Page 20 of For Her, He Falls

"I might not be, my love, but you are ancient," Vanessa retorted with another burst of that lovely laughter.

But something is nagging at me.

"S-sorry, the book? What book?"

"It was a gift from your father," Vanessa answers excitedly. "Something inconspicuous yet meaningful that I could have with me without drawing attention or raising suspicion. No one would question one more book forgotten between the shelves of the pack house, but I adored it. It was all about the significance of flowers and how they could be used to send messages and convey various meanings. What was the title? Something about... 'The Secret Language of Flowers.'"

The book I stole from Viktor's library while cleaning. He never even realized it was gone because it wasn't actually his. It was my mother's.

All this time... that silly book is how I taught myself to read and write after Viktor only allowed me to learn the basics with the rest of the pack. It's what first spiked my interest in plants and led me to find sanctuary in the gardens. A gift from Marco to Vanessa and then, by pure chance, passed on to me. All these years, I had a little piece of my mother with me, and I never even knew it.

"Yes, exactly," Vanessa says, her excitement settling into something far more intimate and profound as she reads the emotion in my gaze.

"When I found out you were pregnant, I turned to that book to look for a name. You were barely the distant promise of an impossible dream, but I swear I could feel your heart growing strong inside of me. I loved you from the first moment I felt you exist, even without knowing the beautiful young woman you would one day become."

Tears sting my eyes once again, threatening to begin trickling down my cheeks all over again. "Did you find a name? Did you decide what to call me?" I ask, my voice barely above a whisper.

Vanessa's smile softens, and she raises a hand to cup my cheek. "My daughter, you are a flower and a diamond and a princess and a queen. And I am so sorry I wasn't there for any of it. If I can give you this small gift now... perhaps I am not too late."

I'm impossibly aware of my mate standing by my side, and I get the sense that he is holding his breath in anticipation just as I am, his heart beating in tandem with mine. Because of him, I know who I am. I know what I am, what I stand for, what I believe in, and what I love.

Now all that's left is to name it.

"Before you were taken from me," Vanessa says. "Before you were even born... I called you Iris."

"A lovely name for a princess," Marco adds softly, kissing my mother's cheek as if to grant his blessing of her choice.

"What does it mean?" Tristan asks.

"It can mean a few things," I reply. "In Ancient Greece, irises symbolized a bridge between two worlds, a connection between heaven and earth. In certain parts of Europe, the flower could be used to denote royalty. Depending on the context, an iris can represent faith, valor, trust, and courage. But basically, the most common meaning is-"

"Hope," my mother interjects with a soft smile. "Iris means hope."

Yes. Okay. This is me.

Iris means hope.

Chapter Thirteen

It took three days and three nights of tireless work to get help for all those who were injured and to get the dead to their final resting place.

I spent most of that time with Vanessa, helping the healers. Although Marco had insisted my mother remain in bed and rest, by the second day, she'd outright refused to stay inside. She'd spent long enough locked away and was more than happy to assist the healers with her knowledge of botany as they tended to the wounded from the battle while the warriors burned the bodies of those who would never recover.

Working alongside Vanessa also gave me a chance to get to know the woman who'd brought me into the world. She's so different from my father. She is all the soft curves to his stiff edges, her laughter far too loud, and her patience short. She is easily distracted but difficult to disagree with, and she has so many questions. When she isn't bombarding me with them, she is chatting away with the others, learning everything she can about the time while was locked away.

Three days to catch up on more than two decades of life.

Sometimes I look at her, and I still can't quite believe she's real. Every few hours or so, my father finds some excuse to stop by the infirmary to check on her and look at her the same way.

Tristan has not come by to check on me.

I see him in passing when I join the others for our daily meals, and I leave the door to my room open when I go to sleep, but he doesn't approach me. I don't know what else I was expecting.

There has been plenty of work to be done, and this distance between us feels like a necessary precaution. The curse that tore us apart is still marked over my heart, a single constant in a world so full of change.

As a matter of fact, it sometimes feels like that wretched scar on my soul is the only thing that has stayed the same.

In four days' time, there will be a conclave to mark one week since the battle, and after that, even more things will change. The wolves cannot stay in the nightwalker's kingdom forever, and now that there has been time to grieve the dead, the living have become restless.

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