Aligning the Forgotten ✓

Chapter 23: Roux

Renit stands before me, a ghost of a smile lingering on his lips. I cock my head to the side, studying his complete stillness. He doesn't speak. No words come, not as he blinks once, then twice. On the second blink, the smell of a storm fills my nose like Celestine's flowers on a spring day. I breathe it in, filling my lungs with the calming scent before it departs again.

I don't balk away as he reaches out for me, gently stroking a thumb across my cheek as if he presses any further, I'll break into a million pieces. His touch is warm so I lean into it by pressing my cheek into his palm. For the first time in what feels like too long, I'm at peace with the world around me. I don't fret; I don't wonder what troubles the day will bring—I'm free.

Wrapping my hand around his wrist, I press a light kiss to his palm and the drip of warmth I'm experiencing completely envelopes around me, an embrace I cling onto. My nails dig into his clothes so I can feel him there. Strangely so, it seems like he is. Not a ghost or a figment of my imagination but here—with me. After so long.

The surrounding meadow is calm, quiet, and not on fire as it has been. We've done it, whatever we were trying to accomplish, we made it through and to the other side. Tranquil, the world has become. There's not much left, I sense that in the distance, but the world is in my arms and I'm not letting go. Renit's voice whispers it'll be all right, it'll all be over soon.

With no other choice but to believe him, I hold on as the world tips and turns, winding down a steep trail with no end in sight. I wonder where we are going, to the afterworld or to a safe place, but I trust Renit to get us where we need to go. The entire time he holds me, I do the same, breathing in the smell of rain and listening to the booms of thunder in my chest—the lightning crackling in my core.

The light expands where it was once dark and when I open my eyes, expecting to see Renit there, Binx's face hovers over me instead. His plum eyes squint as he beholds my attention, and relief like I've never known washes over his features.

Immediately, dreaming of Renit is as disgusting as the taste of vomit in my cheeks. My entire body is as stiff as a board, I can hardly move, and my mind is wondering why the hell I had a dream about Renit—a pleasant one where I didn't kill him. But it ended as quickly as it started before things got out of hand. Maybe, if I had kept sleeping, I'd kill him.

That's how every dream goes, whether Renit or not. Everyone dies.

"She's awake," Binx alerts to whoever is in the room. He runs a hand over my forehead, still crusted with blood, and Dalis appears at my side a moment later.

She smiles at me in relief, those sapphire eyes gleaming with what I can only explain as a wondrous winter expanse. The tears drip like snowflakes from her eyes as she beholds me, lying before her on what I believe to be a table. Not a bed, not in any room I recognize. That's because I'm not in Hallie's chambers or anyone else I know. They took me down to the healers' workrooms and repaired what they could.

"How are you feeling?" Dalis asks. The tattoos along her scalp gleam in the torchlight.

I swallow the dryness in my throat. "What happened?" I manage.

"You passed out, clearly." Binx says, not at all kindly. I dart my stare over to him, apology written on my tongue, and he softens. "But I appreciate you coming to me. I want you to do that in case anything...ever happens." He places a hand on my shoulder, the only part of me that doesn't seem to hurt. My heart, for a reason I can't place, is aching, too. Possibly from seeing Renit again, lying about our love and our destination. He promised all those things but couldn't deliver in the end, he lied and I'll never grant him forgiveness.

"You had a severe gash on your leg and two broken ribs," Dalis goes on to explain. "Hallie wasn't here so she couldn't take care of you. We had the healers and a servant down here taking care of you until you woke up."