Vanish by Camille Peters

Author:Camille Peters [Peters, Camille]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rosewood Publications
Published: 2024-06-14T18:30:00+00:00

CHAPTER 16

Despite the long hours he’d dedicated to his duties, the piles of documents surrounding Lucien showed no sign of shrinking. With each passing hour his exhaustion deepened, yet he pressed forward with no sign of wavering in the tedious responsibilities that consumed him.

I worriedly eyed the dark circles beneath his eyes, guilt twinging my breast at the knowledge that they hadn’t been the sole result of overwork. I’d spent another night in his room, but unlike the first he hadn’t immediately fallen asleep. Instead we’d stayed up for several hours talking—me floating atop his bed, him propped up on his elbow on the floor—a continuation of the closeness we’d attempted to bridge during our time together in the garden.

At first my shyness had left me uncertain what to talk about, but as the conversation lengthened, topics to discuss came more easily and the reservation that usually held me captive gradually faded—unlike with my memories, I wasn’t unhappy to see it vanish.

Looking back over the conversation whose measurement had stretched across the majority of the night, I was unable to recall everything we’d talked about; each subject acted as a single star that together created a beautiful constellation on the velvety night.

A few memories glistened more brightly than the rest of the starry tapestry carefully woven from our time together: shy confessions, words of encouragement that fed my heart starved since childhood, and the sweetest declarations of caring. I cherished these moments as the precious jewels they were…until Aira’s arrival after Lucien had finally fallen asleep attempted to tarnish them.

The exchange had helped me expand my patchwork of memories. Though I still couldn’t recall details of my courtship or the purpose I wanted to create with him, emotions filled in the blank spaces—sadness, fear, discouragement, loneliness…and most of all my soul-deep longings for affection. Only during my time with Lucien had I finally found where I belonged, a refuge I refused to lose to Aira’s doubts or the curse that consumed my memories.

I’d had many questions concerning the unseen place she went whenever she wasn’t interacting with me, but her onslaught of accusations against Lucien had given me no time to ask them. After she’d spent the precious few minutes she possessed imparting her usual doubts and warnings, she’d departed, leaving only uncertainty in her wake.

Beyond the obstacle she tried to wedge between me and Lucien, the longer I spent with my handmaiden, the fainter the curtain blocking my awareness to the world that lay beyond my sight became. Though I couldn’t detect any of the residents of the unseen land the way I could Aira, I often thought I could hear their whispers flitting by like a soft breeze.

I wanted to cross this bridge and explore this invisible world in hopes that learning more about it would in turn help Lucien with his duty in breaking the curse, even as I feared my investigations would leave me susceptible to its influence and risk the fragile reprieve I’d found from vanishing completely.

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