wounds across his skin when Solomon died. He had held this knife, had used it on himself, and now I was expected to do the same for him.
I raised the blade, laying its sharp edge against my skin.
My breath shook. This was it. More than the dress, more than the crown, this would be the mark of my matehood. Bloody slices across my face. Because my mate…was dead.
I couldn’t do it. I just…couldn’t.
The mourning cuts would be a sign that Sun was gone forever. But I didn’t want to believe that. As little hope as I had, as little as I deserved for it to be so, I wanted my mate to return. I wanted the chance to love him fully. I thought back to how it had felt before he knew who I truly was—the laughter, the kisses, the joy. How it had felt for him to take me that first time, so completely and overwhelmingly. I wanted that back. I wanted the chance for that to be us again, to be us forever. And if I did this, I was admitting that chance was dead. That Sun was permanently dead. And I couldn’t do it.
I wasn’t this woman I saw in the mirror. I was a fighter, and I would fight with everything in me to call my mate back to this life. No matter what it took, I would make it happen.
When Basile knocked at the door to my suite, I was ready. I opened it.
He surveyed my untouched face and sucked in a shocked breath. “Rissa, why—”
I faced him with my head held high. “I understand the tradition. I do.” Tears gathered in my eyes for the very first time since I’d felt Sun’s death. “But I cannot give in to defeat. And marking my skin with the evidence of his death would be admitting defeat. My mate is coming back,” I told him.
He stared for a long moment, looking deep into my eyes, and then nodded. “Your fight honors him.”
“I hope so.”
Basile swept a hand before him, inviting me into the hall. We walked together to the entry to the private quarters, where Raine and the rest of the council joined us. Several of them stared at my face, but I held my head high. It didn’t matter if they understood, though I thought I saw approval in several gazes.
Sun is coming back to me. That’s all that matters.
We began a slow procession through the halls of the lair. Down every corridor, clan members lined the walls. It had been barely twenty-four hours since the attack, and many of them were bandaged, damaged. They’d fought for their lives and the lives of their loved ones. The women held still-weeping children, their eyes weary and worn. These were the people Sun had fought for. The people he’d died for. Seeing them, I felt again the wretched sting of tears. Would Sun return for them?
I pushed the tears back. I needed to honor my mate’s sacrifice, honor his people. I refused to give in to my own pain.
In the King’s Garden we walked toward a massive fountain in the center that held a soaring copper phoenix. Beside it, a neat assembly of logs rose toward the sky. Waiting.
“Sit here, Rissa,” Basile said. I took a seat on the ground in front of the pyre.
Raine sat on one side of me. Vanessa, Lyris’s assistant, took what should have been her place on the other. Women I’d met and gotten to know gathered around us, and circling the entire garden came the rest of the Archai. I could see more pyres in the distance, more funerals waiting to happen. To my right, beyond the fountain, I could see from the corner of my eye the stiff figure of Demetri, standing tall, his back straight, arms crossed over his chest. Face blank. The male had lost far more than I had—both his mate and his twin. I couldn’t imagine…
