that soaked his clothing burned into her mind.
Silent tears ran down her cheeks now, as they had then.
Then something a guard said had drawn her attention. “You have two days to gather your personal items. This property now belongs to King Jerrin.”
This is the beginning of the end , she remembered thinking, and so it had been in a way. It was the end of that life and the opening of a door that would start a new life for her.
She would remember the soldier’s words forever for the sad irony in them. Two days was more than they would need, as it turned out. Her mother told her not to pack that evening. They would do it tomorrow. The next morning, Indigo wandered out to the garden where her mother often sat to watch the sunrise in the summer months, waiting for her husband’s next return. The sun was rising. The gentle light of dawn greeted her, falling with a surreal glow upon the broken figure twisted over the stone bench in the garden. Her mother lay there, her back bent in the wrong direction over the bench, her neck twisted at an awkward angle so that her cheek pressed against the flagstone walk. Deep blue eyes, so like Indigo’s own, stared blankly at a red begonia, the first to bloom that year.
Serana Milan had thrown herself from the highest peak of the manor, apparently unwilling to live without her abusive husband. What did it matter that she left behind a seven-year-old daughter? Indigo still felt icy resentment at the memory. She had cried, sobbing inconsolably for days over the death of Hadris. She wept a slow stream of silent tears even now, years later, for her father. Not once had she cried for her mother. The passionate adoration Yiloch had for his mother, which had driven him to do such hideous things in his search for her killer, was unfathomable to Indigo.
And what of the Lyran slave trade that her father had died to try and stop? When she first met Yiloch, though she hadn’t known at the time who he really was, she’d agreed to help him partly in the hopes that doing so would further her father’s dream. She had assumed, given his pride in his country, that Yiloch would want to end the trade, to end the enslavement of his people, but she had never asked. Now that he was Emperor of Lyra, would he try to end that practice? Could she still love him if he didn’t?
What does it matter if I love him or not when we can’t be together?
A clicking sound drew her attention. It was several seconds before she realized she was picking at her fingernails again. She stopped herself, but not before remembering the way Yiloch had placed his hands over hers to quiet that nervous habit the first time they spoke. They barely knew each other then and yet that touch had moved her so deeply. An instant of gentle contact was all it took to show her just how wrong her relationship with Jayce had gone.
Curling back down on the couch, she lay quiet with her memories and brushed another tear from her cheek.
CHAPTER SIX
Yiloch gazed out the created crystal windows from where he lounged in the sitting room of his bedchambers. He had often found his father sitting in this very spot, gazing in contemplation out toward the sea as he was now. They were not so different in some ways, but the ways in which they were different had been irreconcilable. If his father hadn’t been so callous over his mother’s death or so willing to use Yiloch’s sorrow to manipulate him perhaps things would be much different now. Perhaps Rylan would still rule Lyra with Yiloch at his side. Perhaps Yiloch’s brother and others close to him would still be alive. Perhaps Myac would never have entered the picture. Neither would Indigo.
He frowned at the waves in the distance.
He and his father were different though. Rylan’s manipulations fueled a heated falling out that led to Yiloch’s exile from the capital. After that, his father turned more and more to the kinds of behaviors that led to their parting of ways,
Silent tears ran down her cheeks now, as they had then.
Then something a guard said had drawn her attention. “You have two days to gather your personal items. This property now belongs to King Jerrin.”
This is the beginning of the end , she remembered thinking, and so it had been in a way. It was the end of that life and the opening of a door that would start a new life for her.
She would remember the soldier’s words forever for the sad irony in them. Two days was more than they would need, as it turned out. Her mother told her not to pack that evening. They would do it tomorrow. The next morning, Indigo wandered out to the garden where her mother often sat to watch the sunrise in the summer months, waiting for her husband’s next return. The sun was rising. The gentle light of dawn greeted her, falling with a surreal glow upon the broken figure twisted over the stone bench in the garden. Her mother lay there, her back bent in the wrong direction over the bench, her neck twisted at an awkward angle so that her cheek pressed against the flagstone walk. Deep blue eyes, so like Indigo’s own, stared blankly at a red begonia, the first to bloom that year.
Serana Milan had thrown herself from the highest peak of the manor, apparently unwilling to live without her abusive husband. What did it matter that she left behind a seven-year-old daughter? Indigo still felt icy resentment at the memory. She had cried, sobbing inconsolably for days over the death of Hadris. She wept a slow stream of silent tears even now, years later, for her father. Not once had she cried for her mother. The passionate adoration Yiloch had for his mother, which had driven him to do such hideous things in his search for her killer, was unfathomable to Indigo.
And what of the Lyran slave trade that her father had died to try and stop? When she first met Yiloch, though she hadn’t known at the time who he really was, she’d agreed to help him partly in the hopes that doing so would further her father’s dream. She had assumed, given his pride in his country, that Yiloch would want to end the trade, to end the enslavement of his people, but she had never asked. Now that he was Emperor of Lyra, would he try to end that practice? Could she still love him if he didn’t?
What does it matter if I love him or not when we can’t be together?
A clicking sound drew her attention. It was several seconds before she realized she was picking at her fingernails again. She stopped herself, but not before remembering the way Yiloch had placed his hands over hers to quiet that nervous habit the first time they spoke. They barely knew each other then and yet that touch had moved her so deeply. An instant of gentle contact was all it took to show her just how wrong her relationship with Jayce had gone.
Curling back down on the couch, she lay quiet with her memories and brushed another tear from her cheek.
CHAPTER SIX
Yiloch gazed out the created crystal windows from where he lounged in the sitting room of his bedchambers. He had often found his father sitting in this very spot, gazing in contemplation out toward the sea as he was now. They were not so different in some ways, but the ways in which they were different had been irreconcilable. If his father hadn’t been so callous over his mother’s death or so willing to use Yiloch’s sorrow to manipulate him perhaps things would be much different now. Perhaps Rylan would still rule Lyra with Yiloch at his side. Perhaps Yiloch’s brother and others close to him would still be alive. Perhaps Myac would never have entered the picture. Neither would Indigo.
He frowned at the waves in the distance.
He and his father were different though. Rylan’s manipulations fueled a heated falling out that led to Yiloch’s exile from the capital. After that, his father turned more and more to the kinds of behaviors that led to their parting of ways,
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