Chapter Text
Lila heard the patter of little feet in the corridor and stopped to listen. She hadn’t dared to stay with Kell and wait to see if the young girl’s hands had fixed what was broken. It wasn’t her thing. She needed to keep active, so she paced his room as if her ass was on fire and she couldn’t sit down lest she burned the furniture.
The concept of waiting seemed foreign to Ren Maresh as well.
The princess was trying her best to stay put, but she was a restless child. Lila had lost count of the times she had asked about Kell. She wanted to keep him and her father company, but her other father convinced her to go to her chambers where he would read to her. It hadn’t lasted, and the kid had sneaked out alone to check on the king and her uncle.
Lila claimed to find children annoying, but she smiled bitterly when she realized how her current behavior was similar to Ren’s. Curious. Excited to see Kell again. Scare– Impatient.
“Ren,” she heard Rhy’s tired voice after she let herself in. “What did I tell you about bothering your uncle?”
“But he’s awake.”
Lila’s feet dragged her outside the royal chambers, but she didn’t enter. The doors were shut and she listened to the conversation happening inside like a thief waiting, hiding. Anxious. When she heard the familiar hum of magic which was similar to her own, tears pricked at her eyes. Relief washed through her. She was confident it would go well — it had to — that he would make it. But the confirmation had a different taste to hope. It was real.
“Yes, but let’s not overstay our welcome,” Rhy warned. “Say hello and then let your uncle and papa rest.”
“Hello, uncle Kell,” Ren said cheerfully but quietly. “How are you doing?”
Steps made Lila turn. Though the newcomer grinned, his eyes were tired. “I came to collect my daughter while Rhy would recover,” Alucard informed her. “She insisted she had to say hi to her uncle or else she couldn’t go on with her day.”
“She’s stubborn, that one.”
Alucard scoffed. “Reminds me of someone,” he muttered from the side of the wide corridor. “You can join them, you know. That idiot is awake and he’s better than ever.”
Lila smiled wryly to the side, giving Alucard a playful glare. “Only I get to call him idiot.”
Her friend smiled. “His threads of magic,” he continued, “seem healed just fine. The girl did a nice job with him. Perhaps she’s fixed his personality along with his magic.”
She glanced at the door. “They needed time.”
“Or did you?” Alucard wondered with a raised eyebrow. “It’s a human reaction, aching when someone you love is in pain. Needing time to process it.”
She passed a finger under her eye and Alucard put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. “Seven years,” she said in a low voice. “The solution was right under our nose.”
“You couldn’t have known,” he tried to comfort her. “Life has a fucked up timing. Some people are meant to cross roads at a time and a place, and not before.”
What if we hadn’t met Tes? She barely nodded, washing the thought away.
She remembered her first encounter with Kell, how she had decided to take the same route he did that night. How he was utterly drunk and she was utterly eager to steal from him to pay her debts, that she made him her target and decided to stick to him even though he hadn’t wanted her to.
“You saved him, Bard. You saved them both.”
Lila clenched her hands, avoiding Alucard’s stare. She wasn’t sure what to say.
No one could have helped, if not her. She was the last antari in Red London along with Kell. And he had had issues with his magic. All of his burdens, she had tried to lessen in these last seven years. She hadn’t even told him about the antari in White London to spare him grief. Or was it because she was worried he’d not be able to defend himself in the occasion he would want to travel there?
She knew her heart. Because it was Kell she had to help, she had to save – she would have given away that thread of magic without much thought anytime.
“If not me, who else?”
Alucard smiled knowingly at her. “Maybe this time,” he started, “you’ll finally settle down and take roots?”
Lila scratched her neck, ready for a retort that never came.
The door to Rhy’s chambers opened and he came out with princess Ren in tow. “Thank saints you are here,” Rhy said to Alucard. “He’s awake,” he whispered to Lila with a beaming but tired smile.
“Ren,” Alucard said. “I’m going to take you in the gardens to pick flowers, how is that?”
“Yes, please!”
The princess waved goodbye to her papa and Lila. Alucard winked at her before he left.
“I’m going to rest,” Rhy informed her, not waiting for an answer.
Lila waited a beat. She took a breath and pushed the only thing separating her from Kell wide open.
Lila buzzed with a kindred power that after seven years, Kell would recognize anywhere.
There was an invisible tether uniting them. A bond molded by the affection and devotion they had for each other. Strengthened through thick and thin.
A thread of Lila’s magic now hummed through him. It was the reason his eyes could stay wide open. His heartbeat was steady. His magic could be called whenever he needed it without repercussions. Without pain. He was grateful for it.
Coming from Lila, this was an act of love.
She crossed her arms on her chest, observing him from afar. She didn’t dare to move past the closed door behind her.
Ages ago, he would’ve thought it was because she wanted to leave an exit open for herself, in case she needed to flee. Like that time on the ship when he gave her the black ring. She had tried to avoid emotional confrontation because of her deep-rooted beliefs about relationships.
It took him almost a decade together to learn how to read her.
She was assessing him, trying to gauge whether he was fine or not. She was trying to hold her feelings in from bursting out from letting him see how much she cared. But she was only half succeeding.
“Sleep well?”
“Like a log.”
She nodded, arms loosening her hold on herself a bit. But she kept staring at him. They were holding a staring contest, lots of unspoken words between them.
Silence thickened, and Kell couldn’t bear it. If only she asked him what she wanted to know. What her mouth hadn’t the nerve to express. She was frustrating and he wanted her close. He wanted to wrap his arms around her and breathe in her familiar scent. He wanted her to come to him on her own volition, to cross the remaining path to the bed to intimately look into his mismatched eyes.
But he was tired to wait for her, so he did what he did best. Magic.
Lila almost tumbled on the polished floor, it was comical. Her gaze met his, a question in her glance. Kell smirked, and continued to push the wind behind her back, until she fell on velvet sheets beside him, and he grasped her hand to help her sit. It was cold. It trembled slightly.
“Did it hurt?” She wondered cautiously.
“No,” he replied firmly. “It doesn’t hurt anymore.”
Lila beamed at that, and caressed the side of his face gently. Her mask was off. And that, to him, meant more than words could ever convey.
Kell pushed her towards him, finally putting his arms around her. He heard a muffled cry, and soothed her back with his hands. He’d already had his share of tears with his brother but the relief he felt was immense, and it echoed through Lila’s bones, through her blood, akin to his. Antari blood.
There is nowhere you go, that I cannot follow.
He remembered her words clearly, along with everything else. Along with the pain. And they gave him strength to hold on.
With her thread of magic embedded into his, they rang even truer.
For everywhere the antari prince would go, a piece of the antari pirate would follow.