Imperial (Insight #8)(52)
We held each other like it was our first time, as if it were our last, not taking one moment for granted.
Now, lying in his arms and staring at the low lying moon, I began to pull myself out of the bliss we were in, this manifestation around us. I had to; there was a war waiting on us, one that had waited for far too long.
“You know what I don’t understand?” I said quietly.
He waited for me to go on.
“Why did the Reaper allow the dead to be trapped in the Veil, for those souls not to be brought to him or given the chance to move on? Was it because the line before him was so long that he did not notice, or was it because he was not powerful enough?”
“Don’t,” he whispered.
I propped my chin up on my arm across his chest so I could look into his eyes. “Don’t what?”
“Don’t bring that war into our bed.”
“Just trying to understand,” I mumbled.
He reached for my head and gently caressed my hair. “Listen to understand.”
“I’ve been listening for some time now. If the Reaper protected me as you say, offered me his cathedral as a school for the Creator, then I will repay him. The dead are precious to him, and on my way home I saw how he had been robbed. As soon as I get Silas situated, that is where I will focus next.”
I thought that was a plan that was full of grace and gratitude, but the look in Vade’s eyes told me it wasn’t.
“Any closer to getting those words you are looking for?” I asked, almost sure that the reason he didn’t think it was a good idea was that he knew it would all be for naught.
“The question is, are you any closer? What has this night given you, made you remember or feel for the first time?”
“Everything. I don’t know why the Creator is waiting on me. By now, He should know that I do not do well with analogies, that I need bluntness.”
“We always forget the lessons we are told, but never the ones that we learned through experience.”
“Right,” I breathed. “I have to go back for Silas.”
He nodded once.
“No words of advice? No telling me to tread carefully so he can keep his guard?”
“You will know what to say, what you have to do.”
“Are your Fated as stubborn as Silas is? Did they doubt you when you went to them?”
He grinned. “Very stubborn, but I haven’t gone to them.”
“Why not?” I asked, furrowing my brow.
“The time is not right. They are working together. I will continue my watch.”
“They need to hear you, know that they are protected.”
“Ah, but they fight harder and discover more when they pave their own path. Donalt and Xavier have plotted to use them against me, but they underestimated the fight in each of my own.”
“So not like you,” I mused.
“They are not like any other before them.” His eyes were full of bliss.
I leaned forward and gave him a slow, subtle kiss as I manifested my warrior clothes to my body. “Go make sure they are okay. Silas had no idea that Xavier was a king; if he mentions that to the others, they may falter and think they cannot find a victory.”
He smiled. “I really don’t think they know how to falter, at least not for long. They think they are in a war of hearts, not a war of humanity; souls will hesitate when fighting for masses, but not for their rush.”
“Truth,” I said as I blinked back the dreadful onset of weak tears. “Wish me luck.”
“I will listen closely,” he said as a regal suit appeared on his body. I stood, giving him room to do the same.
He reached to kiss me once more, and I decided to be playful and start a passionate kiss that would have landed us right back in that bed—but I vanished from his arms just as that idea took hold of him, just as those long arms reached down for my thighs and moved forward.
Grinning and still blushing, I appeared in the springs. One glance at the evil that was infecting The Realm took that grin away. I let out a sigh and reached for the water to call forth the image of Silas.
“Forgetting something?” I heard Mazing say.
I glanced to my side to find her there. “I haven’t left yet, have I? Are we over our fight?” I asked, glancing around, looking for Rasp.
“No, not entirely. He blames me; that, we agree on. What we don’t agree on is the why.”
“The why?”
“He thinks I was too wrathful to see his future intentions of becoming a fever for me.”
“Future?”
“That is what I said, you can’t plan a fever. I told him as much. I told him we would have never been more than friends.”
“So he is hurt.”
“Nope. That tells not only me, but also him that he had seen whatever he wanted us to be, as some kind of contract—arranged. He is mad at me for breaching an invisible agreement and the result of that. Nothing more.”
“Did you leave here? Find what you were looking for?”
She hissed before she spoke. “Yes. Colton’s scent is everywhere, but he is nowhere. I cannot find that godforsaken Cadence petal anywhere. Rasp thinks she must be close to Fielder, that is why she is hidden.”
“That, or she is mirrored.”
“Oh, how I wish.”