Page 149 of May: Bloom & Bane

I can hear it from where I am hiding behind one of the ancient stone pillars. The same melodic song she has been singing for centuries.

It used to comfort me. Now it just feels like the slow ticking of a clock I cannot stop, marking the hours until I am erased from her mind once more.

I press my forehead against the cold granite, closing my eyes against the beauty of the courtyard. Out there, the roses are a vibrant, mocking sea of rose-colored velvet, the exact shade of her hair.

I watch her through the shadows of the cloister, her delicate fingers trailing over the petals. They lean toward her, drawn to her warmth, the way I have been since the moment I saw her.

Arteus stirs against my shoulders. His scales whisper across my skin.

“You are watching from the ssshadows again,” he hisses. “Ssshe would welcome you. Ssshe alwaysss doesss.”

“She welcomes a stranger,” I correct. “Not me.”

“You know ssshe ssstill lovesss you.”

I barely resist the urge to roll my eyes.

“She loves the idea of me, Arteus,” I whisper. “She loves the man who tells her stories of a life she cannot recall. But she does not remember the years we have already spent in this courtyard. She does not remember what we had before our world was shattered.”

Arteus winds around me so tightly my vision swims, his cold weight a familiar anchor bringing me back to the present.

She reaches up, tucking a loose strand of that rose-colored hair behind her ear. She glances toward my pillar, her brow furrowing slightly. My breath hitches when she waves at me, and I slip further behind the stone. After a few moments, she goes back to her humming, and I allow myself to breathe again.

“Ssshe misssesss you,” Arteus hisses. “Even if ssshe doesssn’t remember why.”

“That is worse,” I breathe. A single tear runs down my cheek.

I stay pressed against the granite, listening to the song we danced to on our shøvie‡. (Soul-tying ceremony) I can still feel the ghost of her hand in mine and the way the stars leaned down to witness the moment our souls were braided together.

“One day, Rael,” he hisses, his head resting against my collarbone. “One day the curssse will crack.”

I want to believe him. But hope is no longer a luxury I can afford. Not when Sage’s curse is counting down, and I am as powerless to stop it as I am to make her remember my name.

“Come on,” I murmur, pushing off the pillar. “We need to see Tellian.”

A low hiss escapes him.

“If he daresss to do what he did lassst time.” Arteus tenses, his coils constricting around my neck in warning, then lunges forward, halting directly in front of my face. His eyes, those burning slits of gold, stare directly into mine. He is so close I can feel the dry heat radiating from his armored skin.

He searches my face, his forked tongue darting out to taste the salt of the tear I have not yet wiped away.

“If he ssspeaksss her name again,” he hisses. “If he usssesss her asss a weapon for hisss jabbsss, I will not heed your command, Therael. I will tear the tongue from hisss mouth before he can finisssh the firssst sssyllable.”

“We need his library,” I remind him. “But if he crosses that line…” I meet his burning eyes. “I will hold him down for you.”

“I will hold you to that, Rael,” he hisses.

He finally relents, his body rippling as he slides back over my shoulder and down my arm. I take one last look at the courtyard, at the most beautiful rose in the garden, before slipping deeper into the shadows of the archway. Each step I take away from her feels heavier than the last. Arteus winds tighter around my shoulders in silent comfort.

By the time we reach the library, I have buried the ache deep enough to function. Tellian’s domain sprawls before us, towering shelves stretching into impossible heights, books floating through the air like restless spirits searching for answers they will never find.

And in the center of it all: Tellian himself, surrounded by mountains of open texts, his ink-stained fingers flying across the pages, looking more desperate than I have ever seen him.

“Therael,” he says quietly, his voice hoarse from what sounds like days without sleep, “And Arteus.”

His fingers never stop moving across the pages in front of him.

“Come to see if I have found another miracle?” There’s an edge to his voice that already has Arteus hissing from behind my back. “The first one only bought you forty-eight hours.”