Page 225 of Dawn of Chaos and Fury
“I cannot offer you Penelope. I cannot call her back from death.” She paused, knowing Valter had told her when he’d had Pen killed. Eviana had been here then and watched the female break all over again. Had watched her beg for death to follow Pen to the After. “But I can offer you your son and the ones who may as well have been your own.”
The female’s gaze flicked to her, then back to her book, as if bored with this conversation. Eviana didn’t know why. At least it was company. A conversation with someone other than oneself. Theon was so much like her, able to keep his emotions hidden so no one could read him.
“Does he know? That I live?” Caris asked.
Eviana shook his head. “If he does, I am unaware. Seeing your presumed death…did what Valter wanted. It broke him in a way he hadn’t been able to do before.”
“And where is he?”
“I don’t know,” Eviana admitted.
“Then it appears you can offer me nothing, Eviana,” she said, standing abruptly and placing the book on the table. “You can leave.”
“What will be required of me?” Eviana blurted, desperation winning out.
Caris turned at the words, her gown swishing on the cold floor. Eviana forced herself to stay still under her scrutinizing stare. Several minutes ticked by, and she grew worried. She needed to get back to Valter’s bed.
“There is nothing you can offer me,” Caris finally repeated.
“His death?” Eviana asked, backing towards the door. She’d already spent too much time away.
“Tempting,” Caris mused, filling a glass from a pitcher of water. “But even his death will not free me. And even if I found freedom, where am I to go? The kingdom was taken from my family nearly two centuries ago.”
“You…wantto stay here?” Eviana asked, unable to believe that was possible.
“Where else would I go? Who do I have left?” she repeated.
“Perhapsoutside,” Eviana all but drawled. “Anything has to be better than these four walls.”
Caris’s lips turned up in a bitter smile. “I think you, of all people, understand there are things far worse than these four walls.”
“You have a child,” Eviana tried one last time, scraping open the scab on her arm to access her blood once more. “You do not wish to know him?”
“If he broke him and is now like him, then no. I do not wish to know him,” she answered.
“He’s not,” Eviana said. “Despite Valter’s greatest attempts, all three of them somehow turned out honorable. Pen lookedafter them and loved them as her own, like she did when you were at her side. And the Fates…they had plans for Theon.”
Caris stared at her, long and hard. “What kind of plans?”
“A…love,” she answered, unable to think of a better way to describe it. “Despite it all, Theon learned to love. That didn’t come from Valter. That came from you.” When Caris only continued to stare back at her, staying silent, Eviana turned and pressed her palm to the wall as she said, “I’ll come back.”
“No need. It is pointless,” Caris called after her.
But she knew it wasn’t.
Because she had said the same thing to Tessa, and all those visits hadn’t been pointless.
She’d go back as many times as it took because deep down she knew. Caris was a mother, just like her. In the end that would win out. It had to.
40
AXEL
“We could have gone with them,” Kat grumbled from the sofa.
Axel just smiled as he followed Miara to the lift. She’d started coming here for Kat’s exams rather than having them cross half the Underground, especially after that dinner.
“Thank you, as always,” Axel said, pressing the button for the lift.
