Page 46 of A Queen Of Broken Realms
“But—”
“She’s over there,” Ashen says, anticipating my question. Ediye walks forward from next to the choir, her lower lip trembling in her smile, tears glistening on her skin, a beautiful azure gown flowing across her slim frame. Ashen’s hand flows down my back. “What do you say, vampire?”
I take one deep breath. I don’t want to wait either. I know it in every crack that’s mending in my heart. “Yes.”
Ashen’s arm slides around my waist from behind, his lips resting against my ear. “One more thing,” he whispers, and turns us to face the terraced steps behind us.
Eryx’s wings are folded tight across his back, his skin glowing in the light of the setting sun. His arm is held aloft as he escorts a woman down the stairs.
Straight hair, as glossy as a curtain of black silk.
Dark olive skin, radiant and alive.
Her onyx eyes, so filled with fear the last time I saw them, now filled with tears of elation.
My knees buckle, but Ashen is there to catch me.
“Aglaope.”
CHAPTER17
My sister.
Gone for so long. A painful memory. A blade of the sharpest loss in my heart.
And now she’s here, standing before me like not a moment has passed.
Ashen holds me steady as Aglaope clasps my face between her hands. I weep. I touch her skin. I feel her pulse tick like a metronome beneath my fingertips. Tears streak her cheeks. Her inimitable, ancient beauty is alive.
She’s alive.
“Do not cry, my love. It is your wedding day,” she says, and some kind of garbled sound bursts from me as I crush her into my trembling embrace. My entire body shakes as she wraps her arms across my back. I’m breaking apart. I can’t contain everything I feel. I don’t know what happens if it bursts into the world and covers it in stardust. I just know I’ll never be the same.
My sister holds me as I fight away the images l have of Aglaope’s last moments alive, trying to replace them with the feeling of her in my arms. I still remember the pressure of her hands on my chest as she pushed me into the sea. I’ve relived it so many times that the pathway to that moment of the past was burnt into my mind, over and over until it became more than just a memory. It became fuel. It became a beacon. And now I press my eyes closed and inhale her pomegranate scent and try to put it out.
I can’t really move, not for a long while. We just sway together as though we’re stalks of seagrass drifting in the breeze. It’s not until Aglaope reaches behind me for something and manages to extricate herself enough from my desperate embrace to wipe my face with a black handkerchief that I finally start pulling my shit together.
Almost.
Okay…not really. Not as a thousand thoughts seem to come crashing down on me.
Aglaope and I have been apart for so many years. She’s coming back to a world that left her behind centuries ago. And I’ve been changing the entire time.
I’ve killed in her name and mine. I faked my death. I’ve been taken, and tortured, and turned into something new.
And now I’m the Queen of the demons, of the realm that stole her soul.
And I’m marrying her killer’s brother.
…
….
…..Oh sweet baby Jesus.
Full on freak-out commencing.
I’m almost positive my ribs are shredding my lungs like a cheese grater. Can vampires have heart attacks? I think I’m having a heart attack. What happens if I go into cardiac arrest? Do I go to the Resurrection Chamber? That would ruin this date for sure. Oh myGodthat would be the worst first date in history. Not just the worst first date, the worst proposal. No, the worstwedding. I’d leave Ashen at the altar by freak-out death and then I’d kill him too andholy mother of God someone help me.
