Song of the Forever Rains by E.J. Mellow

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Darius woke as if floating to the surface of a still, warm lake, lightly and with an unfamiliar calm. He could only remember experiencing such a sensation when Lachlan had been colored in sunshine and blue skies, when his parents had both been alive. It was a past that felt like a forgotten dream, a different child’s memory. Darius struggled to keep the sensation alive as his eyes focused on his bedroom windows, on the flash of lightning beyond and the heavy splatters of rain against the glass. Sometimes the storms were so bad that night and day were one, morning just as dark as midnight. The only way to tell the passing of time was the sandglass beside Darius’s bed—just past dawn.

He rolled over with a moan, wanting to burrow deeper into his sheets, yet for the first time in a long time, Darius didn’t feel tired. He actually felt quite good: rested, his muscles eased of any ache or pain.

With that realization, he bolted upright.

Something was wrong. Pain was a constant in his life, and he had the strong feeling that he’d been in a great amount of it last night.

As he peered around his room, at the dying coals in the fireplace, his attention ran over a small brown bottle tipped over on the rug—medicine. At the sight, his mind flew back to last night’s events: meeting Larkyra at her rooms, her refreshing beauty and quick wit filling his chest with warmth in the same instant it grew heavy to be escorting her to dinner with his stepfather.

His stepfather . . .

Here was where his thoughts skipped, his memories going from there to here—a gap.

A chill ran up Darius’s spine as he begged his mind to piece together what he could not find.

Dinner. What happened at dinner?

The more Darius tried to resurrect the evening, the further away his memories swam. The chill inside him twisted into a cold sweat, for ink splotches across his memory occurred only after one thing.

No,Darius thought. Please, not that. He squeezed his eyes shut, afraid to look at what would undoubtedly be staining his sheets.

His blood.

But as the perpetual rain beat against the glass, and still no suffering came, Darius gathered the courage to glance down.

Nothing.

There was nothing.

And it wasn’t merely that no fresh wounds could be found, but none of his old ones were there either.

Panic shot from Darius’s chest, swirling like a tornado in his mind as he jumped from his bed. What trick is this?

He strode to his looking glass and ran shaky hands across his once-raked-over skin, peering at his reflection. Though he never could remember exactly how he had gotten them, his chest, stomach, and arms had all been peppered with a decade’s worth of carved marks, but they were now barren, smooth, save for a handful of red lines and welts—injuries too deep to ever truly disappear.

Darius fell to his knees before his mirror, his body trembling as he traced those remaining lines.

By the lost gods . . .

Was he still asleep? Still dreaming of the sun and blue sky? Or could this be real?

It felt real.

But what did this mean? What of his memories of waking with cuts and wounds along his skin? The pain . . . the pain always grounded him in reality.

Desperately Darius searched his right forearm, where he knew the first scar he’d ever suffered lived. He sat back on his heels, a sick relief filling him to find it still there. He felt over the jagged line.

It’s still here. It’s still here. It was real.

But what of his other scars?

He felt queasy studying his new body in the glass.

This was it. He truly must be going mad.

A harsh gust of wind blew against Darius’s windows, rattling him back to the present. It howled around the keep, continuing the haunting melody of Castle Island. Another song slipped into his memory, a different tune from a different voice. A voice that had seemed to cling to him from the moment she’d opened her lips in the Thief Kingdom—the songbird of the Mousai.

Darius frowned.

How could that be?

Nothing made sense.

“My lord?”

A knock at his door had Darius rushing to stand, gathering his discarded shirt from his bed.

“My lord?” asked Boland again as he entered Darius’s chambers, his attention going to where Darius quickly fastened his buttons over his chest. “I apologize if I interrupted anything.” His gaze roamed over Darius’s room. “I came for your daily wake-up and to help you dress.”

“Thank you, Boland,” said Darius, hiding his shaking hands by keeping them busy with tucking in his shirt. “But I think I can manage on my own this morning.”

If anyone were to notice his missing scars, it would be his valet. Even though he had been elevated to head butler many years ago, Boland had been adamant about remaining Darius’s valet as well, insisting no other servant would be able to do the job properly. Darius believed it had more to do with the secret they both shared but never directly spoke of, not even when the wounds had first begun to appear and scar over.

“You must be more careful,” Boland had said to a younger Darius, as he’d finished dressing a fresh wound on his stomach before gently helping him into a shirt and coat.

“How can I be more careful,” Darius had replied bitterly, “if I can’t even remember how I get them? I’m obviously mad and should be locked below in our holding cells.”

“No,” the older man had said softly. “You are good and healthy and have a bright future. We will just take care of this . . . situation if it ever happens again. You and I, together. Do you understand, my lord?” He’d met Darius’s gaze. “It is my duty to ensure you are cared for. I will always be here to help.”

Darius had been slightly mollified then, taking comfort in the older man’s words and gentle concern, given that his stepfather had made it perfectly clear he cared little about the matter. And though Darius could not piece together precisely how, the reality had eventually crept in that Hayzar had a major part to play in his injuries. While his memory was always blank on the specifics, retaining only fleeting, agonizing flashes, he knew with a foggy yet unwavering certainty that, during every episode, his stepfather had been nearby.

There was never any true consistency in it all. Months would go by without a scratch until, suddenly, he would wake up in some odd corner of the castle or his rooms with fresh cuts on his skin. He had felt himself growing quite crazed, retreating into a ball of fear and uncertainty, until he’d found himself living beyond the pain. He’d forced himself to keep waking, moving through life despite his cuts, new or old, and the ever-present threat of waking up with more. His people’s well-being had become his obsession. He needed to find a way to make Lachlan thrive again. This was where he placed his remaining drive that had nowhere to go, and it kept his thoughts steady and true. His homeland and his people brought him comfort, for when he was amid the wild land and surrounding lakes, he did not black out in pain. He always found sanctuary outside the walls of the castle, yet he knew that to help Lachlan he had to remain within the keep. So the painful fog had become his new normal. And apparently, it had for Boland as well.

Like any good Lachlan servant, trained in the art of silence and discretion, Boland had remained mute on the subject as the years had stretched on. And Darius had stopped asking questions about it all. Lies, he thought bitterly, my life is constructed on lies. Though Darius had learned many years ago that some lies were necessary, some questions safest left unasked, especially when a dark, twisted part of him felt he deserved his wounds. For what use was a son who could not protect his mother from getting sick? Or a man who could not protect his home?

“My lord.” Boland brought his attention back to the room. “Are you well?”

“Pardon?” Darius blinked at the butler as he stood by a now-blazing fire. A tray of coffee and jellied toast, his preferred breakfast, sat on a low table.

“I asked if you are well.”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You hadn’t responded to my earlier question.”

“Oh? I must still be waking.”

“Yes.” Boland gave him a sidelong glance as he poured out a cup, the strong, rich aroma of the coffee filling the room. “Here you are, sir.”

“Thank you.”

Boland waited as Darius sipped, the warmth rushing down his throat.

“What?” asked Darius.

“My earlier question, my lord.”

“Yes, yes. Please repeat whatever seems to be of such importance.”

“Dressing you, my lord. Are you sure you do not need my assistance?”

“Yes.” Darius refilled his cup. “I am quite sure.”

“I’ll do that—”

“By the lost gods, Boland. I am quite capable of enjoying my own breakfast without being spoon-fed.”

The old man stiffened. “Of course, my lord.”

Darius sighed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap. I seem to not be myself this morning. I think I still need a bit of time to wake.”

“Of course, sir.”

“Thank you for bringing breakfast.”

“My pleasure, sir. Is there anything else you need, sir, before I take leave?”

“No. I can handle things from here.”

“Very good, my lord.” Boland bowed low, eyes landing on a bottle lying on the rug near his feet.

Darius’s gaze followed. “Do you know why I would need my allergy medicine?”

The butler’s attention rose to meet Darius’s. “I could not say, my lord.”

“It’s empty. Did I get sick last night?”

The butler never asked why Darius couldn’t remember such things himself.

The smallest frown to Boland’s lips. “I was not present during dinner, sir. The stable master needed his inventory double-checked. But I could ask the staff—”

Darius waved a hand, slouching into one of the armchairs by the fire. That familiar fatigue settled in once more. “That won’t be necessary. Just have it refilled, please.”

“Of course.” The man slipped the bottle inside his coat pocket before heading to the door.

“Oh, and Boland,” Darius called out, halting the old man’s retreat. “Do you know what Lady Larkyra has planned this morning?”

“Lady Larkyra?” repeated Boland.

“Yes, the only lady we have in attendance.”

“I believe Ms. Clara said she and the lady would be taking a walk after breakfast, but she should be in her rooms presently. She seems to enjoy sleeping in.”

He said “sleeping in” as if it were a putrid disease.

“Thank you, Boland. That will be all.”

“Yes, my lord.”

The butler made for the door but paused at the threshold. “Sir, if I may give some advice?”

Darius’s brows crept up in surprise. “Of course.”

“I would spend more time outdoors over the next weeks, if possible. Preferably on the mainland.”

“Why is that?”

“The fresh air is good for one’s health, my lord.”

“Are you saying I look unhealthy, Boland?”

“Of course not, sir. I just think there are better things to entertain a young man out there than in here.”

At that moment, a blinding crack of lightning flashed outside.

Both men glanced in its direction.

“And a lot more that could get me killed,” replied Darius dryly.

“Perhaps . . .” The butler placed a hand over his coat pocket, where the empty medicine bottle peeked out. “Or perhaps not.”

Darius frowned as his servant exited his rooms, returning him to the state in which he always found himself—alone.

Despite the butler’s advice to spend the day outside in a raging storm, Darius had to force himself not to run to the north wing. His body remained a wonder of confusion as he quickly dressed, almost laughing at the irony of finding himself hiding his smooth skin just as desperately as he’d hidden all the scars that had once sliced across every inch.

Nothing could explain the phenomenon of waking almost completely healed—well, at least in flesh. The injury those marks had made upon his mind, the years of confusion and pain they’d brought, were set too deep to be gone after a single peaceful sleep.

His fear of his mind finally slipping was stronger than ever, but as he had done in the past, Darius pushed the thought away, his resolve to stay steady and sane for his people ever greater.

Yet Darius’s memory still raced for answers regarding last night, tripping over one important detail.

Lady Larkyra.

If he had made it out of dinner without apparent injury, what did that mean for Larkyra?

The duke’s unpredictability was maddening.

Hayzar might have been wicked, but was he such a cruel fool that he would inflict his darker side on his intended before they were married? Before her dowry was safely in his hands?

Panic spurred him toward her rooms.

When he reached the third floor, Darius’s quick footsteps remained quiet across the rugs that lined the empty hall. He slowed as he reached the end; a soft melody floated out from the last door.

It was only a hum of notes, but the sound stirred a warm vibration in his chest, one that pulled him across the threshold despite the impropriety of entering unannounced.

Lady Larkyra’s chamber was one of the larger guest rooms, with high ceilings and lush carpeting. While most of the castle felt cold and dark, these quarters retained a bit of warmth, a coziness that Darius had no doubt came from the current occupant. A giant four-poster bed sat in the middle, perfectly made with a blue floral quilt, embroidered with a pattern of white daisies. Darius couldn’t remember ever seeing such a cheery design in the castle, and he wondered if this was a little piece of Larkyra’s home she’d packed for her stay.

The thought made his heart heavy. He had all but forgotten how alone she must feel here, in a land so different from her own, with no family or friends.

Alone.

How similar they both were.

As his eyes traveled over the writing desk, chairs, couch, and vanity, he was surprised to find the space empty, though the melody continued. That was, until he noticed that the balcony doors were cracked open. He moved toward them, and the song grew louder. He peeked out to see the form of a woman half-reclined on a sofa, a tray of sweets and tea by her side.

Darius held his breath.

Larkyra was nothing less than a goddess.

A safe goddess with no apparent injuries.

Her blue dress trickled like water, matching the unbound white hair that flowed below her waist, no corset or puffed skirts to hide her lithe figure, her feet tucked beneath her.

Darius felt stuck in place, not wanting to disturb this peaceful scene, one that could not stop his heart more, for there, balanced on the tip of her extended finger, was a small orange-and-yellow bird. It chirped a pretty melody as if in response to the hum of Larkyra’s voice, and she smiled, parting her lips to sing a note so similar to the creature’s that Darius had to watch the exchange happen twice more before believing it.

With a flutter, two more yellow birds landed on the balcony’s railing. They shook their feathers free of rain before flying to land on Larkyra’s lap.

Who is this woman?Darius found himself wondering once again. He had told her he still believed in magic, and looking at her, it was easy to see why. She glowed with life and spirit and good.

“It is a trick one of my father’s old friends taught me,” murmured Larkyra, softly stroking the bird on her finger, the injury on her left hand visible without her gloves. “Cedar waxwings are the easiest for me to mimic,” she said, as if this explained away such a gift, before turning to meet his gaze.

Darius jolted from his hiding spot, knocking his hip against the door handle.

Larkyra laughed lightly, the birds around her fluttering at the sound before flying back into the storm.

“You might as well come and join me,” she said, her blue eyes quickly running the length of him, almost clinically. “Unless you prefer snooping.”

“I was not snooping.” He knew his flushed cheeks told a different story.

“Of course. My apologies. This is your home. I forgot that means you’re allowed to peer through any door without reason or invitation.”

“Did you not just invite me now?”

A smile curled across her lips. “Well volleyed, Darius. Now please come out of that crack before I drag you out.”

He cautiously stepped onto the balcony, the cool air hitting against his jacket. “Are you not cold out here?”

“I asked for a small fire to be brought out.” She pointed to a stone bowl with a metal-grated top by her side, hot coals and licking flames beneath. “We have these lit in our courtyards in Jabari on colder nights.”

He drew nearer, savoring the warmth that surrounded her. “Did you have this packed?”

“Against many arguments from my sisters. I was pleased to write them how very wrong they were.”

“Yes, I can imagine how you might enjoy sharing such news.”

“Please.” Larkyra untucked her feet, shifting to give him room beside her on the sofa. “Come sit and tell me why I have the honor of your visit.”

Darius leaned against a nearby column instead. “I wanted to see how you enjoyed dinner last night.” And whether you survived it.

Larkyra flicked a crumb off her lap. “It was fine.”

“Fine?” Darius raised his brows. “I doubt my stepfather would be satisfied with such an answer.”

“Yes, I doubt he would be.”

Darius noted the edge in her tone. “Did something happen that displeased you?”

Larkyra looked out at the downpour, at the raindrops smacking against the edge of the balcony.

More,Darius always thought the Lachlan storms seemed to beg. Give us more. More to drench. More to own, more to make like us, falling, falling, falling forever.

“I do not like the way your stepfather talks to you.”

Her answer set a nervous buzz in his ears. “What do you mean?”

“He seems to hate your very existence.”

Darius blinked, her candor never ceasing to set him back on his heels. He found himself laughing.

“You don’t agree?” Larkyra’s brows drew in.

“Oh no.” Darius let out a few more chuckles as he finally moved to sit beside her. How she disarmed him. “I agree completely. I’ve never met anyone who would admit it to my face, however.”

“Well, now you have.”

Despite the topic, Darius smiled. “Now I have.”

“Does it not bother you?”

“That people don’t speak their minds regarding my stepfather’s and my relationship? I doubt anyone feels it appropriate to do so.”

“I meant, does it bother you that he doesn’t like you?”

“Why should it?” Darius shrugged. “I do not like him.”

It was the first time he’d ever admitted it out loud; it was freeing, especially when he had the feeling no judgment would come from his current companion.

Larkyra twisted fully to regard him, the movement bringing her blue-clad knee precariously close to his thigh, the heat between them more charged than the lightning splitting the skies. He also couldn’t stop staring at her hands. Not because of her missing finger but because he wasn’t used to seeing them without gloves. Even with the bump of scars along the knuckle of her ring finger, her hands appeared delicate yet strong. Power lay in her grip, but her breeding, as a lady, was clear in the way she gently laid one atop the other.

“Have you ever been on good terms?” she asked.

The question drew his eyes up to meet hers, his mind reluctantly spinning to a time he had thought long buried. “There were moments . . . in the beginning. I remember Hayzar visiting Lachlan, before he became the new duke, and he took my mother and me into town. It was sunny then . . .” He glanced out at the storm. “He bought me sugar candies and a small wooden boat. I placed it in the lake, not knowing how strong the current was that day, and it was immediately pulled out. I panicked to have lost the gift so quickly and splashed in to retrieve it. I didn’t get far before I was scooped up and brought back to the beach. I remember how pale my mother was as she wrapped me in her arms, tears in her eyes. Hayzar was beside her, rubbing her back, his beautiful suit half-soaked from saving me, but he did not seem at all mad, just relieved. ‘You are worth more than any boat,’ he said, ‘even those built in Esrom.’ He and my mother married shortly after that day.”

“Should I marry him?”

Darius drew back as though slapped. “What?”

“Should I marry your stepfather? The purpose of my visit is hardly a secret.”

Darius opened and closed his mouth, a fish out of water. “I . . . I hardly think that is an appropriate question.”

“So?”

“So it shouldn’t be asked.”

“The propriety of something should have no bearing on its value. In fact, most improper topics contain more important conversations than proper ones.”

“Another lesson from your father not found in tomes or governesses?”

“He is one of the wealthiest men in Jabari for a reason.”

“Evidently.” Darius leaned his elbows on his knees, angling away from the woman who held the power to drive him mad.

She was dangerous, this Bassette. Too dangerous to be conversing with alone.

He should leave.

“I thought we were to always speak plainly to each other,” reminded Larkyra. “So? Will you answer my oh-so-shocking question? Or will you be no better than all the people who refuse to speak the truth to you?”

“Says the woman who is an advocate of lying when the situation warrants it.”

“Yes, and I vote that this situation does not.”

“How convenient for you.”

She grinned. “Isn’t it, though?”

With a frustrated breath, Darius stood and walked to the balcony’s edge. For once he was grateful for the cold rain hitting his skin, as it cooled his racing thoughts. “I don’t believe my opinion is of any importance.”

“As you’re a member of his family, I believe that it is.”

“Well, if you believe it is, then it must be.”

“I knew you were a smart man.”

“The fact that I remain with you unchaperoned proves otherwise.”

“Do you think something nefarious will come of it?”

“Nefarious?”

“Inappropriate, to use what seems to be your favorite word.”

“No.”

“No, it is not one of your favorite words?”

“Nothing inappropriate will happen.”

“What a shame.”

“Excuse me?”

“What a shame,” she repeated. “For then you’d be right and I wrong. But now that you’ve just contradicted your own claim against your lack of intelligence in visiting me unchaperoned, I fear any declarative statement you say from here on out will have no bearing.”

“I have a headache.”

“Here.” Larkyra plucked a pastry from the tray. “You should eat something.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Ah, ah,” she tutted. “As we just proved, you probably are.”

“I . . .” He looked from Larkyra’s dancing eyes to her outstretched hand holding the small glazed dessert. “I give up.” Darius took the cake, sat beside her, and ate the entire thing in two bites.

“Better?” she asked.

“No.”

“Which now means yes.”

To his own annoyance, Darius huffed a laugh. He should have known better than to verbally spar with this Bassette.

The pair fell into silence then, and Darius was grateful, considering how his mind grasped for what he had originally come here for. This woman had a gift for distracting him thoroughly.

But as the wind flowed over the balcony, pressing into his coat, kissing his skin, it all came flooding back. His scars, gone.

Glancing at Larkyra, watching her sip her tea, he realized that whatever had happened last night, she either didn’t remember, remained unharmed, or both. She did not seem the type who would keep quiet after seeing his raked-over marks in their full glory, let alone witnessing them suddenly disappearing. And it wasn’t as if he could up and ask her about the matter. He could just imagine it—him tearing off his shirt, standing bare chested before a lady, explaining how he used to have many scars and now only had a few. She would think him absolutely mental. Which, again, perhaps he was. Though he still could not entertain the notion. Lachlan was already growing weaker by the day; his land and people could not afford Darius to fall to ruin as well. He needed to keep it together. The mystery that had led to some of his scars healing might simply need to remain just that: a mystery. After all, Aadilor was a strange place and, as he’d seen in the Thief Kingdom, held even stranger possibilities. Perhaps he had brought a bit of that magic back to Lachlan . . .

Larkyra shivered beside him, and without thinking, Darius pulled off his coat and draped it around her shoulders.

“Thank you,” she said, glancing up in surprise.

This close, her lavender-and-mint fragrance danced over him with temptation. He dropped his hands from her arms, moving away. “Of course,” he said.

The heavy storm continued its performance beyond the balcony, rendering the surrounding land impossible to make out. It was as if they were sequestered upon their own private island within an island.

Intimate.

Darius shifted. “May I ask you something?”

“Always.”

“Why do you care about my thoughts on your marriage?”

Larkyra pulled his coat tighter. “Because I do.”

“But why?”

“Because your voice deserves to be heard.”

“For what purpose?”

“Your happiness.”

“My happiness?” scoffed Darius. “Forgive me, Larkyra, but I do not see how one has to do with the other.”

He did, of course, but not even in his most private thoughts could he admit such a thing.

“I hadn’t exactly meant in regard to whom would be your stepfather’s bride,” she explained. “Just that every soul in Aadilor deserves a chance to be heard. For their wants and wishes to be recognized.”

“And you think I have not been given that chance?”

“Not here.”

Darius studied Larkyra’s features, the delicate slope of her nose, her wind-kissed cheeks and poised posture, the way she looked at him as though she knew his deepest secrets.

That was when he felt something he didn’t expect, something that jolted him back to reality, away from their private, hidden world—anger. For something about her—her words perhaps, or the way she acted as if she knew him, really knew him, how he had suffered silently, alone for years—sent a flash of rage through him. Maybe because she’d hit so close to the truth: that he did, in fact, want a life of his own, free from a master’s choking grip and the fear of his own thoughts being spoken out loud. It was a truth he had forced himself a long time ago to forget.

“And you believe you are the one to give me that?” he asked. “My hero, come to rescue me and give me a voice? Well then, if we are going by our agreed standards of honesty, then let me say this—I do not know what games you like to play at home in Jabari, what little projects you and your sisters decide you need to pass your time in your gilded mansion, but not everything in this world is fair or just or needs saving. Some things just are.” Darius stood then, straightening the cuffs on his sleeves and ignoring whatever look marred Larkyra’s brows. “I merely came to see that you were well, my lady, that you had a pleasant dinner. I was not looking for your opinion on my life that, quite frankly, you don’t have enough knowledge to give.”

A beat of silence. Of only rain and thunder, before, “So we have returned to ‘my lady’?”

“It appears so.”

He could feel her gaze on him, daring him to look at her as he made such a declaration, but he wouldn’t—couldn’t.

“Very well, my lord. I am fine, as was the dinner last night.”

“Good.”

“Excellent.”

And with that, Darius strode from her rooms. Ignoring the fact that his coat was still wrapped around the one person who, after all these years of being alone and closed off, had helped him open up. It’s better this way, he thought, holding on to his anger. Better he snuffed that flame before it could truly burn. For those who had cared for Darius, loved him, well, their fate lay on the other side of the Fade.