The battle, in short, had been a fucking disaster.
Yes, we’d managed to destroy most of the defensive measures around Sivrinaj, and if nothing else, we’d managed to kill a large number of Simon’s forces. But he’d killed plenty of ours, too.
And what Septimus had done to Simon… the pendant, the teeth…
Mother, had I imagined that? It felt like a dream. A Goddess-damned nightmare.
Where the hell did we go from here?
“We have to go back,” I said.
“Not until you can travel,” he said.
“I feel—”
Fine.
Shockingly enough, I actually did feel fine. Dizzy, yes. Weak. But… miraculously healed, all things considered. Alya was behind me, administering medicine to a wound on my back. It hurt, making me draw in a hiss through my teeth.
But pain was manageable.
Pain wasn’t death.
I looked down at my arms, where I knew I’d been wounded badly. Only faint red marks remained, scabbing over with dark red.
Raihn followed my gaze, a faint smile twisting his lips. “It turns out your aunt is a hell of a healer.”
“We had some help,” she added. “From his blood.”
Everyone was speaking as if this was all very normal. But the normalcy of it was the most confusing of all.
Aunt. Goddess help me. I didn’t even know where to start.
“How did you know to bring me here?” I asked Raihn.
His smile faded—like he was slipping back into that memory.
“Honestly?” he said. “I don’t have a damned clue. I knew the name from your mother’s letters, and the city. I knew whoever had written them was a healer. And I was—I was desperate. I didn’t know where to go. Not sure why I ended up here.”
Behind me, Alya let out a low laugh. “Fate,” she said. “It’s beyond mortal understanding.”
I wasn’t sure if she was joking or not. She had a flat affectation that sounded like it could be either blunt seriousness or dry humor. Still… either way, I couldn’t help but agree with her.
She lifted my left arm, checking a bandage around my shoulder. “You’re lucky he thought to bring you here,” she said. “Nyaxia’s magic wouldn’t have been able to help you nearly as well.”
“What magic is this?” I asked.
“Acaeja’s. Vampire magic alone wouldn’t have been able to save you.”
Alya let my arm fall and stood, repositioning herself at the foot of the bed so I could see her. She had a steady, piercing gaze. I didn’t like it. It felt like she could see far too much of me.
That stare slid away, like it made her uncomfortable, too. “Never thought some twenty-five-year-old letters from my sister would lead us here. I’ll tell you that much.”
Vincent’s lies had shattered my belief in fate. But the fact that Raihn had found those letters, this name, this place—the fact that he’d thought to bring me here, of all places, when in his panic— It felt something like it.
Raihn looked a little pale. I wondered if he was having the same thoughts, about luck and all the ways ours could have been different. I touched his hand without thinking, sliding over his rough skin. He flipped his palm up, fingers closing loosely around mine.
My eyes fell to the bedspread, and Alya’s weathered, bony hands sitting atop it. The sight struck me with another dizzying wave of familiarity.
Those hands.
I remembered holding those hands, long ago.
Yours are so much more wrinkly than mama’s.
That’s not very polite, Oraya.
“I lived with you,” I blurted out.
Alya’s brow twitched. Only the faintest hint of surprise. “I didn’t think you would remember that. You were very, very young.” She looked around the little bedroom. “You were born here, actually. In this room. That… that was a hard day. Wasn’t sure if either of you would make it. I was doing everything I could to heal you both, but…”
She blinked, as if clearing away the past. “I haven’t felt that way in a long, long time. Not until he showed up yesterday. Brings back… a lot of memories.”
Goddess, I never thought I would ever have someone look at me the way she was now. With the nostalgic affection of a shared past.
I had so many questions. “How did—why—” And then, finally, “My mother…”
My voice trailed off. I didn’t even know what I wanted to know first.
Everything. Anything.
A smile softened the hard lines of Alya’s mouth. “She was wonderful. And she was obnoxious.”