The Beauty of Darkness (The Remnant Chronicles 3)

PAULINE

During the night, after feeding the baby, I had lain on my side for a long while, watching Kaden sleep, still wondering at his s

cars. Now when he looked in a mirror, he would see another mark—the one I had left—alongside the ones his father had laid. Back in Terravin, a simple shirt and a few kind words had covered up everything about who I had believed he was. Mikael had done the same, but he covered up his true nature with a few flowery words. I let those words wheedle into me until they were all I saw.

Was it possible to ever really know anyone, or was I simply the worst judge of character in all of history? I rolled over, looking at the shadows flickering on the ceiling. His seeing my lady parts was the least of my distress. I was still haunted by his expression when he first held the baby in his hands. That seemed real. His eyes were filled with wonderment, but then as he reached out and laid the baby on my chest, he faltered, as if he already knew I would never allow this child in his arms again. One part of me knew I needed to thank him for helping me, but another part was still angry, and a greater part, afraid. How could I be sure if any of his kindness was real this time? What if he was still using us for another purpose the way he had before? I knew Lia trusted him. That should have been enough for me, but trust was out of my reach.

I knelt on the porch, scrubbing the crate he had found in the mill. It might make a passable cradle for now, he had said when he offered it to me this morning. He hadn’t met my gaze. He just set it on the porch and walked away. He was almost out of earshot before I called after him. When he turned I said, “Thank you.” He stood there, studying me, then finally nodded and left.

It had poured for four days straight, rivers of water rushing down hillsides, more leaks sprouting in the cottage roof. I wasn’t sure if the deluge had been blessing or curse, trapping us in such small quarters, but it also forced Lia and Kaden to work out the argument between them: Kaden wanted to go to the Viceregent himself. Confront him. Lia said no. Not until the time was right. I was surprised that he listened to her at all. There was a strange bond between them that I still didn’t understand. But when she implied there was the possibility that the Viceregent had changed, that eleven years could change a man, and she pointed to Enzo as proof, Kaden became incensed. I got a glimpse of the Assassin he had been. Maybe the Assassin he still was, and I understood that when he said “confront,” he didn’t mean talk. “People don’t change that much!” he yelled and stormed out into the rain. He returned an hour later, soaked, and they didn’t speak of it again.

I had said myself that people didn’t change, but I pondered the possibility. Lia had changed. She had always been fearless, oblivious to threat when something rankled her greatly, impulsive sometimes at cost to herself, but I saw a calculating, colder steel in her now that hadn’t been there before. She had suffered. All my months of worry for her well-being weren’t unfounded. She tried to brush past details, but I saw the scars where arrows had pierced her back and thigh. She had nearly died. I saw the thin line on her cheekbone where the Komizar had beat her. But there were other scars that couldn’t be seen on her skin. Those were the ones I worried about—a vacant stare, a curled fist, a defiant lip twisted at some memory—deeper scars from seeing people she loved murdered and knowing more had died after her escape. I saw that she cared about the Vendan people. She often spoke in their language with Kaden, and her remembrances included their traditions as well.

“Are you one of them now, Lia?” I had asked her.

She looked at me, surprised at first, but then some memory flickered in her eyes, and she didn’t answer. Maybe she wasn’t sure herself.

It was her remembrances that had changed the most. She didn’t say them by grudging obligation anymore but with a zealous power that stilled the air, calling up not just the gods, but it seemed the stars and generations too. A fullness grew in the air as if the breaths of the world kept time with our own, and I saw her stare into the darkness, her eyes focused on something the rest of us couldn’t see.

She didn’t fear the gift any longer but embraced it. She coaxed, demanded, trusted. She spoke of the gift in ways I had never heard before, its ways of seeing and knowing, and trusting, ways that made me reach deeper inside myself.

I had seen a glimpse of her brokenness too. She hid it well, but when Natiya began describing to Berdi and Gwyneth what the Dalbreck army and outpost were like and she merely mentioned Rafe’s name, Lia walked out onto the porch as if she couldn’t bear to listen. I followed and found her leaning against a post watching the downpour.

“She seems fascinated with the Dalbretch army,” I said. “She’s very young to be carrying all those weapons. I didn’t think vagabonds—”

“They don’t carry weapons,” Lia said. “Natiya tried to help me by sewing a knife into the hem of my cloak. Her camp paid dearly for it.”

“And now she wants justice.”

“The very people she had welcomed into her camp betrayed her. Her way of life—and her innocence—have been robbed. One she may get back, the other, never.”

I tried to gently nudge the conversation. “She thinks highly of the king of Dalbreck.”

Lia didn’t respond.

“What happened between you two?” I asked.

Her cheekbone glowed with light from the cottage window and she faintly shook her head. “Whatever happened was for the best.”

I touched her shoulder, and her gaze met mine. The best wasn’t what I saw in her eyes.

“Lia, it’s me. Pauline. Tell me,” I said softly.

“Leave it. Please.”

She tried to turn away, and I grabbed her arms. “I will not. Pretending you aren’t hurting won’t make the pain disappear.”

“I can’t,” she said. Her voice was hoarse. Her eyes puddled, and she angrily swiped at her lashes. “I can’t think about him,” she said more firmly. “There’s too much at stake, including his life. I can’t afford distractions.”

“And that’s all he was? A distraction?”

“Surely you of all people know these things don’t always work out.”

“Lia,” I said firmly, and I waited.

She closed her eyes. “I needed him. But so did his kingdom. That is a reality that neither of us can change.”

“But?”