[This post is from Kailey Astoris’s point of view.]
A shiver wracked her and she swallowed hard, struggling to find her voice as they stood in silence for a few moments after his admission. He reached for her hand and she let him take it, their fingers lacing together.
“I keep wondering if this was what Mom and Dad felt like,” he said quietly. “If they always felt like they were somehow letting someone down or running the risk of upsetting someone.”
Kailey shook her head slowly. “I don’t know, Lin. I don’t even know how I feel right now. I can’t even begin to think of what your parents must have felt like.”
Lin squeezed her hand. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” she said, then sighed. “I’m not angry at you. I don’t know what I’m angry at or if I’m actually angry. I don’t know what I feel. Just that it’s not quite right but it’s not quite wrong, either.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “The once and future king. They’re looking for a myth.”
“A myth that might be real. That probably is real.” Lin gently leaned his shoulder into hers and she sighed again, letting go of his hand to wrap her arms around him. He was warm in her embrace, too warm, and she knew that they shouldn’t be standing out here like this. She needed to get him back to bed and she needed to sort out her own thoughts—maybe alone.
“Maybe,” she said quietly, resting her head against his. He wrapped one arm around her waist and held on. “Are you sure?”
“Phelan is,” he said. “And there are a lot of other things that don’t seem like they should be real that definitely are. It’s not like we’re not living among legends and myths right now, right? Hell, your mom was a freaking goddess, Kay. Why the hell are you so surprised that another myth might be real?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “I guess I just thought it was a story.”
“A lot of people did,” Lin said. “And a lot of things were—until they weren’t anymore.”
“Like this.”
“Yeah. Like this.”
