Page 54 of Oracle of Ruin

Rowan places both of his hands on my waist as we walk. Half of me expects to be unable to walk out of the cavern, for the blood tie to pull me back, but nothing burns and nothing stops me from leaving as I take my first tentative step into the sunlight. The snow is the same as the last time I stepped outside the compound, and yet everything feels different. I know deep down, it is not the world that has changed.

Chapter26

Verosa

Emilie’s face breaks the moment I walk through the door. Instead of embracing me like the rest, she holds my hands to the light, running her gaze over my fingers then plying my mouth open to look at my teeth. She murmurs a prayer in broken breaths before holding my face to her chest. “Thank the gods.”

“You’re alive,” Derrín notes plainly, not bothering to rise from his seat by the window. “And in one piece, it would appear.”

I offer a puzzled look but don’t ask for any other form of explanation. Some gut feeling warns me that I don’t want to know.

Derrín finally rises, choosing to answer anyway. “I’m going to go bury the body parts,” he says as he brushes past me. I notice his eyes are red and slightly swollen, and I smile sadly to myself. The mechanic will never be able to find the words to say that he worried for me and that he cares, not for many years, no matter how badly he wants to. Some things don’t make sense with Derrín, and many never will, but I know he cares, even if he never says it.

Emilie pulls a blanket over my shoulders and steers me towards a room, but Rowan stops her with a soft yet stern look. I can see him mentally pleading for her to take a breath, and to let me breathe as well.

She sighs through her nose, suddenly looking incredibly old and worn. “I’ll be in my room. I’m glad to have you back safe, Verosa.” She runs a gentle hand down my arm, pausing to squeeze my wrist before walking off down the hallway, her arms tucked into herself, and her shoulders shaking.

“You should’ve let her stay.”

“She would’ve examined every inch of you to check for injuries and only stressed herself out more,” Rowan replies softly. “I’ll go check on her later tonight, I promise.”

“I’ll go see her too. I’d like to.”

“Whatever you wish, love.”

Warmth bubbles in my belly, spreading through my core and down my arms and legs before moving to my face. I rise up on my toes and press a kiss to his cheek. It feels hollower than when I left, and I can feel his jaw unclench as my lips brush across it again, slower now. His eyes darken, but he keeps his hands to himself as he escorts me to our room.

Back when we first found the inn, I’d hardly had any time to acquaint myself with the space. I was too thankful for solid walls, even if they were thin and splintering. Wood beneath my feet instead of soft earth. The relief was short-lived for the obvious reasons, but I have the time now.

The room Rowan leads us to is only a bit smaller than the one I had at Mavis’s, with wooden walls and shaggy rugs covering the floor. A small and weather-beaten desk sits in the furthest corner of the room near a window. Torn curtains have been pulled over it, blocking the reminder of the darkness surrounding us and keeping my mind from wandering. I’ve been terrified since I was a little girl that if I looked out into a dark window, there would be a face staring back at mine, not that I would ever admit that to anyone.

But the best part of all is the tapestries. They cover nearly every inch of dilapidated wood. Torn, beaten, some with their threads picking, while others are pristine. Glorious stitches marking stories that someone once deemed important enough to tell. I can’t help but let my mind wander. If we survive all this, if we win the war, will they tell ours? Tell mine? I’ve never thought myself one to care about petty things like pride or a legacy, but now… For the hell we’ve faced, I’d like to see my tale stitched in jewel tones somewhere, even if it is hidden away in some private collection.

A sudden surge of shame courses through me. Tanja deserves a tapestry. That will be one of the first things I do when I take back the throne. I will find all the artists left in the kingdom and commission the best, commission them all. I’ll fill a room with her story, her life. Her love.

Rowan stands closer, his hand stone against the planes of my stomach, my back pressed into his solid abdomen. He rests his chin on my shoulder and I can feel where he has to curve his back to do so. “I didn’t sleep well while you were gone,” he admits unabashedly. “And Amír got tired of my pacing. So I collected any tapestry I could find and hung them here. Something about it felt almost symbolic. How art could survive in a place like this. It also made me feel closer to you, as silly as that sounds.”

My heart does something funny in my chest, not quite a flip or a spin or a twirl. A wide grin splits across my face and Rowan presses a kiss to the hollow of my cheek. The sight of Emi flashes across my mind, her screaming face contorted with rage and pain. That, and Neris’s warning of what these people—my family—did. I shove the thought down. I shove it somewhere dark and cold and pray it doesn’t resurface. Not tonight. Tonight, I am home and I am loved and nothing else matters. Tonight it is just me and him, no one else. Nothing else.

“I learned something while I was gone,” I admit.

“I’d imagine you learned many things.”

I smack his chest lightly and he laughs.

“I learned who my parents are.” Then, unable to bite back my grin any longer, “Aiko and Finneas.”

Rowan pauses, his breath hitching, and the first tear drips down his face. Then the second, and he is burying his face in my neck. “Gods,” he breathes, and I can feel his smile against my skin.

“What? Mad that you didn’t guess it before?” I tease through choking laughter.

“No, it’s just perfect.” He pulls back, his hand cupping my face as he studies me. “I see them in you.”

The thought swells my heart. Before I let the emotion overtake me again, I lean forward, pressing my lips against his. Rowan smiles into the kiss, his tears pressing into my cheek. He has loved my parents as his own family for so long now. Seeing this chapter close for them must be the biggest sigh of relief he’s had in years.

Rowan brushes my hair away from my neck with the back of his hand and presses another kiss, longer and slower now, against the slender column. I offer a breath of a laugh but he continues, his lips tracing feverish patterns across the sensitive skin. He nips slightly at the junction between my throat and my shoulder, and I bite my lip to keep from crying out. He growls out a low sound of approval that skitters across every nerve in my body and sends my knees buckling. His tongue flicks over the small hurt. Heat and desire creep up my neck to my face in a scarlet haze and I push myself off of him, spinning so my hands can rest on the plane of his chest. His answering lopsided grin is teasing as he loops his arms around my waist. He leans down and presses a quick peck to my lips, but I hold my hand up against his lips with a small giggle to stop him.

“Stop, you rogue,” I laugh as he continues to pepper kisses across my ticklish palm.

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