Page 51 of Dancing With Demons
I trudge to Tolmond’s study, every step feeling like I’m walking toward the gallows. I reach the massive double doors far too soon, and walk in without knocking. I’m too tired for our usual song and dance.
Tolmond is standing beside the roaring fireplace, hunched in on himself as if the weight of the world hangs on his shoulders. He turns toward me wordlessly, and I brace myself for the yelling, for the accusations regarding Piper, but they never come.
Instead, Tolmond collapses in an armchair by the fireplace, his face in his hands as I settle into my usual chair next to him. Neither of us speaks for a long moment, and I’m about to break the silence when Tolmond finally lifts his face from his hands.
“He’s ready for her.”
Shock clangs through me, quickly followed by rage-tinged fear. I hardly have time to think about the complete pivot in what I thought this meeting was going to be when my old friend’s sorrowful yellow eyes meet mine.
“The Hooded One has summoned Piper to the palace. He intends to marry her off to Lamian.”
“Lamian? That sniveling, snot-nosed brat?!” I demand, leaping to my feet. Every instinct in my body is screaming to fight, a snarl twisting my lips. Tolmond heaves a heavy sigh, slumping against his chair, agony on his face.
“He’s the Prince,” he says quietly.
“I’m not in the mood to be chastised about titles,” I growl at him as I begin pacing the length of the wall. “She can’t marry him. I won’t let her. Asmodeus can’t make her.”
Tolmond cringes at my use of the King’s name without his title, but doesn’t correct me. Defeat is written in every line of his form, which only serves to further stoke my rage.
He can’t seriously allow this!
“I don’t know what we can do,” Tolmond says as if reading my mind. “Nobody’s ever disobeyed the Hooded One and lived to tell the tale, with the exception of the Prince and that one Soz’garoth, although I’m not entirely sure he even disobeyed, given that his mission of impregnating his human was completed.”
“I don’tcare!” I bellow, whirling on him. “We have to do something, she can’t marry Lamian. Piper can’t,” I say, my voice breaking on her name. The fight goes out of me all at once, and I collapse back into my chair, the gravity of the situation crushing down on me.
“I love her,” I confess, images of the day prior flashing through my head. I love her. I love her, and I didn’t tell her. I acted like an idiot, thinking that somehow my feelings for her were far less important than her relationship with Tolmond.
All she wanted was for me to tell her, to be honest with her, and I let her down.
And now I may lose her forever.
“I love her, too,” Tolmond echoes quietly. His tone has my eyes finding his, and I see a reflection of what I’m feeling dancing through his yellow eyes. So, he had a similar exchange.
The realization nearly breaks my heart. Piper had come to me, feeling low and needing reassurance, and I had given her nothing. I had made her feel like my feelings for her were nothing, likeshewas nothing.
“We have to find her,” I tell Tolmond as I rise to my feet. “We need to tell her, let her have a say in her future. She needs to know there’s another way.”
“Is there? Another way?” Tolmond asks wearily as he looks up at me.
“There has to be,” I respond. There’s no room for error, anymore. There has to be a way out of this, and any way out of this I can think of starts the same. We need to tell Piper how we feel, and let her decide what she wants.
Tolmond rises to his feet without argument, taking a shaky breath and straightening his spine. We walk to Piper’s room in silence, our pace faster than usual as the urgency of the situation presses in on us. Maybe with both of us here, both of us finally confessing our true feelings, she’ll want to stay.
I’m certain she feels something for Tolmond, and if I haven’t ruined everything already, maybe she’ll feel something for me, too.
Tolmond knocks on her door, and we wait for her response with bated breath. When no response comes, Tolmond knocks again.
“Piper, please talk to us,” I plead through the door, images of her crying in her bed nearly sending me barreling into the room. When there’s no response again, Tolmond tries the knob, which turns easily in his hand.
The room is empty.
Tolmond and I share a brief look before we’re sprinting back to his study. After everything that’s happened today, the only feasible place Piper would be is her room. When she’s having a hard time, she doesn’t wander around for everyone to see her- she’s very private about her feelings.
Which means that after everything today, she decided she couldn’t do it anymore.
She left.
Tolmond and I skid around the final corner to his study, bursting through the doors. I sweep an arm across his desk, sending books and knick-knacks clattering to the ground as Tolmond rips a map off of the wall, laying it flat as he reaches for his crystal.