Ice crystals frosted the window, catching the early morning sun and splintering it across the palm of his hand. Alerich sat on the padded window seat and stared at the prism effect. The light was beautiful, but broken, diminished. Like him. He rested his head against the alcove and looked above the frost toward the cold ocean he could see rolling beyond the cliffs the house perched on. He had been so excited to see it last week. Had it only been a week? It felt like months had passed since he, Thomas, Fitz, and Elspeth had sped their way to Seahaven, summoned by his father.
His heart contracted painfully at the thought of the man. Memories stole his breath and Alerich forced air first in and then out. Remembering how to breathe. Trying not to remember anything else. The memories surfaced anyway. His father. Standing in the library at Ashimar House, handing tiny Alerich his first grown-up book. Stoic but proud in the anteroom of the Wizards’ Council waiting to present Alerich to them. Turning and walking back into the House with Elspeth while the driver took Alerich away to boarding school. Slapping him during a fight with Grandfather at a party long ago. Raising his cane for some infraction that Alerich couldn’t remember. Asking for his help getting free from his own mother’s madness. Slashing at the demon with sad determination. Falling through the Gate.
Alerich closed his eyes but hot tears splashed his cheeks. Like the memories, the tears were a flood he couldn’t control. He gave up and let them fall, not bothering to wipe them away. It wouldn’t help. Once they started, they would flow until he was empty. He cried until he was hollow. Until the tears scooped him out and left him exhausted, quiet, alone.
No, not alone. Alerich’s thoughts moved to the woman sleeping in the dawn light only feet away. Winter. The woman he had betrayed his father for. The woman he had been sent to kill but had fallen in love with instead. The woman his father had died to let him love.
He opened his eyes and watched her sleep on the four-poster bed. It had changed a little since last week. The House had decided that Alerich was staying, and the night that he had asked her to marry him, the room had redecorated, blending their styles. The night she had told him no. Alerich still didn’t understand. She had told him that she wanted a life with him, but that he was not ready to marry her. At least she wanted a life with him. Him and the daughters she was carrying.
The thought of daughters filled some of the empty space, but it was a difficult spackle of both joy and fear. Daughters needed a father, and Alerich’s experience with those was not something he wanted for his own children. His father had been cold. Abusive. Manipulative. Things that Alerich was determined his daughters would never think about him. But he’d also sacrificed himself for Alerich and these daughters. Alerich couldn’t find a way to reconcile these two different fathers into the man who raised him. The abuser and the savior. The dissonance was too much for his hollow spirit to handle. And so, he put the thoughts aside again.
There were things that needed to be done. Contacting the Council about his grandmother’s guilt in the murder of most of the Mulcahy line. Arranging his affairs to move to Seahaven to be with Winter. Settling his father’s estate. Cancelling his wedding. Caring for his sister who still would not speak to him or even look him in the eye. There was still so much to do.
He uncurled himself from the window seat and walked to the bed, laying a gentle kiss on Winter’s forehead, then grabbed some clothes to dress in the bathroom. It was midday in London. His man of business would be at work and able to help him with some of these arrangements. It was time to start another day. It was time to move forward. A wave of sadness washed through him, halting him in mid-step. How the hell was he supposed to do that?
Alerich looked at himself in the standing mirror, now a dark mahogany thing. Much more him than Winter. He would move forward because he was now the Ashimar. And because Winter and the daughters she carried would need him. Elspeth would need him. He would move forward because he had to. He forced himself to breathe in and out once again then nodded at the scared man in the mirror and walked out the door. He would move forward, one step at a time. One foot and then the other.
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