CHAPTER TWELVE
I barely noticed when Rowan and Terran joined me in the bathroom of my suite. Drawing the thick cloth down the ridges of Tham’s ribs, I watched scarlet streams swirl in the bathwater and strengthen the pink sea around him. “Tham wouldn’t want to pass unto the Fade all battered and bloody.”
Rowan had done what he could with stitches and then he and Terran had helped me get him into the bath. The spa treatment hadn’t hidden the bruises that blotched his usually smooth, Highborne skin, but at least he looked a little like Tham again.
“Highborne Elves have rituals,” I mumbled to whoever was listening. “I need a mourning band. A wide black choker embroidered with Castian’s symbols for love, hope and strength. Could we ask someone to make one for me?”
“Of course,” Terran whispered and moved toward the door.
“Have him make a few,” Rowan said, kneeling across the tub from me. “We’ll mourn with you, if that’s permitted?”
I tried to draw breath. “It’s a shame you didn’t get to meet Coal, Hotness.” I whispered against the tip of his perfectly peaked ear. I raised the small pitcher of warm water and rinsed his hair. “He’s a great little guy and I know how excited you were about being an uncle.”
My heart felt like it shattered inside my chest. Jade’s twins would never know their uncle. The tears started again in earnest. “Oh, gods, what are we going to do without you?”
I clutched the cloth and wiped his cheek with slow, gentle stokes. “Galan will be lost . . . What can I . . . How do I tell him you were killed because of me?”
Rowan took the cloth from my hand. “You never meant for this to happen.” He lifted my chin to look at him. “Take a minute and step into the shower. I’ll finish here. When Terran gets back, we’ll all take your friend to the second ring.”
“Second ring?”
“The Earth ring. It’s the only place with forested areas in Attalos. You want his pyre in a wooded area, right?”
I nodded, my chest too tight to speak. Tham’s pyre . . . I couldn’t think about that. “How did she know to hurt Tham?”
“She likely had spies tracking you long before Love was sent to bring you home.”
He pulled three puffy towels from the cabinet beside the tub and laid them on the marble floor. “Rumor of a missing Eligible started circulating a week or more before you got here. Knowing the Queen, she had somebody watching you before she made her move.”
I tried to recall the past two weeks. Tham and I had taken morning runs together with the wolves. He’d walked me to and from my classes at the castle a few times. We’d gotten completely shit-faced at the Hearthstone on Valentine’s Day. My chest tightened. Tham had dressed up like a cheesy Cupid and carried around a bow and a quiver full of long-stemmed roses giving them to all the females. Jade and Galan had been there too. Who else? Aust and Bree . . . Iadon, Nyssa, Ella . . .
Oh gods. They’re all in danger.
“Lexi?” Rowan’s voice brought me back to the palace bathroom. He was sliding his metal tablet thing back into his front pocket. I hadn’t even heard it buzz. “Take a moment to yourself. Master Constable Estes has arranged a launch.”
Life from that point tumbled forward, blurred like the haze of thick, cold fog. It buzzed in my mind, chilled my bones and pressed on my chest until I thought I would suffocate.
After standing numb under the falling water for who knows how long, that young servant girl came in to help me dress. I refused to wear anything from the palace and instead, pulled on my leathers, my Under Armour and my empty battle vest. Funny, for the first time in two days I looked like myself but had never felt less like myself in my life.
Who the hell was I?
Rowan and Terran dressed Tham in a silver tunic and ivory pants, and after I fixed his hair the way he wore it, we laid his body on a hovering gurney. Rowan pressed a series of buttons at the foot of the gurney and two clear walls arced out of the side rails. With Tham sealed under a glass dome, we transported him to the launch waiting for us at the back of the residences.
I realized during the trip to the second ring that, at some point, Rowan, Terran and Coal had changed their clothing. Rowan wore a beautiful peacock blue coat with silver rope details and Terran was in a formal warrior’s uniform. They’d even washed Coal up and found him a clean shirt. It hung loose on him, but made him look very grown up. In the pre-dawn light of what promised to be a long, horrible day, I pulled Coal into my lap and kissed the top of his freshly washed hair.
After who knows how long, Estes steered the launch beside the dock and two Strati stepped onto the lush treed shoreline and secured the boat. This area of Attalos was nothing like the metallic glamour of the inner ring. The Earth ring reminded me of the Highborne valley. The ground was covered in a blanket of pale green moss and the multitude of bushes and trees bore huge yields of red, gold and green fruit.
Estes sidled up the bank with Terran. The two of them stepped into the small clearing and met an older man waiting under a huge tree hanging heavy with blossoms. Terran embraced the man and I saw the resemblance between the two. After a short while, they parted and turned our way.
“Everything all right on this end?” Rowan asked.
Terran nodded. “My pater has everything arranged.”
“Your father?” I mumbled.
“Yes, Princess,” Terran said, helping me onto the simple wooden dock. “This is my home. Let me introduce to you to Demos, my father.” I shook hands with Demos and then Terran introduced him to Rowan and Coal. When we were all standing within the clearing, Rowan activated the hovering ability of the coffin and transported Tham’s body up the bank.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Terran caught the look on my face and slipped a hand under my elbow. “There is no place more beautiful for your friend to find his final rest, than the crest of our family plantation. We have orchards on the low ground and acres of forested land overlooking it.”
My eyes stung as my vision grew wavy. Don’t you dare start again. I blinked quickly and swallowed hard. “Thank you, Terran.”
Terran kissed my hand before tucking it into the crook of his elbow and leading us away.
The sun broke across the line of the horizon just before our somber group climbed to the crest of a treed orchard. Terran was right. With the sunrise blazing fuchsia across the Mediterranean blue sky and the green trees flowing in the salty breeze, I couldn’t imagine any place more beautiful. When we paused, Terran waited, a hopeful gleam in his eyes.
“It’s perfect,” I choked.
The pyre had been built to my ramblings and when the soldiers raised Tham’s body into place, he looked like a perfect sleeping beauty in his glass coffin resting atop an altar. I prayed for the millionth time that this was all a trick of the Queen, that maybe he would wake up.
“Castian, please let him wake up. Don’t let this happen. Don’t let Tham be dead. He’s our family. He’s Jade’s family. He’s an innocent.”
Castian didn’t interfere in the lives of his charges. I knew that. He lived by a code; the members of the Fae Pantheon never influenced the lives of the realms. The only time he stepped in was when one of the gods or goddesses was taking unfair advantage and screwing with us.
As each second passed, the crack in my heart widened. “If I had listened . . . if I hadn’t been so cocky—”
“Lexi, don’t,” Rowan said. “Nothing about this can be undone. Don’t go there.” He stepped forward and pulled strips of black fabric from his side pocket. “Are these all right?”
I touched the black, velvety choker and traced the silver symbols. My hands were shaking like flies’ wings. “Perfect. Will you put it on me, please?”
When the four of us had our mourning bands in place I accepted the torch.
The world crackled and snapped as the kindling caught and the fire grew in strength. The air whooshed, flames rising in a wall of gold and orange, reaching toward the transparent dome far above the land. Shifting colors flickered, the oppressive heat slapping my face and stirring my hair. The moisture blurring my vision lessened the sting of smoke as the silhouette of Tham’s body, dark against the brilliance of fire, was engulfed.
I was barely aware of my words as we watched the flames grow, my mind a whorl of images and moments. “Highbornes believe in celebrating the life as the dead pass Behind the Veil. They recount stories of joy and laughter so the spirit of their friend can take those emotions with them.”
I did my best. I chuckled as I retold my adventures with Tham over the past eight months.
The clean ones anyway.
Tham, dressing up as Legolas for Samhain and charming a crowd of women until a cat-fight broke out over who was going home with him. Tham, running naked through the first snowfall, then diving into the waters of the hot spring caves. Tham, breaking up an argument at the Hearthstone and then proceeding to get smashingly drunk with the two who almost leveled the place. How could one man have such a gift to live life and have it taken away?
That was it, wasn’t it? Tham was heart and laughter, love and acceptance. He lived every moment with the strength of a warrior and the passion of a lover devouring you. His spirit burned brighter than any star in the night sky, but he was too good to last.
Tham had become my best friend. Jade, Bruin and Julian would always mean the world to me, but they were my siblings. They expected things of me. They pushed at me. Tham was . . . Tham. Loving, inspiring, fun. I would miss him every day of my life.
Fighting the quiver of my lip, I did as Tham would want and discarded the guilt weighing on me. For the first time in hours, my throat let oxygen pass. I cried my last tears and wiped my cheeks. “Goodbye, Hotness. I will miss you forever. Safe travels.”
Turning away from the smoldering, charred remains I tried to draw breath into leaden lungs. “Terran, could we possibly impose and go to your home for a bit? I’d like a little time before we head back.”