The Amulet Of Nicmir (The Scripts Of Neptune, Book 1)

Chapter 72

It'd been days since Lillian had seen Nyle. He was busy, and she knew that, but it ached. It all ached.

Kariana offered some solace, but usually only in the form of someone to care for. Her sister was too thin for her own good, travel-worn and still wrestling with her own grief that she'd admittedly suppressed for far too long. They often talked late into the night about Noah's irritating habits, or how he was sometimes close to bearable, and fond memories of Philip, and about Nyle and his current position. Lillian didn't know much beyond the fact that they'd formed a cabinet for the time being rather than throwing a shell-shocked boy of eighteen on the throne, for which she was grateful. She knew Nyle. He was far from ready for this.

"Go to him," Kariana had said. "Talk to him. You need each other right now."

"I know," she'd replied. She still hadn't lifted a finger. And she still didn't know why, either. Nyle was...well, she wasn't really sure what Nyle was anymore. A prince? An heir? Either way, he was slipping through her fingers day by day and into the hands of the temporary government, a piece of clay to be shaped into a man fit to rule. She hated, hated that thought, that he was going to be preened and broken to be something he wasn't and pressured into it for the rest of his life.

The note came a little while after Chad did, the latter bearing broken-hearted news that Crynia had decided to leave. The former was scrawled in a dearly familiar hand, messy but legible, all straight lines with long curves. Meet me in the library tomorrow at midnight? A question. An invitation. Heart hammering, Lillian decided to take it.

It was snowing as she shrugged on a warm robe over her nightgown, the candle beside her bed sputtering before she blew it out and stepped silently out of her room, padding down the hall in thin socks that did little against the cold stone beneath her feet.

The library was dark and quiet. It smelled of old books and ancient leather, stirring something in her soul, a longing for stories and worlds other than her own. Shelves went up to a fairly low ceiling, where wood paneling cut clean shadows from the pale, faint glow coming off the snow and through the windows.

A boy sat in one of those windows, on the wide sill made for reading, his knees drawn up to his chest and his chin on them, watching it snow. His feet were bare, and he was in his nightclothes. It caught her off guard in a strange way. All this time she'd imagined him being shaped into someone foreign, but this boy...this boy before her was no different than the one she'd known for years, his blond hair sticking up and his eyes far away.

He lifted his head when she sat down across from him. There was barely enough space for the both of them to sit, so she pulled her knees up to her chest as well, hugging her legs and watching him over her sleeves. They sat like that for a while, just looking at each other, neither speaking and neither wanting to as it snowed outside.

"Hey," she finally whispered.

"Hey," he answered, quiet, his eyes nearly black in the shadows. "How're you holding up?"

Laughing softly, Lillian rested her cheek on her forearms and looked out the window. It was snowing heavily, now, all thick flakes and puffy clouds. It softened the sharp edges of the footsteps in the garden from earlier, when the residents of the castle had taken advantage of the clear weather and stretched their legs. "I should be asking you that. You're the one stuck on a path to the Serpentine throne."

"Lil, I mean it," Nyle said, catching a strand of her hair and curling it around his finger as she looked up. "I hated that I couldn't see you until now. How are you?"

Burying her nose in her sleeves, Lillian stared at his throat rather than meeting his eyes. "Numb," she murmured. "I keep looking for him, around corners, at dinner, when I walk in the city. I...I don't know. I guess I keep expecting him to show up and say it was all a bad joke." Eyes falling closed, Lillian took a long, tremulous breath, smelling lavender from her sleeves where they'd been pressed up against soap in her wardrobe. "He never does."