Page 5 of Summer of Sacrifice

He glowered at her sidelong but said nothing, turning back to the headstones next to his mother’s. After a long moment of silence, he finally spoke. “Should I have done that instead?”

He gestured to the graves with a jut of his chin. His beard had grown thick. She pulled her concern away from him and looked at the headstones. They leaned against one another, wrapped together in crawling ivy as if they marked the graves of two lovers who could not bear to be apart.

“Instead of the crypt for us to be buried in?” she asked, and he nodded. Agatha sighed, turning to face him, her magic shooting up into the sky to clear his clouds. “Grimm, are you going to tell me what caused you to draw forth a storm we didn’t know you were even capable of?”

He ignored her question. “She’s not in the crypt. Neither is my grandmother or the queen before her.”

Queen Fleurina lay between Queen Anaïs and Queen Catherine. Three women who had never met one another.

“You’ll be the first since King Leopold’s wife.”

It was peculiar that these queens had not been given a place in the royal crypt, and she made a mental note to inquire why it had happened, but he was decidedly only avoiding her questions.

She watched as her husband shook his head, manic curls swaying. A jolt of calculation infiltrated the bond, and he smiled at her, visibly pushing all thoughts of his pain away. “We’re going to be late for our council meeting, aren’t we?”

One would have thought their more than six moons apart would have left them out of sync—awkward around one another even. But it had not. From the moment Grimm bound Chresedia in the Liminal Place and found Agatha again, their entanglement had been restored to something impossible.

He was hiding much from her, of that she was certain. “You have to talk to me eventually, Grimm.”

He nodded, his head bobbing in a daze several times, lost again to his stormy thoughts. “I know. But I’d like to carry it for you just a little while longer.”

Her heart swelled and cracked in the same beat. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but part of this whole marriage thing is carrying the heaviness of life together, yes?”

Though the sentiment was true, she partially said it for the sole fact that Grimm had come alive only a handful of times in the last moon, and that was during his insistence that they remarry—with his sister present. His sister. His eyes had been so bright, and the bond so full of love when he’d told her of Arielle. How he’d found her, and how she’d been his sister in almost every life he’d lived. It was there, at the mention of his other lives, that he’d fallen back into his tumultuous temperament.

That, she surmised, was where the thorn in his side resided. His other lives. Their other lives. He tossed and turned at night, intense floods of myriad feelings coursing through the bond toward her to the point she saw little sleep.

Finally, Grimm turned to her. His lips curving up at the edges, he cupped her cheek with his hand. “I’d carry it for us both forever if I could. All of it.”

“Well, you can’t.” Agatha lifted her chin defiantly, and he huffed a laugh.

“All right, little witch.” He ran his thumb over her freckles. “Let us get through this ghastly meeting of the council,” he threw sufficient mocking into the words, “and your coronation.”

It was her turn to curl her lip in disgust.

“Then I’ll share at least a portion of the burden.”

Seleste, Then

SELESTE

Seleste stepped out of the carriage, momentarily taken aback by the quaint inn standing before her. Where it was rustic, it was equally warm and inviting, all rough boards and glowing windows. The door creaked open, lively music and conversation chasing a couple out into the night, arms wrapped tightly around one another.

Seleste smiled at the couple and their impropriety, but the coachman cleared his throat. “Apologies, demoiselle. I’d forgotten this inn can be more or less a bawdy tavern. Shall we find another place for you for the evening?”

“This is perfect.” She picked up her carpet bag in one hand and her skirts in the other, striding forward. The coachman jumped to take her bag from her, and their fingers brushed. Ignoring the spark between them, she murmured her thanks and strode inside with him on her heels.

Aromas of a Summer soup—a light lemon, chicken, and thyme dish—stale bread and ale greeted her as soon as they entered. It would be a wondrous place to stay for the evening. Just loud enough to drown out her cunning. “Two rooms, please,” she politely told the grouchy innkeeper when the woman greeted them.

As she bustled away, the coachman came up behind Seleste’s shoulder, so close she could feel his breath hot on her neck. “I usually sleep in the stable with the horses, demoiselle. I don’t need a room.”

“Nonsense,” she declared brightly as she turned to face him. “What is your name, monsieur?” She could have kicked herself for forgetting to ask. Though her mind had been rather preoccupied, it was no excuse, and so unlike her to forget to inquire about such things.

She could almost make out a blush on his dark cheeks in the candlelight. “Bast,” he said simply, dipping his head.

“Bast,” she rolled the name around on her tongue. “I like that. I am Seleste, and please stop calling me demoiselle.”

A wide smile broke out across his handsome face. “Seleste. Thank you.”