Rea cries in her sleep, pressing into my arms desperate for the warmth that her own body fails to provide her. She’s not as cold as ice anymore and so her skin isn’t freezing up and cracking at the joints, so if she can be what she is now, then why does she freeze herself? If she’s so desperate to be warm, then why does she flood herself with the frost of her own magic?
Is it her way of trying to be strong?
Like how I cling to my necromancy, even though it keeps me from having the family that I want to build. She freezes herself even though she wants the warmth of a living person. My necromancy, and her frost. It makes us stronger, even if it makes it more difficult to find what we really want.
I press a kiss against her forehead again, I’ve kissed her so many times through the night, but it’s not the passionate sort that we started with. It’s something to calm her down when she whimpers beyond her control. It’s to make sure that she knows she’s not alone, even if she’s still asleep.
Her eyes are still pressed closed, but her grip on me tightens as a smile lifts her lips, though I can barely see it in the darkness. It’s so innocent and real, not at all like how she usually is. Like a new face apart from the hungry predator and the cold face of the noblewoman.
Halfway through the night her dreams finally turned from the nasty ones, that made her cry and moan, to something gentler and happier. The change was around the same time that her frost finally gave out to my warmth, but I’m not sure if that’s just a coincidence. Even in her happier sleep, she’s been gripping me tight, and the one time I had to break away for a toilet break I found her tossing and turning, fighting with the sheets.
“Syr,” she whispers as dawn is soon to break on us. Her eyes are still closed though my name is spoken with the lucidity of consciousness. She snuggles into the sheets, and closer to me.
“Rea,” I say, kissing her forehead. More ice is forming over her again now that she’s awake, and her brow creases as she worries over something. When she does open her eyes, she looks at me with that soft smile on her lips, not saying a word. Whatever she’s thinking, I can’t even begin to guess, but it’s also kind of nice to just be here like this, guessing at what’s going on in her mind.
I can only barely see her in the low light, but I can feel her gaze on me, not the hungry gaze that I’ve grown familiar with this past day but something warmer like the warmth of a morning sun washing away the cold of a winter’s night. I lift my hand to brush aside her hair, which has become messy in sleep, and her own hand reaches up and grips mine pulling it back down and against her cheek.
The little bit of cold in her fades away, she absorbs it like a cool blanket that quickly takes in your heat, only to warm you through the night.
She shuffles around, her other hand up to the pillow and playing with my hair. She rolls it between her fingers while still pulling my hand onto her cheek and staring up at me.
“Did something happen?” She asks, her voice a clear whisper in the silence of morning.
“We were kissing, which was fun, but then you started crying,” I tell her, rubbing at her cheek. Her eyes aren’t swollen like they would be if she was still living, and there’s not even a sign of the tears that she’s shed through the night. Nothing to remember how she was crying her eyes out.
“I remember as much, yes,” she says, urging me to go on. Her hand is tense around my hair as I bring it up.
“Then we cuddled?” I ask. Is it really cuddling, when I’m holding her and rubbing her back while she’s crying? I can’t think of a better term for it, but it doesn’t quite feel right either. Maybe I should come up with a word for it.
“That was all?” Her words are still chilled, but only a whisper of the ice that had consumed her last night. It tickles against my face, a cool breeze in the morning.
“What else are you asking about?” I run my thump up against the corner of her lips as she pauses in thought. Her fangs are usually hidden away, but I can feel the slight bump where they sit uncomfortably with her other teeth.
“Nothing,” she snaps a little too quickly, breathing quick and tasting the air between us. It’s something that she’s been doing whenever she gets excited.
“Um, if I can ask… did I do something to hurt you?” It doesn’t feel like it, if she was crying because of something I did, then I don’t think she’d be acting like this right now. No, it’s something else. It’s more like back in the wilds when I would save up all my tears until I was safe in the cave where I made my home.
I can’t cry, but if I have to cry then it has to be in private where no one can see. I can only cry in the safety of my home, and I’m sure that nobles are similar, but then does that mean that she feels safe in my arms? So safe that she can finally mourn the family that’s lost?
“You can ask, yes,” she nods, a frown briefly touching her lips. “I can’t explain why I… not yet. I need to understand it myself, first. Just know that it’s not your fault.”
She presses her lips to mine with enough force that it almost hurts when she hits me.
“I’m afraid that I haven’t all day reserved for you,” she says, escaping from me as I reach for her. She sits up on the side of the bed, looking away from me. “We will take my carriage back to my estate, but then I have some business that needs attending to.”
“Okay,” I nod. “Me too. I need to dive into a crypt with some mercenaries. I think there’s some necromancy secret in there, that’s what I’m hoping for at least. Oh, and you can’t tell my team, they can’t know about this.”
“Oh?” Rea straightens out her dress, before trying to tame her hair. “Will you be visiting me again, I would be… I hope that you will… I…”
Her hands pause, and I just know that she’s about to break down in tears all over again. She’s delicate, sore, and still hurting. The emotional wounds from her tragedy are more recent than my own, and she hasn’t had time to heal.
“I’ll be back,” I jump from the bed and rush to her, grabbing her from behind. She leans back against me, and if I was a moment too slow, she’d have fallen flat on the ground, she’s trembling but trying and failing to contain it. She’s burying the tears, just like I’ve done a thousand times before. She grips my hand so tight that her nails bite into my skin, waves of frost washing over her but I keep them at bay, gripping her tighter.
“We’re both leaving,” she says, her voice nearly failing her. “We’ll be going our separate ways…”
“I’ll find you,” I say. “We both have centuries ahead of us. Even if we have to get separated, I’ll find you again.”
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If we get separated.
Is there any reason I can’t stay with her, instead of going back to Snowspring? I already know that I’m going to have to separate from my mercenary team eventually, if I keep holding onto my magic, they’ll come to hate me in time. I already know that it’s not possible to change their minds.
So, why can’t I stay here, with her, instead?
But could I protect Rea?
The knights. The vampires.
I’m not strong enough to beat them all.
I don’t know what Semi meant when she said that one of us would die if we stayed together, but she said one thing that makes more sense than anything else. I need to be strong enough to protect my family against anything and everything, if I can’t protect her, then staying with her might just bring more trouble down on her head. If people find out that I’m a necromancer, then she’d have to push me away or she’d be forced to fight my enemies as well.
If I want to be with Rea, then I need to be strong enough to stand alone against this entire city, even if everyone wants to see us dead. I’m not there yet.
“We must be going before the sunrise,” she says, looking towards the door. She pauses only to straighten out my clothes, which are in something of a state, then remembering the armour I’m about to leave behind, she throws it over my head and fixes my hair again. In the darkness I can’t keep up with her, but her hands are patting me down, pulling at my padded armour and ensuring that every part of me is properly covered.
When she’s satisfied, she finally opens the door and leads us out into the establishment. Her grip on my hand tightens as she hisses a small, disgusted breath.
She described to me yesterday that vampires have better senses than humans, and by more than a small degree, so I’m guessing that she doesn’t like what she’s smelling. I quickly find my handkerchief with my other hand, thankful that Adeleya got me in the habit of scenting it with a mixture of flowers. I pull her to a stop, forcing it into her hand, and then moving her hand up to her mouth.
Her eyes are locked on me as we stand still at the top of the stairwell, she holds the small cut of cloth over her mouth and nose before breathing it in. Pulling me along as she heads down the stairs, not saying a thing about what just happened, we don’t pass a single person until we cross the dancers still on the stages.
I don’t recognise any of them, which makes sense, no one should be dancing like that all night long, it would be much too exhausting. Rea glances at them briefly before rushing on ahead and pulling me with her.
Somehow, she managed to get word ahead of us, and just as we leave through the front door Vael drives the carriage around to pick us up. She’s smiling wide and bows down to us, from her perch at the front, waving a tall hat to us as we make for the doors. Rea’s maid is inside, pulling the doors open for us.
Rea stands by the side of the carriage, leaning her weight on me as she climbs the step up inside, her legs must still be a little weak. As she settles down into her seat, I call Crow down to accompany us. I don’t like being trapped in the death box, but Rea seems to like him and he likes her, too. He’s a curious little bird.
Her lips turn up into a smile, and though we’re outside and the sun is slowly rising in the distance, she still hasn’t taken on the icy stare that usually paints her expression. Crow pecks playfully at her fingertips and hops up to her shoulder, rubbing his feathered face against her cheek.
As we’re rattling away, closer and closer to her estate, where we’ll have to separate, she finally takes on the cold mask that I’m familiar with.
“Syr, I need you to give me an order,” she whispers, her expression is stiff and I can feel the cold returning to her, flowing from her and filling the space between us. “Order me to reject the words of Aldramodore. Make it so that I will never obey him.”
I want to waste time and make something more out of this, but I don’t think she wants that anymore. She’s back to being the person that I don’t understand, and I’m not sure that I’m ready to break through the ice that she’s recreating around her.
I need to be stronger.
Strong enough to save her from all the villains that would hurt her.
“Do not ever obey Aldramodore,” I weave the magic through her, placing the spell on her, as best as I can. It’s not as powerful as it should be, and I know that I can do better, but this is all that I have right now. “You will escape him. You will survive. If everything else goes wrong, you will find help. You will find me.”
I need to know that
“Thank you,” she whispers, a small hint of a smile showing through before she kills it. I rest my arm over her shoulders and grip her tight. Even if she doesn’t want to show it, she’s still the same person she was in that room with me. She’s the same person who broke down in tears while I held her, and the person who always holds down her desires which are more ferocious and passionate than almost anyone I’ve ever met.
What else will I learn about her?
Nothing unless I can stay with her, and I’m not sure I’m strong enough to deserve a place by her side. Not because of her vampiric nature, or her noble title, but because I can’t protect her.
She’s a vampire, and from what I’ve seen of her fighting, and the other vampires too, they’re suited best at running away when their enemy is too strong. I’m not sure that she noticed, but when I gave her those orders, I made sure to tell her to survive. To find help, if she must.
Even if it means abandoning others, she will escape with her life. They’re fast, and their teleportation through the darkness makes them difficult to catch without the exact right tools and a good plan. If she’s running away, I don’t think anyone could catch her, but if I stay to protect her against the enemies that I’m too weak to beat?
Crow sits on my hand as I lean over to kiss Rea on the cheek. She sits frozen, unable to respond now that she’s acting like a noble again, but I’m pretty sure that she’s fighting down a smile.
We reach the estate a little too quickly and my team is already outside waiting for me. They look grumpy, and it’s almost like they’ve been standing out here with their weapons all night long. Adeleya’s just about ready to burn down the carriage as I hop outside, and the sight of me doesn’t make her any happier.
“Syr, I was under the impression that this was going to be a short trip?” Theo asks, and Lothar scratches his head beside him. “Did you encounter any trouble?”
“No,” I shake my head. “It’s just that one thing led to another and then we just spent the night out.”
“So…?” Lothar looks at me, smirking and raising a brow.
“Were you found?” Theo asks. “Attacked? Had to go into hiding until morning?”
“Ah, no?” I shake my head.
“You do realize just how dangerous a situation we are in, don’t you?” He asks. “We aren’t playing around here. I don’t want to see any of us dying because of something so reckless as this. I don’t care if you’re going out to feed a stray cat or visit a whorehouse, we are staying together so that we can all stay safe?”
“How did you-!” I cut myself short.
“You were feeding a cat?” Adeleya asks, raising a brow and leaning heavily on her staff.
“Ah, sure?” I reply.
Lothar nods quietly to the side, pressing his lips into a tight line before covering them with his hand.
“I was with Rea, I was safe,” I complain.
“Syr, we’re…” he grunts, lowering his head. “We’re a team, and a good merc team is like a family. We need to know where to find one another in a time like this, so please don’t run off like this without telling us. We need to trust each other.”
“I…” I clench my teeth before I can say anything about my necromancy. They don’t like my magic, but they haven’t done anything cruel to me because of it. I also understand why they would be angry at me for disappearing on them when there are vampires, and knights, and all sorts of villains after us.
“Syr,” Theo says. “I’m sorry if we make it feel like you can’t trust us sometimes, but if there’s something you want to talk about, then please just bring it up. Don’t go behind our backs.”
“I understand,” I say, thinking about the quest that I need to run off to. The one to uncover dead magics that they don’t want to know about.
I could tell Rea about it so easily, but I know that she won’t stop me. Theo might.
“Let’s go,” Theo says, leading me to the gates of the estate.
I pause, taking my larger sword back from Nadia who smiles at me, shuffling her own assortment of weapons.
Rea is behind me, standing beside her maid and watching me leave. I wave back to her, but her expression is still ice cold and I’m not sure what to say or do. Nadia pulls me along and I step through the gates into the warm morning sunlight.
Footsteps behind me make me turn, but I’m too slow to catch her.
Rea wraps me in her cold embrace, kissing me as she nearly knocks me over. Her hands grip my back and her fingers sink in like claws as she holds me in place, as if afraid to let me go.
Her skin shines in the morning sunlight, burning away in small flickering fragments.
“Meet me again, before you leave,” she says, not waiting for a reply and turning to leave, hiding under the angled parasol, not looking back even once.
Lothar pats my shoulder, smirking at me.
“Aren’t you a little charmer,” he laughs, “Come on, we’ll make sure to get you back here before we have to leave the city.”
“Okay,” I nod slowly, touching at my cold lips.