The Winter Long
Page 50
I’d thought there were no more tears anywhere in my body. I was wrong. Dianda spoke, and suddenly I could cry again, doubling over until she was the only thing holding me upright. I had grieved before. I knew what loss felt like. But nothing, nothing, had ever felt like this.
“The sea will rock their bones in the cradle of the currents,” said Dianda, with the sort of sweet, ritual lilt to her words that parents use when talking to children. It would probably have been comforting if I’d been a daughter of the Undersea, raised to that kind of loss and that kind of sea foam immortality. But I wasn’t, and so I cried harder, causing Dianda to make a wordless sound of frustrated confusion and hold me even tighter.
Running footsteps on the deck caught my ear—some things can’t be ignored after you’ve lived the kind of life I have, no matter how much I might want to shut them out—but I didn’t raise my head or open my eyes. Dean had a security force, and he wouldn’t be caught off guard a second time in a single morning. Let him deal with whatever this was. He was the Count of Goldengreen, after all.
“Toby!”
My head snapped up, eyes opening. The bright light of the cove room nearly blinded me for a few seconds. By the time it cleared, I had found the source of the voice, and the blurriness faded to reveal Raj, Tybalt’s adopted nephew and future King of Cats, standing just outside the reach of the water. His glass-green eyes were wide, and his narrow chest was heaving from the exertion of his run. My heart sank. I was going to have to tell him. I hadn’t even reached the point of fully telling myself, and I was going to have to tell him, because I was his friend and he was Quentin’s friend, and I owed him the news from my own lips.
“Raj.” I pulled away from Dianda, noticing distractedly that she was in her natural form, the jeweled sweep of her tail curled underneath her like a cushion, and staggered to my feet. The ritual words that should have been used to announce a death to a member of the family weren’t there, they wouldn’t come; they had fled into some dark and hallowed place where I was not allowed to follow. So, instead, I took a step toward him, and trusted the bleak, broken look on my face to say all the things that my lips couldn’t.
Raj blinked at me, eyes widening briefly. Then, to my enormous surprise, relief washed across his features and he dove forward, risking the water in order to throw his arms around my waist and shout, “You’re okay! You’re—all right, you’re soaking wet and that’s horrible, but you’re not hurt! I’m not going to get skinned when I come home without you!” There was a note of forced joviality in his voice, barely concealing real, concrete relief. “Are you done doing whatever it is you’ve been doing here? Because I’m supposed to take you back to the Court of Cats.”
My stomach sank as I realized I had no idea what the funeral rites of the Cait Sidhe entailed. Maybe Raj was here to take me back to the Court of Cats for his coronation, since I was technically Tybalt’s consort. “I . . . Raj, I don’t think I can . . .”
“What?” Raj pulled away, frowning at me. He left his arms clasped around my waist, like he was afraid I was going to run away if he let go for even a second. “Are you doing something here that’s too important to leave? Because it looks like you’re going wading with mermaids, and you can do that later. You know, for somebody who hates fish, you spend a remarkable amount of time with them socially.”
I stared at him. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“What?” Raj frowned, gathering his princely imperiousness around himself like a cloak—although he still didn’t let me go. “What do you mean, what’s wrong with me? You’re the one sitting in the water and refusing to come to the Court of Cats like a sensible person.”
“I’m not Cait Sidhe, Raj,” I said, frustrated. “I had no way of getting there, even if I’d wanted to.”
“I know, which is why they sent me to find you.” His princely stoicism wobbled, revealing first relief, and then something deeper, something he probably hadn’t intended to ever let me see: grief, raw and bleeding like an open wound. “You couldn’t get to the Court of Cats on your own, and we were so scared, Toby. They said you all fell into the water together, and then you were just gone.” He lunged into another hug, burying his face against my sternum. I would have slapped most teenage boys for trying that, but the gesture was so feline that I couldn’t view it as anything but what it so clearly was: a request for comfort.
I put my arms around him, lowering my face until my cheek touched the top of his head. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I just . . . I can’t, Raj. I can’t go there yet. I don’t know if I ever can.”
“October.” A hand touched my back. I raised my head to find Marcia standing next to me, a concerned look in her eyes. “I don’t think you’re listening to each other. You’re both scared and shaken, and you aren’t really paying attention to what’s happening. You’re too busy paying attention to what you’re afraid of.”
“What do you—”
“Tell Raj why you don’t want to go to the Court of Cats.” There was a note of command in her voice. I’d grown accustomed to taking orders from her during the time we spent together at Goldengreen: she might be thin-blooded and only a quarter fae, but she pretty much always knew what she was talking about.
I took a deep breath. “I don’t want to go to the Court of Cats because I’m not ready to see someone else sitting on Tybalt’s throne,” I said. My voice was surprisingly steady, maybe because I was speaking the absolute truth for once. The Luidaeg must feel like this all the time, I thought, and continued, “I love you very much, and you’re going to be a great King, but you’re not him, and I’m not ready.” And then there was Quentin. Losing him was going to hurt even more, and for a lot longer. Tybalt was the man of my dreams. Quentin was the son I’d never been given the chance to have.
This time when Raj pulled away, it was to stare at me with disbelief that shaded slowly into understanding. “You think . . . when you lost hold of them, when you fell, you thought they drowned, didn’t you? You thought you were the only survivor.”
“Dianda found me,” I said. Hope was trying to awaken in the pit of my stomach, and I forced it to be still, refusing to let it come fully alive until Raj actually said the words that I could feel him dancing around. “Raj, what are you saying?”
“The sea will rock their bones in the cradle of the currents,” said Dianda, with the sort of sweet, ritual lilt to her words that parents use when talking to children. It would probably have been comforting if I’d been a daughter of the Undersea, raised to that kind of loss and that kind of sea foam immortality. But I wasn’t, and so I cried harder, causing Dianda to make a wordless sound of frustrated confusion and hold me even tighter.
Running footsteps on the deck caught my ear—some things can’t be ignored after you’ve lived the kind of life I have, no matter how much I might want to shut them out—but I didn’t raise my head or open my eyes. Dean had a security force, and he wouldn’t be caught off guard a second time in a single morning. Let him deal with whatever this was. He was the Count of Goldengreen, after all.
“Toby!”
My head snapped up, eyes opening. The bright light of the cove room nearly blinded me for a few seconds. By the time it cleared, I had found the source of the voice, and the blurriness faded to reveal Raj, Tybalt’s adopted nephew and future King of Cats, standing just outside the reach of the water. His glass-green eyes were wide, and his narrow chest was heaving from the exertion of his run. My heart sank. I was going to have to tell him. I hadn’t even reached the point of fully telling myself, and I was going to have to tell him, because I was his friend and he was Quentin’s friend, and I owed him the news from my own lips.
“Raj.” I pulled away from Dianda, noticing distractedly that she was in her natural form, the jeweled sweep of her tail curled underneath her like a cushion, and staggered to my feet. The ritual words that should have been used to announce a death to a member of the family weren’t there, they wouldn’t come; they had fled into some dark and hallowed place where I was not allowed to follow. So, instead, I took a step toward him, and trusted the bleak, broken look on my face to say all the things that my lips couldn’t.
Raj blinked at me, eyes widening briefly. Then, to my enormous surprise, relief washed across his features and he dove forward, risking the water in order to throw his arms around my waist and shout, “You’re okay! You’re—all right, you’re soaking wet and that’s horrible, but you’re not hurt! I’m not going to get skinned when I come home without you!” There was a note of forced joviality in his voice, barely concealing real, concrete relief. “Are you done doing whatever it is you’ve been doing here? Because I’m supposed to take you back to the Court of Cats.”
My stomach sank as I realized I had no idea what the funeral rites of the Cait Sidhe entailed. Maybe Raj was here to take me back to the Court of Cats for his coronation, since I was technically Tybalt’s consort. “I . . . Raj, I don’t think I can . . .”
“What?” Raj pulled away, frowning at me. He left his arms clasped around my waist, like he was afraid I was going to run away if he let go for even a second. “Are you doing something here that’s too important to leave? Because it looks like you’re going wading with mermaids, and you can do that later. You know, for somebody who hates fish, you spend a remarkable amount of time with them socially.”
I stared at him. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“What?” Raj frowned, gathering his princely imperiousness around himself like a cloak—although he still didn’t let me go. “What do you mean, what’s wrong with me? You’re the one sitting in the water and refusing to come to the Court of Cats like a sensible person.”
“I’m not Cait Sidhe, Raj,” I said, frustrated. “I had no way of getting there, even if I’d wanted to.”
“I know, which is why they sent me to find you.” His princely stoicism wobbled, revealing first relief, and then something deeper, something he probably hadn’t intended to ever let me see: grief, raw and bleeding like an open wound. “You couldn’t get to the Court of Cats on your own, and we were so scared, Toby. They said you all fell into the water together, and then you were just gone.” He lunged into another hug, burying his face against my sternum. I would have slapped most teenage boys for trying that, but the gesture was so feline that I couldn’t view it as anything but what it so clearly was: a request for comfort.
I put my arms around him, lowering my face until my cheek touched the top of his head. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I just . . . I can’t, Raj. I can’t go there yet. I don’t know if I ever can.”
“October.” A hand touched my back. I raised my head to find Marcia standing next to me, a concerned look in her eyes. “I don’t think you’re listening to each other. You’re both scared and shaken, and you aren’t really paying attention to what’s happening. You’re too busy paying attention to what you’re afraid of.”
“What do you—”
“Tell Raj why you don’t want to go to the Court of Cats.” There was a note of command in her voice. I’d grown accustomed to taking orders from her during the time we spent together at Goldengreen: she might be thin-blooded and only a quarter fae, but she pretty much always knew what she was talking about.
I took a deep breath. “I don’t want to go to the Court of Cats because I’m not ready to see someone else sitting on Tybalt’s throne,” I said. My voice was surprisingly steady, maybe because I was speaking the absolute truth for once. The Luidaeg must feel like this all the time, I thought, and continued, “I love you very much, and you’re going to be a great King, but you’re not him, and I’m not ready.” And then there was Quentin. Losing him was going to hurt even more, and for a lot longer. Tybalt was the man of my dreams. Quentin was the son I’d never been given the chance to have.
This time when Raj pulled away, it was to stare at me with disbelief that shaded slowly into understanding. “You think . . . when you lost hold of them, when you fell, you thought they drowned, didn’t you? You thought you were the only survivor.”
“Dianda found me,” I said. Hope was trying to awaken in the pit of my stomach, and I forced it to be still, refusing to let it come fully alive until Raj actually said the words that I could feel him dancing around. “Raj, what are you saying?”
