Page 40 of A Queen Of Broken Realms
Imani rises from her chair, taking the empty thermos with her. “Good night, Queen Leucosia. Ashen.” Imani nods to us both and turns toward the door. I take a deep breath when she passes the threshold with her servers in her wake, feeling a bit lighter with that decision made, even though I know it will continue to challenge my trust.
“Nervous?” Ashen asks as he sits back in his chair, his eyes drifting down to where my mark peeks out from the neckline of my shirt. “You can always change your mind if you want.”
“No, it’s not that. I mean, it’s thattoo,” I hedge, chewing my lip as I watch Zida drift away to rest in a far corner of the room. “It’s actually Cole.”
Ashen’s eyes snap to mine and darken. “What about him? Did you find something in the interviews?”
“No, not at all. Nothing like that,” I say, a crease of confusion appearing between Ashen’s brows. “I don’t want him to be the Resurrectionist.”
Ashen’s confusion deepens as his gaze sweeps across my face. “Okay…”
“I want him as my lead advisor. He’s the kind of person who can distill all this stuff and teach me about this place and the Realm of Light. Plus, he knows the Living Realm well enough. He’s the only other person like me who spans all three.”
“What about Ediye?”
“I want her with me too, for sure. But she’s in the same boat as me. Lots to learn. There’s so much we both don’t know.”
Ashen runs his thumb across the base of his wine glass as he thinks about this. “Makes sense. He would be good in the role. But if that is the case, who do you want as the Resurrectionist?”
We eye one another and I can almost see the suspicion folding into his eyes, dimming the brightness of the gold flakes. I take a deep breath in, trapping it behind my ribs. “Davina.”
Ashen goes completely still. On the outside, it’s as though he’s hardened into stone. But I hear his heart stutter. I feel the tempo of his lungs change. “Lu—”
“Hear me out, Ashen. She was a reaped soul for a long,longtime. She knows what they’re going through, and she knows how hard it is to adjust to a new life after resurrection. I know what Davina did to you caused you immeasurable grief. She knows it too. I’m not asking you to forgive her. I’m just asking you to make space for her.”
Ashen says nothing as I rise and walk toward him, but I see the tension bleed from his shoulders as I draw near. He shifts his leg and I sit on his lap, taking his face in my hands. The swirl of his emotion warms the gold in my chest. It’s grief and admiration, anger and understanding. I give him a faint smile as I stroke my thumb across his cheek.
“You want me to heal this place,” I whisper. “Maybe this is how we do it. By making space for one another.”
Ashen sighs. There’s so much sorrow in him still, and a history that’s full of the dark power that rage and regret can exert over a life, if you let them. He’ll never be rid of his shadows, but I know he doesn’t want to be bound by them either. If he did, he wouldn’t try to calm the flare of light that rings his eyes, or the smoke that flows down from his shoulders. But the light does dim, and the smoke does fade away.
Ashen looks at me as though he can see every sparking nerve and shifting cell behind my eyes. “I hope the next time you look in the mirror, you see what I do.”
“And what do you see, exactly?”
“The true Queen of the Reapers. The leader that this realm always deserved.”
I smile and pull Ashen toward me, kissing him deeply. It’s not just wine I taste on his lips, but pride, and truth, and love. And I realize that maybe destiny isn’t some grand, sweeping event that cracks you apart and molds you into something new. Maybe it’s making the best choices you can, and ending up somewhere you didn’t expect, and still embracing the future you want to see.
Destiny isn’t given. It’s earned. And if this is mine, I intend to deserve it.
CHAPTER15
“Vampire.”
“No.”
“Wake up.”
“Go away.”
“Time…to…get…up…” Ashen says between kisses across my neck, thethump, thump, thumpof Urtur’s tail adding to the persistent universe that seems determined to force me into consciousness when I’d rather be asleep.
“What is it with you and waking me up?” I grumble, pulling the pillow over my head. I let out a muffled groan. “What time is it?”
“Four A.M.”
“Four?” I parrot in an incredulous shriek as I flail to whack Ashen in the dark. “Are you fucking serious? No.Hardno. What iswrongwith you?”
