Page 74 of Winds of Ruin
She sounded familiar.Sybilla?Too drowsy to move, I heaved out a groan as my eyes fluttered open.
The reading halted on a gasp. There sat Lark in a thick blue robe with her knees pulled up onto my old armchair. Her dark curls hung in a messy braid over one shoulder, and her green eyes widened in surprise.
Sybilla’s daughter. Up close, she so resembled her mother at a younger age.
“You are... you are awake!” She stood and crossed the room to my bedside. The book fell from her lap, thumping to the ground.
“You’re awake!” she repeated. “It actually worked!”
I ran one hand over my face, reveling in the graze of my callouses on my forehead and the way the thick scruff of my chin felt when my fingers slid over it.
I was awake.
“What worked?” My voice came out raspy and grating.
“Here, here.” Larkspur grabbed a glass of water from the side table by the chair and held it to my lips. I took it and waved her help away. I could drink water on my own.
Sources.That actually seemed like a miracle when I thought about it. I’d come back to the body that had lain here helpless for so long.
“I’ve got it, thank you.” The shame of knowing that this room had kept me alive for twenty years heated my cheeks as I downed the full glass.
“I’m Larkspur. We met briefly when I was a girl. It was my fault that the mirror stopped working. My deepest apologies, King Mattock. I aimed to help, but I was so foolish. Caym has been cursed into the glass ever since. You have every right to be angry with me.”
Her words were dizzying.
I glanced around my room—the one I’d lived in for years as Luz’s Constable. The wooden animal figurines my father had carved for me lined a shelf, perfectly dusted. The stag’s head that I’d mounted from my first hunt hung over the roaring fire.
My wardrobe was open, displaying familiar coats and articles of clothing. My belongings were in as pristine condition as when I’d left, as though I’d merely taken a short nap.
Larkspur didn’t stop to catch her breath as she rattled on. “I spent years reading every ancient tome in Papa’s library and then the ones in Luz. And where did we find a lead? In a book of romances, of all places! The Sethe curse. We figured out how to break it. With a stone from… a friend.
“All it took was a kiss to the stone and then to your lips from your truest of heart. And it worked. I knew it could work!”
I stared at her as she paced while throwing her hands around in endearing excitement. Entirely Sybilla.
My heart didn’t warm at the thought of a reunion with her mother—that would be awkward and bumbling. There was a Wind-wielding enchantress I owed a visit. I couldn’t wait to finally embrace her. After seeing Mama.
“Slow down, slow down,” I finally said before sitting up with another groan.
My body felt heavy and stiff, but I could move everything. I wiggled my toes and fingers.
Sources, stretching felt divine.
“Someone kissed me?”
“Is that all you heard me say?” Larkspur placed her hands on her hips with a tilted head and pinched brow.
I couldn’t help but chuckle. “Forgive me. But I have a right to know if someone’s been kissing me in my sleep.”
“Mama kissed the stone and you last night. Aunt El told me it hadn’t worked and that I’d been wrong, so I came in here to sulk about it and read to you this morning.”
Scratching my chin, I shook my head. A kiss from one’s truest of heart—I supposed that when I’d fallen asleep that had been Sybilla. It felt wrong now.
“My mama... Angeline...” I couldn’t get the question out. I couldn’t ask how she was doing or if she lived.
“She fell some weeks ago... It caused an infection. She’s very ill, but when I checked in this morning, it had gotten no worse or better. Hold on, let me go get Mama.”
“No!”
