Queen of Blood and Vengeance (Secrets of the Faerie Crown #4)

66. Veyka

66

VEYKA

For weeks, I’d snuck away whenever I could to search. But the truth was that I’d been looking for him for over a year. In the beginning, I searched for him in the past. I refused to live in the present because it meant being alone. If I refused to move forward, to accept my new reality, then I did not have to let him go.

Then Arran came, and I was no longer alone. But I searched for him still. Every time I stepped into the void, a part of me cried out, waiting for an answer that never came. Only in the past few weeks, when I’d come to accept my fate, had I begun the search consciously. I passed through realms of light so bright my eyes were not evolved to see. I slipped between the fabric of the universe, searching for that one place that I knew he would be waiting.

I walked alone through the mist, trusting the Ancestors to guide me. Nimue, so far removed that she seemed nothing more than a character in a book—one that had been written about my life before I was even born. But I could feel her with me now. She steadied my steps through the mist until I was far enough away from those I loved to make this one final journey. She held my hand as I stepped into the void.

She only let go once I finally found what I’d been looking for… but not who I’d been looking for.

The after realm looked suspiciously like the library in Baylaur.

And sitting right there on the floor, books and wine spread all around him, rich brown curls glinting in a late afternoon sun, was my dearest friend.

I did not know if I fell to the ground or if he stood. The laws that governed this realm might be wholly different than my own. But I was in his arms, his familiar scent wrapping around me, his smaller frame disappearing into my own.

“Parys, I am so sorry.”

Tears streamed down my face. His or mine? Could spirits cry? What was he, even? I didn’t know, and that made me sob harder. But he was real. Solid. His arms around me, curls brushing my cheek, the familiar scent of books and wine flooding my senses and drawing forth chest-wracking sobs.

He let me cry, rubbing small circles on my back. Ancestors, I could feel his smile against my cheek. He drew back to look at me and I could see it. Feel it, as bright as the sun that shone impossibly from outside of the two-story-tall windows.

“No wonder you never let anyone see you cry. You are absolutely hideous.”

I dragged the back of my hand across my face, wiping away the snot and tears and disbelief.

“I am so sorry,” I said again, this time in a broken whisper.

Parys tugged at the end of my braid, no longer waist-length. His warm brown eyes studied my face. I expected him to frown at the changes he must see there, but the corners of his smile only deepened.

“You have nothing to apologize for,” he said.

I choked on another sob. “My mother murdered you.”

“The Dowager never was particularly fond of me,” he joked. He looked whole and healthy, no physical signs of how he’d died. I wasn’t sure what I’d expected… perhaps for his hair to be wet, water leaking from his mouth. But his curls bounced merrily at his shoulders, no sign of his watery death anywhere to be seen.

I reached out, fingering the edge of his collar to reassure myself this was real. As real as it could be. I was not even sure how I’d come here—and deep inside of the soul that I might very well sacrifice before the day was done—I knew I would not be able to come here again. This was a gift from the Ancestors, from Nimue. To help give me the courage I needed.

Parys’ closed his fingers around mine, then tugged them up and pressed a kiss to the knuckles. I laughed at the intimacy that only he had ever claimed. But Parys, as always, saw through me.

“I am fine. See,” he gestured to the spread behind him. “Plenty of books and wine.”

“You are dead,” I reminded him.

Parys shrugged as if that fact meant nothing, and not everything . “This realm is not so bad.”

I looked around. “All the places in the universe you could choose, and this is it, huh?”

Parys waggled his index finger at me. “Ah, you are focused on what you do see. But think for a second about what you don’t.”

It took me several seconds to realize. “There are no librarians.”

“Exactly!” Parys smacked his thigh and laughed, the sound reverberating through the stacks.

I let the vibration settle in my chest, savoring it. “It is so wonderful to see you,” I whispered.

Parys quirked a brow. “But I’m not the one you were looking for?”

The guilt climbed my cheeks in streaks of heat before I could tame it.

“I expected you to be together.”

“Who says we aren’t?” Parys countered.

I glanced meaningfully around the very empty library.

“You should know better than anyone that time and space do not always work in the way that we expect.”

Indeed.

“How do I find him?” Then I added, with more force than I’d intended, “No cryptic answers. I’ve had enough word play to last a dozen fae lifetimes.”

Parys only laughed.

“Try the doors,” he suggested, nodding over my shoulder.

I did not want to let him go. He still held my hand. But the pull was growing. Different from the compulsion of the mating bond when Arran used it to tether me and pull me from the void. This feeling was older, seeded in me from birth.

Parys brushed another kiss over my knuckles and then released my hand, giving me a little push. I backed away, unwilling to give up even a second of him before I absolutely had to. But too soon, I was at the massive library doors. I reached behind me for the handle.

Parys dropped back down among his books and wine. But he did not look away.

“Tell Gwen it is not her fault,” he said instead of goodbye.

I smiled. “I already have.”

He grinned, and I tried to burn that image into my memory. He was exactly where he belonged. I could leave him here knowing that.

I pushed through the door to find who I was really looking for. Who I was really angry with, as Morgyn had so infuriatingly pointed out. The one who I’d been searching for all these months.

“I knew you’d come one day.”

Arthur.

I punched him.