Six Scorched Roses (Crowns of Nyaxia)

I needed to go home.

I knew it the moment I opened my eyes that day. The thought came with a sharp stab of guilt, like a haze had been cleared and I realized all at once what I had been doing.

I had been with Vale for a week. A week, in a world where time was so precious and cruel.

I needed to go home.

I told Vale this and didn’t know what to make of his slow nod and quiet demeanor. He insisted on sending me home on a magnificent black horse—a horse that was probably worth more than all of my belongings put together. “You aren’t well enough to walk all that way,” he said, when I tried to protest.

He helped me mount it, which I wasn’t expecting, his hands firm and big around my waist. His grip sent a trill up my spine that struck me in places I wasn’t expecting. When I was seated and he stood beside the horse, his hand still casually resting on my thigh, that touch was the only thing I could think about.

“Thank you for the hospitality, Vale.”

He shrugged a little, as if he was trying hard to make it seem like a great inconvenience.

Still, he didn’t move, and I wasn’t sure why. That hand still rested there, right on my thigh.

Was he waiting for me to say something? Had I missed a cue that I should know? I did that often. I looked down at that hand.

“What—”

“May I write to you?” he asked.

My mouth closed. I blinked at him.

“May I write?” He sounded vaguely irritated, and I wasn’t sure why.

“Yes,” I said, at last. “Of course.”

There was nothing of course about it. It was unwise to allow Vale to write to me. Unwise to allow more evidence of Nyaxia’s cursed children into my house, where it might draw even more ire from the gods than we had already earned.

A voice in the back of my head screamed this to me. A voice that was far too easy to silence.

I had, after all, brought so much of Vale into my home already. His blood. His books. And how I felt as if I was covered in him, right down to my skin. Right down to my heart.

What harm would some letters do?

He exhaled, shoulders lowering. The irritation faded. I realized that maybe he hadn’t been irritated with me, but with himself.

Relief. He was relieved.

And the truth was, so was I, because the thought of leaving Vale—the thought of being able to continue what we had started together this last week—

Vale stepped away from the horse. His hand was the last part of him to move. I watched it leave my thigh.

“Travel safely,” he said.

I gave him a small smile. “I’ll see you in a month, Vale.”

And he returned that smile—a thing so lovely I barely even noticed the teeth. “I’ll see you in a month, mouse.”

When I arrived home, Mina threw herself at me. “I missed you! I was so worried about you. They said you were fine, but I didn’t believe them. You were—well, you were—”

I didn’t mean to stiffen under her embrace, but I did anyway. Not at first—at first, it was a welcome reminder that she was safe, that I had made it home. But then I just felt everything else. I was always so acutely aware of sensations and textures, and now I felt Mina’s frailty most of all.

She felt it and pulled away, brows drawn. Hurt.

I looked down at myself. A fine coating of white-grey coated my clothing where her skin had touched me.

“He didn’t hurt you, did he?” she asked. “I was so worried, Lilith. I was—I was so, so worried.”

I swallowed a stab of guilt.

She was worried, and I was… I was…

I was happy there. In no great rush to come back. No great hurry to escape the quiet comfort of Vale’s home.

The final remnants of the dream I’d been living in for the last week faded away.

I hadn’t even written to her. What kind of a sister was I? Too preoccupied with—with some man—

“He didn’t hurt me,” I said. “He was…”

Kind. Caring.

I settled on, “He let me recover there.”

Her mouth pinched. “When you were bleeding? You’re lucky you made it out of there alive.”

I felt foolish for not putting that together sooner—that I had been bleeding, and I probably had been very, very tempting to Vale.

“He showed no interest in eating me,” I chuckled. “Don’t worry.”

And yet, as I said it, I heard his voice: You are a very beautiful woman.

Felt his hand on my leg.

Mina was giving me a strange look.

“Well. I’m glad you’re alright. I was… we were just all so worried about you, alright? Don’t you dare leave me like that again.”

I agreed, but it was a lie. That was the cruel joke with Mina and I. She’d leave me, or I left her. I’d do everything I could to make sure it was the latter.

“A letter came for you this morning,” Mina told me later that evening. “It’s in your office. It’s… strange.”

She was right. The letter was strange. But strange in a way I now was beginning to know quite well. The paper of the envelope looked as if it could be a decade old, yellowed and a little crumpled. It was closed with a red wax seal.

I knew right away that it was him. I smiled to myself when I held it, just because it reminded me so much of him. It was so… well, so vampiric.

I opened the envelope. Inside, there were a few torn-out pages of books with notes and translations scribbled in the margins in the handwriting I now recognized as Vale’s.

And then there was a letter. At the top was my name, and then several black drips of ink, like he’d hovered the pen over the page for a long time, thinking about what to write.

Lilith,

I hope you made it home safely. I found some more notes for you. I thought you wouldn’t want to waste the time without them.

I welcome any letters you wish to send before your visit.

I will help you however I can.

If you want it.

Vale.

I didn’t realize I was smiling until my cheeks began to ache.

It was so…

Familiar. So strangely familiar. Just a few stilted lines. None of the flowery language of polite society.

And yet, I knew it said so much that wasn’t written in these words, too.

I set the letter down and jumped when I realized Mina was standing behind me. I cursed and shoved the letter into my pocket, even though I didn’t know why my impulse was to hide it.

But she had seen it, anyway.

“You startled me,” I said.

“Be careful, Lilith,” she said. “You know what will happen if they know. If they find out.”

My mouth was dry.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

I didn’t want Mina to know, either. But who was I fooling? She was so much smarter than anyone ever gave her credit for.

And she was smart enough to know when I was lying.

She gave me a hard look. “Be careful.”