“It’s not that,” I gritted out, forcing myself to keep my head despite my desire to lose it. “I just know I’m going to have to go up against Lionel soon and I feel like I could be losing the only time I’m going to get with her. There are no guarantees I’ll win that fight even with you teaching me the dark magic I’ll need to give me an edge and you know it. So if it comes down to that before she returns then I might not get the chance to say goodbye.”
I knew it was a dick move to offer him a half truth like that, but I had to hope that they would all be able to forgive me and understand my reasons for lying in the end.
Lance relaxed, his brow furrowing as he shook his head. “You will win that fight when the time comes for it,” he said fiercely. “We just need to get Lavinia out of the way first then you’ll have the shot at Lionel which you’re owed, and you’ll see him bleeding out at your feet for all the things he has caused you and the rest of us alike. Tory will be back before you know it and you’ll be able to look forward to a future where you create mini Dragons and Phoenixes to chase around after each other in a kingdom which thrives in peace.”
I locked my jaw, unable to say any more about Roxy or why I couldn’t look forward to any of those things in a dream or otherwise and I nodded once.
Lance made a move to turn away from me but I caught hold of him, making him meet my eye again.
“You have always been a brother to me,” I said roughly. “And the love I feel for you is mightier than any bond placed upon us ever could have forced us to feel. If I do die, I want you to know that-”
“Darius, don’t-”
“Look after her,” I growled, taking his hand in mine and forcing him to make this vow with me. “If I’m gone, promise me you’ll do all you can to help her move past it and see her happy again. Love her like a brother and help her find…peace beyond me. Swear it. I need to know she won’t be alone without me.”
Lance looked like he wanted to protest but then the same fear and darkness that consumed me so often these days shifted in his gaze and he nodded.
“Only if you swear to do the same for Darcy if the worst happens to me,” he replied.
I should have told him I wouldn’t be around to do that, but I didn’t, knowing that I would keep this vow in this life or the next anyway and needing him to make it for Roxy’s sake.
“I swear,” I agreed and as he did too, a flash of magic clapped between our palms that bound us to it.
I dragged him towards me by our clasped hands and wound my arm over his shoulders, hugging him tightly for a brief moment before releasing him, hoping he hadn’t realised that I was trying to give him a goodbye in case I didn’t get a chance to give him another before my time was truly up. Because I knew that if Christmas rolled around and my countdown came to an end, I wouldn’t spend my final day surrounded by the people who loved me. I’d fly to the Palace of Souls and give all I had to make sure my father and his fucking minions were destroyed along with me.
We parted and took off after Geraldine, hurrying to catch up to her and spotting her just as she reached the third floor of the palace and headed out into the corridor there. It was still an entire floor above Vard’s sleeping quarters, but I couldn’t be bothered to try and ask her why she was taking yet another indirect route, instead trying to remind myself that Gabriel had seen this working so long as we stuck with her.
“Oh sweet onions on a basket of rye!” she exclaimed as the door swung shut between us and Lance and I broke into a sprint, drawing our weapons and gilding them in Phoenix fire as we burst through the door at her back, finding ourselves in a huge chamber with a floor length painting of the dead queen hanging from the wall before us.
Geraldine had thrown herself to her knees and was murmuring praises to the dead woman despite the fact that she was clearly no more than paint on canvas, and I muttered a curse at her ridiculous ways as I sheathed my axe once more, extinguishing the flames.
I had to assume that this was one of the rooms which had locked itself to my father as it seemed untouched. It was still full of things which related to the Savage King and his queen and I wondered briefly why we were being gifted access to it.
“Geraldine, I don’t think we really have time to be praising random paintings,” I said.
“Oh you cod bellied, Dragoon,” she sighed. “You are so irksome sometimes it is hard to function at all around your overbearing, borish ways.”
“We literally came here to get a shadow eye,” I hissed. “Not to take a fucking tour of the palace. Who knows how long the others will be able to keep my father and Lavinia away from here?”