The Centaur Queen (The Dark Queens #7)(61)

“M-M-Myra?” I stuttered, blinking several times.

She looked as I’d remembered. Mother had often teased that, where I had gotten the brains, Myra had stolen all the looks in the family.

Smiling warmly down at me, she held out her hand. “Brother. It’s me.”

I shook my head. “You... you... but you were trapped.”

“Not anymore. Another took my place. I am free.”

When I tried to speak, my voice shook. “W-w-who took your place?”

Her look was placid, but there was a sadness lingering in her gaze. “She said she came because of you.”

I hung my head as a rush of dizziness clutched at my skull, making me feel weak and cold.

“Tymanon wouldn’t. She couldn’t. She—”

“Did.” Another voice interrupted us. I didn’t need to look up to see who it was.

The golden-skinned fate with a crown of stars upon her head stood before us dressed in a gown of black rolling clouds that pulsed and breathed with movement. Her feet were bare. I kept my eyes glued to them, knowing that if I looked up at her now, I’d lose what little composure remained me.

Wetting my lips, it took me several minutes to gather my thoughts into any kind of coherence. The only thing I could seem to focus on was that Tymanon had left me.

She’d left me.

She’d left me...

I swallowed an ache in my throat so large my neck stretched tight from it. Myra walked to me, and without speaking a word, grabbed my hand and helped me to stand.

The dizziness had passed, but the hollowness continued to spread. My ears buzzed and my brain refused to accept what had happened. Tymanon would never leave me behind. We’d become partners in every conceivable way. She’d often told me how much she loved me. Last night she’d made sure to say it over and over and over again.

A chill swept down my spine. She’d said it because she’d known, even then, that she would leave. She’d probably known even longer than that.

Heat gathered in my eyes, and I went absolutely still, my shattered heart rattling the cage of my chest.

All the times she’d asked me for stories of Myra, all the times I’d seen the sadness and believed it was because of my twin’s separation, I’d never realized what she had planned.

Why would she do this?

“For you, satyr. Isn’t it obvious?”

I hadn’t realized I’d spoken my thoughts aloud until the Fate answered. She cocked her head, causing a tumble of brown hair to spill over her slim shoulder. Myra gripped my hand, and a tear leaked out of the corner of my left eye.

I had my sister back. She was safe again in the real world, not trapped in the labyrinth of Gnósi’s vastness. She smelled as I always remembered, of lavender and spring.

I looked at her and she smiled at me, the sight so familiar and winsome that it tugged at my soul strings. Another tear spilled off my lashes, rolling down my cheek unchecked. Myra’s full lips tipped downward.

I hated myself for the thoughts burning through me. I had my sister back, and yet I was more miserable than ever. The cost had been too high. I shook my head.

“Release her,” I begged of the Fate.

Her look was tinged with sadness. “Would that I could, male, but she is the queen of all knowledge now. The only way to free her is for someone to take her place as willingly as she took Myra’s.”

“Then I will take it.” I stepped forward.

“Pétrapos!” Myra cried out, latching onto my elbow to hold me close to her. “No!”

I gazed at my sister, feeling broken, destroyed, and ashamed of what it was I now felt. For so long, I’d been fixated on finding her, on bringing her back home safely, on saving her.

But I’d grown close to Tymanon, and over time, I’d fallen in love. It had been that love that had healed the pain of my sister’s loss, that had dulled me to the reality that, no matter what I did or how hard we fought, Tymanon and I would have been separated regardless. I’d hoped, after she’d told me that she had a plan, she’d truly figured out a way. With all her cleverness and wit, if anyone could have worked it out, it would have been Ty. But deep down, I’d not been convinced that our end would go smoothly.

The requirement for Myra’s release had been firm.

I’d been such a damned fool to give into the hope of a future with Ty. So bloody stupid.

“Tymanon asked me to see you both safely home, a charge I will fulfill for her and only her. The centaur has become a friend to me,” Lachesis said.

Myra’s lips twisted, and a flash of regret crossed her eyes before she quickly shielded her thoughts from me.

“I need her, Fate. I need my mate.”

At this, Myra turned on me completely, staring at me with eyes so wide that they were almost entirely white. Her pasture-green irises were little more than dots.

“You were tasked by the fairies to save Kingdom,” Lachesis reminded me gently. “And so you have done. Tymanon has paid the price for our favor. You still have a job to do. So do it well and make her proud.”

My lashes flickered and I shook my head because she was right. Damn it all to the pits of the Underworld, she was right. But I feared that if I left here, I would never again find my way back, never again get to make things right with my centauress, my female, my love.

“I cannot leave her,” I pleaded.