The Rise of Deragon (The Deragon Duology #2)

53

Geneva

T he moment Ren and I emerge from the tunnels, hacking up smoke and bearing various burns across our exposed arms, the perimeter guards on duty see to it that we get a carriage ride out of Broadcove. Considering the mess that Jericho and Venus have on their hands—as evident by the spire of one of the nearby towers slowly succumbing to the raging flames—I don’t bother getting the guards to swear oaths of discretion. In fact, the looks on their faces seem to show fear, as if they don’t know the status of their king and queen at all.

I haven’t looked upon a tragedy like this since. . . well, ever. I was never there to see death befall my middle sister right after Pandora was born. I only saw what was painted over Jericho’s face. Terror—true and everlasting. That’s what overcomes me now as stone crumbles beneath extreme heat and roaring fire. History is made in the death of what turns to rubble, and Ren holds my hand in his as I watch it all unfold.

Eventually, one of the onyx carriages rips down the road that lies between the top of the hill and Honeycomb Harbor and stops in front of them. Ren pulls me behind him, wary that some threat might pop out of the cabin and leap out at me, and just as I’m inclined to argue with him about it, the door opens and confirms his theory.

I lock eyes with a face that makes me want to shatter glass with my bare first.

“Get out,” I sneer, but Henry Tolcher’s face is unreadable, and his only movements are to offer his hand out to me in an attempt to help me board. In the simple gesture, however, I notice the way his uniform has been burnt to a crisp in some areas. Not deep enough to char his skin, but quite close.

“I may not be a duchess anymore, but as I was your friend once, and for the way you’ve treated me and my—” I swallow hard, not knowing exactly what to call Ren. I bare my teeth, regardless. “You ought to show me some respect and get the hell out of that carriage.”

He only chokes out one word. “Genny.”

It’s pathetic. Grieved . Having known Henry a long time, hearing the way his voice trembles despite always maintaining a sunshiny disposition and even an air of self-righteousness warns me that whatever he has to say, is not good.

“What’s happened?” I ask.

“Get in the carriage, Genny, and I’ll tell you.” The words are not that of coercion, but of pure desperation, proving that I have all control over what happens next.

So I nod, and Ren climbs in first, staring Henry down with a glare that promises eventual retribution. He accepts that, and even allows Ren to shove him aside so that he can offer his hand and help me from the ground and onto the step. I feel Ren’s other hand fall onto the small of my back, a protective tactic as he leads me to sit across from Henry, rather than beside him. Ren shuts the carriage door and Henry pounds his fist on the roof before the coachmen leads us onward, taking a route that diverts as far from Broadcove’s burning exterior as possible.

“I’m in, aren’t I?” I ask after a suspended period of tense silence. Ren still hasn’t taken his hands off me. “Start talking. Good news first.”

Henry’s eyes go cold. “There is no good news.”

“My daughter—”

“Is alive,” Henry assures me.

“Then what is it , Henry? Is she hurt? Just tell me—”

“He’s gone, Genny.”

“Who is?”

Henry swallows hard before saying, “Jericho. And I’m afraid that Pandora. . .” He’s quiet for a long time, allowing me to fill in the blanks. “It was a firearm,” he finishes.

A scream leaves me.

The absolute horror of what instantly comes to mind is blinding. Before a backdrop of flames, I see blood and carnage. I see my daughter holding a weapon towards a man that was the closest thing to a father she ever had—no doubt pushed to do so by emotions no person should ever succumb to. I see her tears as I taste my own, sense her trembling in the way my limbs shake disorientedly. My daughter is not a violent girl, but to take down the king? Her uncle ?

She’s branded herself as a traitor.

I picture a trial, one that Venus executes herself—aunt against niece. I hear a resounding, guilty verdict, and jury of conflicted Urovian sentences. I hear the wailing and the begging, but most of all, I picture Venus’s apathy.

And I pass out cold.

+

I wake not long after Henry’s revelation, but given the state of exhaustion and hunger Ren and I are in, I can barely form a phrase to keep conversation with Tolcher. Instead, I lie there with my head in Ren’s lap for a miserable strand of hours while Henry debriefs us on everything he knows.

Pandora came with two accomplices—all three of them emerging on the hill with masks. She pulled a gun on Jericho, and then, she killed him. One shot, straight into his chest cavity.

There’s more details, but my brain shields me from them, phantom water filling my ears so that his voice sounds far away and unintelligible. Eventually, just as I hit my limit on what my soul can bear, the carriage parks before a massive tree that shades us from sight.

“What is this place?” Ren asks, his eyes trained on the ramshackle building that stands preserved in its lackluster appearance despite the surrounding neighborhood being better maintained.

I recognize it instantly. “This is my old home.”

One of Venus’s first acts as queen was to help renovate the marshes to a more suitable economic state—one of the least grotesque initiatives throughout her reign. The only place she didn’t alter—at least not on the outside—was our family home. Venus insisted that it should stand as a portrait of optimism, a testament to the fact that even the poorest of people can ascend to something greater than their present circumstances.

Inside, however, the dingy hearth has undergone serious renovations with beautiful stonework. All the floors and stairs have been restored so they don’t creak beneath my body weight, and all the window panes appear freshly cleaned. There are proper kitchen utensils hung on miscellaneous hooks and cupboards stocked full of food. The interior is painted a lighter color as opposed to the faded oak that once cloaked this place in darkness, but my favorite addition rests above the mantle in the opening room.

It’s a portrait of us—all three of the Deragon girls. We never posed for this photo, given we were dirt poor at the ages captured in the portrait, but it softens my heart, nonetheless. It depicts the three of us all leaning into each other: Venus on the left, Calliope on the right, and me in the middle. I’ve seen it once before, though. It’s a replica of the one that Jericho keeps in his boardroom: the very one that he commissioned a renowned artist to draw up from collections of the few old photographs we had in our family.

I never knew he had one sent here.

My eyes burn with tears the longer I look at it, realizing that we’re embracing one another in this artwork—a touch that’s felt foreign to me, at least from Venus, for some time now. In a way, it’s as if the portrait shows the devotion of our youth while also capturing the division of our adulthood, with each of my sisters on either side of me.

“Are you alright, my love?” Ren whispers.

No. Not in the slightest.

I think of how the man who took residency in this house is now dead. I think of how it felt to hold Calliope in my arms before running through the tunnels. I think of my daughter and the destruction she brought to a place we both called home. I think of how my daughter went on a warpath against my brother-in-law—a man I knew held a bleeding heart beneath years of jaded agony in his youth. Worst of all, I think about how the last time I interacted with him, he had stood up for me in a way, against his own wife. . . and now, he’s gone forever.

All at once, I shatter.

“Genny.”

It’s Henry who says it, lunging for me, as if to somehow comfort me.

“Stay away from me,” I snarl like a rabid dog, teeth bared until Henry steps back, providing me distance. I pull Ren back towards me, away from Henry’s reach.

“Genny, please, I’m sorry”

“You think I want your pity after how you treated us?”

Henry doesn’t relent. “My hands were tied and you know it. Ren aided your desertion, and you aided Pandora’s.”

Despite my rage and my overwhelming urge to weep, I close my hands into fists and stare Henry down. “I would do anything for them. Could you say the same for your family?”

I see Ren straighten out of the corner of my eye. The way he appears touched by the remark is the only thing that keeps my dignity and composure in one piece. Then, I watch as Henry’s stoic posture slackens. “Such bravado for a woman who betrayed her sister.”

“You brainwashed fool! I loved Venus and Jericho, but not enough to be their lapdog. Not enough to abandon my daughter like they did!” I’m shouting now, and I don’t spare a thought for propriety or politeness. “ You , however, may as well come with your own collar.”

The pure vitriol I spew at him feels good—glorious, even. In my flesh, I feel alive .

But in my heart—right when I register just how cutting my words are, proven by the bleak expression on his face—I want to take it all back. All that hate I threw his way comes careening back towards me with triple the intensity. “Oh, Saints. Henry, I—”

“Have every right,” he croaks, “to say that to me. You’re right. If Jericho and Venus imprisoned one of my sons, it wouldn’t matter what for. I’d . . . I would do anything to get them out. And I’m sorry that I didn’t do the same for you.”

It’s the apology I want and need, and yet, it doesn’t seem to fill the void I’ve created.

Ren finally intercedes. “I think you should leave.”

“I’m trying to make amends,” Henry argues pitifully.

“You may have lost your king today, but Geneva just lost her brother. Not to mention she requires space to recover from your participation in our imprisonment and starvation. So leave. Slither back to your burning castle and leave my wife alone .”

I wonder if I’ll ever be able to stop crying or if I’ll be draining this well forever.

I can feel the fierce intentionality behind his words. If we weren’t in Urovia, I’d be telling myself that Ren’s only calling me his wife to maintain a ruse. But that perception expired the moment my knee cracked against the boardwalk and I ran after him, and we’re a long ways away from Mosacia, now.

Henry says nothing else before finally adhering to Ren’s warning. The minute he’s gone and shuts the door behind him, I collapse into Ren’s arms, though I expected to hit the floor first. He lowers himself with me, ensuring that I don’t face this pain alone, and the longer I stay there, the tighter his embrace becomes. I almost want to die like this—suffocated by his hold, my last breath used to inhale his comforting, natural scent.

“Ren—”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Ren murmurs, a vow. “I promise.”

“How did we get here?” I howl into the fabric of his tattered clothes. I feel my heart tangibly break within my chest, and I wait for the bleeding to show. It never does. “How is it that weeks ago, you and I . . . we were so happy and in love in a beautiful city?”

Ren presses a firm, acknowledging kiss to my temple, and I drink it up like oxygen.

“And now, Jericho is . . .” I cannot even bear to say it aloud. “And Pandora, the gentlest soul I’ve ever known—and I don’t just say that because she’s my daughter—was driven to a place low enough to fire a gun —”

He shushes me, stroking my hair as he kneels further into me. “Let your heart take one thing at a time. I promise we’ll get to them all, but for now . . .” He pauses, his thumbs brushing the hot tears off my face. “What weighs on your heart the heaviest?”

I find it impossible to answer him right off the bat, even though I have a million reasons. Jericho, Pandora, Henry . . .

“How can you endure this with me?” I croak. Because nothing hurts like thinking I’ve forced him into so much lasting pain. Nothing wounds me deeper than thinking about the potential reality of Ren feeling forced to be with me.

Ren raises my chin to meet his gaze, even as my eyes glimpse up at him beneath glass. “Because my soul felt pulled towards you before I knew your name, and once I did, I knew my fate was so blissfully sealed. Blissful not because you brought me safety, but blissful because you were sure to be my peace amidst any pain and suffering. Because being together is a choice worth every possible consequence—the best choice I’ve ever made. It’s the same way that you could endure hell at my side. You were in freedom’s grasp, for the gods’ sakes, and yet—” His voice breaks, and Ren yields to it willingly. “How fast did you give it up?”

I think back to the boat, back to the masked man who held tight to my daughter, and that despite the turn of fate they took together, I knew I made the right choice. Leaving Pandora in his care. Leaving them to go after Ren.

“Not fast enough.”

Ren’s eyes go wide. “You barely even got to hold Pandora again.”

“She’ll understand when she meets you.”

“Genny—”

“It wouldn’t have been freedom if I left without you, Ren,” I tell him firmly, so that he has no choice but to know it. To accept it. “It would’ve been misery.”

I’ll never go anywhere without you, Ren, I’d told him. Even into death itself, I will walk with you, hand in hand.

“That’s just it,” he murmurs sweetly. “How you feel about me . . . that’s how I feel about you, Geneva Deragon. I know you haven’t had much experience with unconditional love, perhaps not any in the realm of men, but so help me, I’ll prove myself worthy of you. Enough to endure what’s behind us and what’s still to come—the good and the bad. You hear me?”

I taste our shared tears as we kiss, and everything feels right amidst such agony. Somehow, Ren’s always managed to keep me afloat that way, ensuring that our connection and the hope it brings the both of us just barely overpowers the bad things happening around us. In this kiss, I find the strength to not just be a pile on the floor, but to pull myself up to his level, to cling to him.

His kiss turns sloppy in a way that tells me all I need to know. “You think Henry will come back?” I ask breathlessly.

“I’ll lock the door,” Ren says, his voice low and gruff.

“He might have a key—”

A sharp ring suddenly pierces through the living space, and I make a mad dash for the Dial Line in the kitchen despite wanting to rip it off the wall. Another addition to the space I had forgotten Jericho installed. I pick up the receiver and grit my teeth. My voice is gravel when I ask, “Who is this?”

“Genny?”

It’s Eli’s voice, and my heart thunders to life at the hope in his tone. I slump against the wall, gripping the receiver like a vice and fight a new wave of tears—ones of immense relief. “Calliope. Did she . . .”

“She’s safe, Genny. So are the kids,” he adds, though something about the way he says kids comes out sour. I hear him swallow through the line. “But . . . I didn’t expect to hear your voice. Where’s Tolcher?”

“In hell, hopefully,” Ren sneers from beside me.

Eli clears his throat at the realization of Ren’s proximity, likely having been briefed about our shared incarceration. “I was hoping to speak to him.”

I muster up what little authority I have left. “You will speak to me instead.”

There’s a moment of silence, of him making a decision for himself. Then, just before he can decide, I hear hash rustling and static, and—

“ Geneva ,” Calliope’s voice says calmly once she has control of the line on their end, the one mounted in the royal boardroom. Somehow, it’s still operational, not having succumbed to the fire.

And then, my sister says, “Sit down before I tell you this.”

+

Henry waits two days before returning to the house, informing Ren and I that we’ve received an official pardoning. But Ren and I don’t celebrate. Come to think of it, I don’t think either of us even bat an eye.

What does grab my attention, however, is Henry telling me that he knows Pandora’s location. That she’s safe.

Everything in my body wants to get on the water again, to cross the Damocles and find her—knowing she likely would rather rot in a coffin than linger in Urovia after everything. But one look at Ren and I know he isn’t healthy enough to sail—to travel. Not yet at least. Henry knows it, too, and the look in his eyes tells me it kills him.

“Write to her,” he says after a long while.

“What?”

“To Pandora. I’ll deliver whatever message you want to send her myself since—” He looks at Ren again, splotches of bright color creeping up his arms, his neck. “As far as she’s aware, you and Ren didn’t make it out.”

My nostrils flare. “Nobody’s told her?”

Henry’s head bows. “Part of Pandora’s negotiated terms was that none of the staff makes contact with her or crosses the ocean. But I owe you two, and if she sees your handwriting—”

“Ren,” I call, deciding instantly. He peeks up from where he’s boiling water on the stove. “Will you find me some parchment and ink?”

“Yes, dear,” he answers, heading to the master bedroom in search of what I need.

I shut my eyes, too heartsick to watch him limp his way around the house, and Henry mirrors me. Once he feels that Ren is far enough away, Henry asks me pitifully, “Will there ever be a day when you might come to forgive me?”

Though my words are true, they’re heavy on my lips. “I’m already working on it.”

He smiles weakly. “And the rest of your family? Venus and Jericho?”

That makes me pause, and I use Ren’s return as a temporary out. I thank him with a smile that doesn’t exactly meet my eyes, sighing as my shoulders dip towards the page. “I suppose that it’ll happen one of these days. But now . . . now’s not that day.”

I don’t wait for anyone’s input before beginning to write.

Pandora,

I write to you to let you know that I am alive and on the mend. The last you saw of me likely put you under great duress; perhaps enough to inspire some of the actions and emotions you embraced in Broadcove, but I assure you now, I am recovering, as is my companion, whom you saw me chase after back on the Mosacian coast.

I’ve been wanting to tell you about him since I met him, so until I can introduce him to you in person, I’ll say this: while I may have aged in years, Ren makes my spirit stay young. When I came looking for you in Mosacia, he guided me both through the continent and my grief from losing you. He’s been my solid ground and my source of adventure. However, I know that seeing him again may be a complex notion and stir up negative feelings from when I left the boat. I hope you did not see my dash for him as a desertion of you, because all that was on my mind was how I couldn’t endure another loss. I’d lost my mother, my father, your father . . .

I specifically choose not to add Venus’s brush with death or even Jericho’s to the list.

and the way I saw it, you were safe with the masked man. But Ren? They surely would’ve killed him had I not chosen to stay with him—and it was an assumption I was willing to bet my life on.

Though I do not wish to further disparage the image you have of your aunt and uncle, I must inform you that I will be taking up a prolonged distance from Broadcove Castle and its inhabitants. I have not decided when or if I will ever return, as what Ren and I experienced may haunt me for years to come. What you can count on, however, is that when the time is right, I will find you again in Mosacia. Ren and I need to do some healing here first, but then, when you and I are reunited, all will be right in my world.

I consider ending the letter there and calling it a day—my wrist certainly wishes that I would. That, and Ren seems to be running out of conversation topics with Henry from where they stand on the front stoop.

And yet . . .

I’ll be the first to admit that my anger is nothing to joke about. I believe that the most joyous people in life also have room for intense retaliation, and you and I are proof. Sometimes, we make choices that feel good long enough for our anger to feast, but the second we come down from that electric high, we look around and realize that it only made things messier.

Forgive yourself, my sweet girl, just as I already have, in case you’re wondering. It took me two decades to finally forgive myself for bringing you up in a home without a father or even a grandfather, but the moment I did, I could tell the difference. I breathe deeper now, savor moments beyond surface level, and remind myself that I am still worthy of happiness—and so are you. I love you.

Until we meet again,

Mother