Page 57 of Ashes of Aether
Judging by how stiff my father’s posture is, it seems he has stood here for a long while. He doesn’t stir as I come to a stop behind him and stare up at the painting as well. We stay like that for several minutes until he finally speaks.
“This was always her favorite,” he murmurs so quietly that at first, I think he’s talking to himself.
I give him a feeble nod. Though since his back is turned to me, he won’t be able to see the gesture.
I already knew it was her favorite; she told me herself many times. It’s why we display it at the very center of our hallway.
“It was the first one she painted after you were born,” he continues, his gaze still fixed on the lulling waves. “That’s why it was her favorite.”
The way he talks about my mother, as if she is already long gone, fills my heart with more pain. I don’t know how much more it can take. As I stare into the rolling waves, I watch her die all over again.
My weeping must be loud enough for my father to hear, since he turns and pulls me into a hug. I can count on one hand how many times my father has hugged me. Unlike my mother, he isn’t particularly warm. Only his temper is.
Yet now he hugs me all the same, and it’s clear in the way he embraces me that he needs the comfort as much as I do. I can also tell from his blood-shot eyes and ashen skin that he feels as broken as me.
“I’m sorry, Reyna,” he says after a moment, his voice so laden with regret it sounds breathless. “I’m sorry I couldn’t save her.” He leaves many words unspoken, but I hear them all: that he is sorry he could not destroy Heston in time, that he is sorry he did not execute him five years ago, that he is sorry his mercy murdered my mother.
I say nothing. I know it isn’t truly his fault, yet I can’t bring myself to speak. I just stand there crying, my weight resting entirely in my father’s arms.
After a while, when my tears stop falling, my eyes drift over to the arched window across from us. The sun slowly sinks into the horizon, casting us all in darkness.
“I’m sorry, too,” I say.
My father frowns at me.“For what?”
“I forgot to go to the library and help Erma today. I’ll go tomorrow morning and assist her all day. I promise I won’t forget again.”
To my surprise, my father shakes his head and hugs me tighter. “No, Reyna,” he says, the words breaking as they leave his mouth. “You don’t need to. You never need to again.”
Sixteen
Mymother’sfuneralisheldonSunday.ThoughIsleptthroughallofSaturday,Iappearnomorewell-restedasIstareintomymirror.Myovalfaceappearsnarrowerthanusual,mycheekssunken.Overthepastthreedays,Ihaveeatennothing.Lastnight,ItriedtoeatbutthefirstbiteleftmenauseatedandIendedupreturningtobed.Myeyes,despitehavingspentmostofthistimeclosed,arepuffyandswollen.
I wear a black lace gown that may have been beautiful if I were not wearing it to my mother’s funeral. If she were here, she would insist on me using an illusion so I don’t walk through Nolderan looking like a hideous wraith. And maybe I should, but I feel too fatigued to cast a single spell.
I leave the mirror as I am—with my long, dark hair barely brushed—and descend the stairs to the hallway. My father is waiting for me, his attention drifting across my mother’s paintings as he paces back and forth. This morning, he wears black brocade robes with ornamental silver buttons decorating the high-collar.I can’t remember the last time I saw him wearing anything other than his Grandmage’s robes.
I’ve kept him waiting for some time, but he doesn’t comment on it. He pushes open the grand doors of our manor, and we wordlessly step outside.
Even though my mother is gone, the faerie dragons still tend to our magnificent gardens. On Friday, I couldn’t stand the sight of the brightly colored flowers, but today I stop and stare at them all. I can almost see my mother planting each with her own hands. While the flowers will bloom for a long time, thanks to the faerie dragons, they will eventually wither away.
“I’ll plant them,” I whisper. My father pauses and turns to the bed of violet pansies I’m staring down at. “Without her, our gardens will soon grow bare. So, I’ll plant the new flowers when these ones die.”
He is silent for a short while and then nods slowly. “She would like that,” he mutters. The rushing fountain almost drowns his soft words. “She would like that very much. If her gardens were to wither away, she would blame us for not taking better care of it.”
We stand there for a while longer before continuing to the enchanted gates at the end of our gardens. Since we are approaching from the inside, they swing open without either of us needing to command them.
The gates close behind us and then my father clasps my shoulder. He gathers aether into his other hand, and it’s only now I realize he has left our manor without his staff. Today is one of the few occasions he ever has.
“Laxus,” he says, and the manor fades away.
The pale purple light sketches the Upper City’s cathedral. The needle spires stand tall and proud, and the many stained-glass windows depict the gods.
Though we aren’t particularly religious here in Nolderan, Grandmage Delmont Blackwood was from the Kingdom of Tirith, where they worship the ten major gods. The magi do acknowledge the existence of the Caelum—beings of pure light energy who originate from the Heavens. Legend says they once walked our world before Meysus the Wise separated Imyria from the Heavens and the Abyss. While we believe in the gods, we do not revere them like we revere aether—the origin of everything in the universe. Including both the Caelum and Malum, since light and dark magic formed from the splitting of aether during the Primordial Explosion.
The cathedral’s spires sway above me, and I am thankful for my father’s arm as he guides me up the white stone steps and through the arched entrance. Like with the archway at the Arcanium’s entrance, the words QUEL ESTE VOLU, PODE NONQUES VERA MORIRE are etched into the otherwise smooth stones.
As I reach the cathedral’s final step, I glance back over my shoulder. A low white wall marks the cathedral’s perimeter, and beyond that lies a crowd of somber and tearful faces. I don’t recognize any of them; they aren’t gathered here for my mother. Most likely, they await the funeral which will follow my mother’s. I’ve been so wrapped up in my own grief that I almost forgot my father and I are not the only ones who have lost a loved one. Heston’s evil has scarred all of Nolderan.