Palatine First (The Aurelian Archives) (48 page)

“It’ll be too small.”

“I’ll slouch.” Straightening up, Gideon pointedly jerked his chin, and Reece glanced over his shoulder, wincing as his neck muscles balked.

Nivy was leaning in the chamber doorway, as silent as ever, her eyes holding him. He said nothing, just smiled tiredly in greeting, and she smiled back, the smile of an ally.

The three of them went to the funeral alone, and stood inconspicuously off to one side of the casket, on a small rise beneath a bare-branched oak tree that hid them from most stares. All throughout the ceremony, Reece felt as if he were dreaming awake. He didn’t move forward to scatter rose pedals on the closed amber coffin with everyone else, didn’t raise his hand in salute when it was lowered into the hard, snowy ground. Something kept nudging him inside, telling him to say goodbye, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Those nudges scraped the raw edges of whatever had broken off inside of him when he’d heard Liem was dead, and the deep, internal stinging was all he really felt.

The duke and Abigail stood nearest to the rectangular hole in the ground, Abigail in a black veil that draped to the ground and unfurled like a banner when the wind gusted. Reece couldn’t see their faces, but more than once, he thought he felt the duke’s eyes graze the shadow of the tree…and he felt warmer inside for it. Things were never going to be the same, but in some ways…that gave him hope.

He listened to the bland voice of the long-faced speaker and had to keep swallowing impatient sighs. A life of sacrifice, giving…”unwavering conviction”. Lies meant to make the people in attendance feel better. He wondered if the duke and Abigail felt as badly as he did, hearing those lies. It was hard to imagine what that would feel like.

The funeral ended, and the crowds scattered, some people lining up to offer the Sheppards their condolences, others seeking the warmth of the mansion or wandering curiously in the direction of Emathia’s flooded lake, where the battered
Jester
was still roped off, the last shreds of her ravaged balloon deflated over her like a blanket.

Reece tugged up the collar of his jacket to block cold wind and unwelcome glances alike. For a time, he stood there with his good hand on his collar and stared at Liem’s grave without really seeing it. Slowly, feeling returned to him. Cold as it was, he still felt as if he were melting, and all his stiffness was leaking out around his feet. He shut his eyes and let out a breath that haloed around his head.

When he turned around, he had an audience.

Nivy and Gideon were there, sitting with their backs against the gnarled oak, but so were Hayden, Hugh, Sophie, Po, and Scarlet. He looked at them one at a time as the wind roughed up his hair. Hayden, wearing a long dark overcoat and hobbling on a pair of wooden crutches, smiled and nodded at him encouragingly.

“What are you doing here?” Reece asked.

The others exchanged uncertain looks.

Pushing his bifocals up the bridge of his nose with a finger, Hayden asked, “Where else would we be?”

Reece looked at Po, and she shrugged, stepped forward, unwound her red scarf from around her neck, and looped it instead around his. “This was more important than any old shop. Gus and Tilden…they’ll understand.”

“You didn’t have to come. None of you did.”

“That’s kind of the point, Reece,” Scarlet said patiently. She stood a little apart from the others, stealing surprisingly insecure glances at them when they weren’t looking.

Not sure he understood, Reece absently reached up and scratched at the wool scarf. His friends’ stares were expectant in a wary way, as if he was a geyser in a Freherian deadland liable to explode if they didn’t tread just so.

“Thank you,” he finally sighed, smiling an unintentionally-lopsided smile. “I’ll be fine.”

But if they managed one more knowing, seven-way look, he really
was
going to explode.

“Of course you will.” Sophie stomped through the snow that nearly spilled over into her bluebird-egg-colored boots and hugged him. “It gets better, Reece,” she whispered, and despite her smile, her voice caught. “The emptiness, I mean. I remember. From Mother.”

“Does it?” he asked doubtfully.

“It does,” she promised. “It fills back up, if you let it.”

As if directly connected to the pressure of her arms around his middle, a lump bobbed into his throat. It didn’t feel like he’d refill. It felt like a leak had sprung inside of him that would slowly tap him dry.

Clearing his throat, Reece patted the top of Sophie’s head and resignedly pushed her out to arm’s length.

“You should go inside,” he said, sweeping his eyes over the rest of his friends so they’d know they were included in that almost-order too. “I didn’t know this, but apparently, it’s customary to serve profane amounts of food at funerals. You should see it all. Clam chowder, stuffed shells, hot lemon pudding…” When they just stood there, their faces collectively sympathetic, he exasperatedly tossed up his unslinged arm and groaned, “Just go, alright? I’m fine.”

They obeyed, if grudgingly, starting with Sophie. Hugh, Scarlet, and Po each had a hug and a quick, warm word for him, and Po even came back for seconds before she hurried after the others with a face as red as her scarf. Nivy was the last to go, with an extra penetrating glance in his direction and a nod he took to say, “When you’re ready.” Right.

Surprisingly, he
did
feel better by the end of the little procession. He was a long way from jumping around and dancing, but he really was fine. Just focused. And cold, now that the feeling had come back into his extremities. It was nearing on dusk, and even though it had stopped snowing, there was enough wind to make him think longingly after the hearth in his mansion bedroom and the hot soup the guests inside were no doubt tucking into. Maybe there’d be some left. A gallon or so would suffice.

Gideon’s hand clapping his shoulder buckled his knees, and he jumped.

“Hey,” Gid said, almost cheerful, “we’ve got somethin’ for you.”

“Huh?”

“What, you think a funeral alone would be enough to get Aitch outta bed? He’s been makin’ such a bleedin’ fuss about his foot, you’d think—”

“I came for the funeral!” Hayden exclaimed indignantly before glancing at Reece and earnestly insisting, “I came for the funeral.”

“What are you talking about?” Reece tiredly laughed.

Hayden juggled his crutches for a second, propping one against the oak tree while balancing on the other and digging inside his patched jacket. “I hope this is alright,” he began, sounding nervous, “they wanted to make it a ceremony, but I thought—what?” he demanded of Gideon, who had coughed noisily.

Gid lowered his voice as if Reece wasn’t a mere two feet away from him. “Maybe I should do it.”

“I thought we agreed I would.”

“Yeah, because you bullied me into it.”

“
I
bullied
you
? You—” Sighing, Hayden hung his head in surrender and held out in a fist whatever it was they were arguing over. “Go ahead.”

Reece watched, confused and amused, as Gideon discreetly took the thing from Hayden and straightened up as if to make a presentation. He went so far as to clear his throat and open his mouth before hesitating and frowning down at his big, cupped hands.

“Yes, Gideon?” Hayden asked in a longsuffering voice.

Gid growlingly thrust his hand back at Hayden. “You’ve ruined it. It’s awkward, now.”

This time, Reece intercepted the pass-off, grabbing at the flash of silver and pulling it to himself before either of them was the wiser. His face went slack with shock as he realized what he was holding.

“Is this some kind of joke?” he asked, voice deadpan. He turned the silver badge over as gingerly as if he were handling the tiny wings of a real owl. These weren’t a captain’s first feathers…these were flight wings,
real
flight wings.

Chuckling, Hayden reassured him, “No, they’re real. It seems Eldritch really
was
behind you being failed. The judges were quick to revoke their ruling once they realized he was…gone. And if they hadn’t done it, The Guild House would have.”

Reece continued to stare with open mouth and glazed eyes. He was still stuck on the fact he was even
holding
a pair of captain’s wings, never mind that they were actually his.

“Er,” Hayden continued uncertainly, looking for help from Gideon, who shrugged, “they wanted to present it to you in the hospital…bring in members of Parliament—”

“No,” Reece finally managed, sounding hoarse. “This is better. This is much better.”

With clumsy fingers, he tried pinning the wings to his jacket above his slinged arm, feeling weirdly nervous, as if there was a chance the wings might not fit. Hayden helpfully took the wings and fixed them on in silence. Then he backed away, and he and Gideon just stared at Reece, waiting for Reece didn’t know what.

He had expected to feel different, but not like this. Dainty though the wings were, the left side of his jacket felt distinctly heavier of a sudden. They weighed on him to the point he thought he must be standing lopsided. He sighed heavily and rubbed a hand through his hair.

As he resituated his crutches, Hayden asked, “What’s wrong, Reece? The wings—”

“It’s not the wings. And it’s not any of this.” Reece gestured limply at the site of the funeral. For something to do with his hands—though he could conceivably keep scratching his head for all eternity, what with everything he had to think about—he crouched and picked an acorn out of its small crater in the snow, examining it, but at the same time, seeing through it. “It’s just that I feel…I don’t know…like we’ve lost.”

Hayden blinked. “Lost?” he repeated at the same time Gideon grumbled, “Losin’ looks strangely like winnin’.”

Reece stood. “I feel like it’s just us who care. All the rest of the world goes on—all the rest of the Epimetheus—and it’s just us, here.” He wound back his arm and launched the acorn out of sight, wishing it would take all his bleeding troubles with it. His exhaustion seemed to have opened a kind of shambling floodgate inside of him. “I feel off, inside. I did everything I meant to, but it’s just not enough. And I think I know why. I think it’s because I know what I’m supposed to do, only I don’t know how to do it. I have to fight The Kreft,” he said in answer to his friends’ blank looks. “I can’t
not
, now that I know what I know. But how can I do that? How can one person do that?”

“One person?” Gideon said wryly, scratching his cheek.

“Me.”

For a monosyllable, it came out awfully harsh, but Gid just raised his eyebrows, unimpressed. And Hayden was actually smiling, if in an sympathetic way that made Reece grind his teeth. They just didn’t get it. Maybe if he tallied how many times they’d nearly died and put the parchment right up to their noses…no, probably not even then.

Still smiling kindly, Hayden put a hand on Reece’s shoulder. “It’s okay to ask for help sometimes, Reece.”

Reece blinked. That was almost word-for-word what Hugh had said…right before he’d gotten kidnapped. The irony would have had him in stitches if it didn’t sting as much as a slap in the face. His most helpful assets—his friends—were also his biggest liabilities. Because if anything happened to them…especially on his watch…it’d leave the kind of mark on him that never rubbed off. He’d gotten a taste of that on
The Jester
.

But…wasn’t that the point? Hayden—what a shock—was right. Flight wings or no flight wings, he wasn’t much of a captain without a crew he could trust…a crew he would fight for. It was time to come to terms with what that meant.

They’d been silent for quite a while, Reece realized in surprise as he squinted around. The white sky had darkened to a cloudy slate. Warm golden light from the mansion’s windows made patchwork on the snow, and the oil lamps across the grounds had been lit, but the bluish dark was too heavy to be lifted much.

Reece tipped his head
towards the house. “Hungry?” he asked his friends. His stomach tried to answer by giving an enthusiastic growl.

“To be honest,” Hayden began as he gazed at the mansion windows, rippling with the silhouettes of mingling guests, “I
do
have a hankering for food that hasn’t been deep fried in burnthroat or impaled on a stick.”

With a wolfish grin, Gideon nudged Reece and muttered, “Guess it’s a required taste.”

“Think you mean
ac
quired, Gid.”

Gideon shrugged, undaunted, and as he started for the mansion, rearranged his holster so that his revolver was situated front and center, for all the Easterner guests to see. Maybe this evening would end on a high note after all—Gid could clear a buffet line almost as fast as he could draw his gun.

As they trudged through the snow, a weird peace stole over Reece. He really shouldn’t even be alive right now, so he wasn’t going to take even this bitterly cold night that he had a feeling would be another long one for granted. Besides….the food smelled awfully good.

This wasn’t the end. He knew the truth about Liem, Eldritch was gone, the duke was safe, but it wasn’t the end. It was just a new beginning. It felt oddly like starting over.