O U T O F T I M E
book 3 in the 'chaos series'
in which lusine returns to earth and is reunited with steve, but not everything is as it was when they said their farewells after the events of the battle of new york. with new companions in tow, ol...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
eight "why conceal what does not need to be concealed?"
Olea is unphased when Florian stomps into the living room, hair still a mess, a bird's nest atop his head, from slumber, and flops down on the sofa beside her, head in her lap.
Instead of scalding him for waking late, she simply strokes a hand over his hair, pushing it back into place and puts her latest read into the ancient magics of Asgard, a classic in her books, down for later enjoyment.
"Is everything okay, Flo?" She asks, the use of his nickname fluent like the rivers in the warmer spells Summer graces her home with, when Mother Nature is feeling kind and joyous, when all is right, and war has become a quiet presence looming over the shoulder, never quite gone, but occasionally forgotten.
A knot in his hair gets caught around her finger and, without question, she begins working to untangle it. A motherly attitude of a young women who'd never had her own but had acquired plenty of experience through the years of her love of children and her love of healing. It was wonderful to see the smile on a little girl's face when a scrape oozing blood was miraculously healed right before her own, wide eyes.
"Nothing is okay," He replies dramatically, never one to shy away from the truth. Where was the use in unnecessary lies? To tell the truth is to be an open book for all to read and Florian Aubade was tired of hiding behind leather bindings and hardcovers. "Can you be completely honest with me right now?"
"When am I ever not?" Olea shoots back playfully, smiling comfortingly at him, which almost earns a smile in return from the soured youngster. "Yes, I'll be completely honest with you."
"Thank you," He says, shuffling to get more comfortable, his throat bobbing as he swallows and attempts to pluck the right words from his brain, but they just seem to keep slipping from his grip. As if they were little blue birds escaping into the Summer sky, fleeing to sing their little hearts out, build their homely nests, gorge on berries. "I just... Do you miss him? Do you miss my brother?"
His question makes Olea's heart miss a beat. Of all the conversational topics she'd considered, this certainly wasn't one of them, but she'd made her promise and Olea Kella never breaks promises.
"I think about Sebastian every single day, but I don't miss who he became. That wasn't the man I fell in love with, nor was it the brother you adored." Without a second thought, Olea wipes away the tear that leaks from the corner of his eye, smoothing it away with her thumb and letting his pain melt into her skin and merge with her own.
A healing potion unable to be replicated by hand, their pain would stitch their wounds neat and tidy and leave them behind: new and ready to begin again.
"I understand why she had to do what she did, but I wish he didn't have to die," He tells her, honesty flayed like a broken heart.
This is the most he'd spoken about what happened. Ever since he'd seen Sebastian's body, broken and bloody, he'd hardly spoken of him, let alone admitted to missing him. After they'd escaped from Remulan together, it was as if he'd left that piece of him behind, but it appeared that, in reality, it had only been hidden.
