Cyrene smiled shyly. “Um, yes. Cyrene is really fine.”
“Of course. You’re just a bit of a legend in the village,” he said with a laugh. “It’s nice meeting you. I’m going to just take Alessia.” He gestured to the home and then hastily disappeared as if the very idea of Cyrene spooked him.
“Don’t mind Thiago. He isn’t used to strangers,” she said. “He was the same way with me when I first showed up here.”
“And when was that?”
“Why don’t you all go inside and have some tea and discuss it?” Mana said. “I will see you all in the morning.”
Cyrene nodded and then followed her friends and family into Avniella’s home. Kaliana took a seat to her left and Reeve to her right. Dean stood in a corner, talking with Lace and Ryon as if no time had passed. He had also been here the two months that Cyrene was fighting her blood curse. It made sense that he had made friends in the village even if it seemed so strange to her to think that they had all been in this small place that long.
“You are probably wondering my circumstances,” Kaliana said carefully.
“Honestly, I’m a bit surprised that you aren’t dead. Or snapping at me.”
Kaliana sighed. “I was so awful to you. So awful. I was miserable and took out my own feelings on you. I blamed you for everything.”
Cyrene waited, tense. “And you don’t anymore?”
“Well, it would be much easier if I could say it was all your fault.” Kaliana shrugged. “But no. I know it’s not. What I’ve gone through and my escape…it’s reshaped me. I hope it can reshape us, too.”
Cyrene didn’t know what to say. She had hated Kaliana for so long. And Kaliana had hated her for even longer. It was impossible to consider them being friends. Yet here they were. Both still alive despite the tragedies of the castle. Both still fighting for the lives they wanted.
“I was there,” Kaliana finally whispered. “I was there when Edric was killed.”
Cyrene froze at the words. She hadn’t had much time to think about Edric’s untimely passing. What it meant for the rest of the world and how they had parted on such poor terms. She had once taken blood magic on to save him, and now, he was just gone.
“I know you loved him, as I did,” Kaliana said. She twirled her hand. “Or we thought that we did. Anyway, Kael appeared in Edric’s bedchamber and cut him down. I begged for Alessia’s life, and he granted it but then wiped my memory. It all came back to me at his coronation. I knew then that I couldn’t stay. It wasn’t safe for me or my baby.”
Cyrene’s jaw dropped. “I cannot imagine having seen what you saw. You’re strong for running with Alessia.”
Kaliana swallowed hard. “I felt like a coward.”
“Kael would have killed you and your daughter for magic. That’s a certainty.”
“It’s his,” she whispered.
Cyrene startled at the news. At the fact that Kaliana would ever dare tell her that fact. There had been whispers about Kaliana and Kael, but Cyrene had never believed them. Never considered it might be true.
“Does he know?” Cyrene whispered back, imagining the terrible possibilities.
This entire curse between Viktor and Serafina had started with the death of Viktor’s firstborn. If Kael knew that he had a child…she couldn’t even consider it.
Kaliana nodded with a sigh. “I wish I had never told him.”
“Creator, we need to get you somewhere safer. If he found out that you were here…”
“There’s nowhere safer than here.”
“A boat out of Emporia would be a hell of a lot safer,” Cyrene said.
Her eyes shot to Dean’s in distress. He caught her look and tilted his head in question. When her eyes just rounded further, he extracted himself from the conversation and came over to them.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
Cyrene quickly explained the situation. “We need to get her out of Emporia. Drop her off in Kinkadia or, if we can’t go that far, a hideout in the Drop Pass or maybe Ika Roa. Wherever is farthest away.”
“I’m not just going to run away from the entire world,” Kaliana objected.
“It’d need to be somewhere Malysa has never heard of.”
Kaliana cleared her throat. “I am the dowager queen of Byern. I am not going to abandon my country. And anyway, who is Malysa?”
Cyrene shared a glance with Dean. That was an excellent question. One they needed to explain to everyone seated. But they had agreed, no politics tonight. They would discuss it openly with the Ancient Ones tomorrow.
“We’ll discuss it in the morning,” she said. “We should enjoy the evening. We can’t make any decisions tonight anyway.”
Kaliana got to her feet. “Tomorrow then. I am going to go check on my daughter. I know that we had our differences in the past, Cyrene, but…it is good to see you.”
Cyrene smiled and stood, too. It was unbelievable that they were here, in this moment. After all they had gone through to harm one another. After how utterly terrible Kaliana had been…and how Cyrene had thrown it back in her face. That they could still stand strong before each other, if not as friends…at least, on their way there, showed how far they had come.
Cyrene took a separate room from Dean even though one together had been offered. She turned bright red and disappeared inside when everyone laughed. Somehow, despite traveling across the world and beyond, she still was embarrassed so easily. She knew that she had been raised in a prudish society, and it always came out in the most inopportune times.
Unfortunately, she had the hardest time trying to sleep. She was tossing and turning. All the nerves about what to say tomorrow and what to do about Kaliana. It wouldn’t leave her brain, and as ever, meditating didn’t help.
Then, just when she had almost gotten to that place of relaxing, the door to her room cracked open. And Dean slipped inside. She rose to her elbow in confusion. He put a finger to his lips.
She narrowed her eyes, but he just slid under the covers and wrapped an arm around her. She stiffened in surprise.
“What are you doing?” she whispered.
He pressed a kiss to her shoulder. “Sleeping.”
“This is sleeping?”
He kissed her again. “Unless you’d like to do something else.”
“Shush, you,” she said, forcing herself to relax again.
“You’re cute when you’re embarrassed.”
“Just because not everyone has Eleysian sensibilities…”
He silenced her with another kiss to her neck. “I’ll be good. Go to sleep. I could hear you tossing and turning from the other room.”
“And you’re going to help?”
He tugged her closer so that her back was flat against his broad, warm chest. “Yes. Now, close your eyes.”
Cyrene didn’t think it would work.
She was wrong.
25
The Ancient Ones
Cyrene woke, feeling the most well-rested she had felt in months. She rolled over to wake Dean up but found her bed empty. She blinked away the sleep in her eyes. She would have thought it all a dream, except that there was an indent where his body had been. She didn’t know how he had snuck out without her knowing it.