Page 94 of Autumn Queens & Shadows

“They like you,” he said, following me out of the classroom and onto the Academy corridors—corridors that had housed Silas’s previous Bruma Command which was now extinct.

“Hard to believe I am not that dislikable?”

“Hard to believe you’ve opened yourself up to them enough for them to feel comfortable around you.”

The bright orange sunset was blinding when we stepped outside and onto the furthest rose gardens in the castle. “They’re kids. I like to think their minds have yet to twist into malicious or fearful thinking.”

“They’re grown up enough to know good and bad. Grown enough to choose who to trust or not. You’ve done good by them. You’re good to them. You’re good to these people even though I think the majority of them don't deserve any of it.”

“I’m really not,” I said. “Being good to them would mean respecting their traditions, their ways of life, and listening to their complaints. I’ve done none of that. I’ve refused to listen. Sometimes I feel just like him.”

He stopped and so did I. “You’re not Silas.”

“No, Snow says I’m better looking.”

“Where did you bury him?”

I felt blood drain out of my face. “Why would you think I’ve done that?”

“Because I remember telling you that burning and leaving a body unburied would let their soul roam this realm and never go beyond. I’m sure you more than most want Silas to get his proper punishment beyond. Where is he?”

How did he remember our time together more than I did? I’d been the one paying attention. “Why do you want to know?”

“Might need to take a piss.”

“Don’t you go to your own father’s grave for that?”

“This one is closer. I hope.”

“It’s there.”

His brow hiked up. “There?”

“Where I killed him. I buried him there.”

“Under the golden arrow?”

He remembered, and he’d probably known it before even asking, he’d just wanted me to tell him. “Yes.” He’d kissed me there, too. More often than I’d like to think, the place reminded me of that more than the one hundred deaths of my father. It felt like a fever dream now. Mostly by how it followed. The destruction. The deaths of millions. My sister’s and Kilian’s. That day had felt like one of those dreams where no matter how much or how fast you ran, you could never reach the point you were heading. We’d done everything right, but we’d been late. It had been too late. That day cost even those who had lived and survived it. Some our minds, some their souls. For some it was both.

Like him.

That day had cost Malik both.

I’d seen it.

The magic he’d used, the lives he’d taken, the pain he’d inflicted, all had dented his soul. Seeing his brother and Snow only one light breath away from death, having felt all of it, that cost him his mind.

Malik had been another sort of inconsolable after the war. Except you could never comfort someone who never cried, never raged or complained—someone who had soaked in his pain, sunken under it until it overrode his entire personality.

His finger lightly tapped my chin. “You went again.”

I shook my head. “Only thinking.”

“Of me, your loving husband, I hope.”

“Sort of,” I said, reaching to fiddle with my necklace.

“Oh?” he asked, his eyes dropping there.