I sigh. The small details of Rome and I and our intimacy don’t create a greater picture. Accept it, Aster.

Tears sting the back of my eyes as I work on the puzzle in silence on the floor beside her bed until the fire turns a deep red and I know I have to leave her room.

Despite trying to be quiet, the next first-light Ana wakes to the sound of me clearing my throat. Or maybe it’s the steaming scent of honey that lifts her lids.

“Your Watcher allowed me to bring you oatmeal in bed,” I say, looking at the bowl on her nightstand. “They are worried, too, and I don’t think they know what to do.”

Thumbing a puzzle piece into place, I slide the second completed flower aside and get to work on the third. Jumbling and sorting the puzzle shapes together.

She groans. “You’re not going away.”

“You were nice to me,” I mumble. That is not something I will forget. I know you feel awful, Ana.

“I will never be a Sired Mother.”

She means, ‘I will never see him again.’ Her softly spoken words are choked with sorrow, but I cannot help but feel relief in hearing her voice. I don’t know how to respond, to not scare her voice away with the wrong thought. Blossom would give her hope. Daisy would state the facts.

We can work on this together, just like the puzzle. I’m sure she is worried she will never have two boys and a girl. No other lord will take a Silk Girl who has been opened by another man. It just isn’t done.

I start to talk with a lie on my tongue, about how she may still be given a chance, but instead stop. “You have Meaningful Purpose, Ana,” I offer. And I will, too. “You have to appreciate the smaller pieces, like with this puzzle.” And maybe I can, too. “You have a bowl of oatmeal and honey, a swollen belly, this puzzle, and me. The whole picture comes later.”

“That one goes there,” she says by my ear, so I peer over my shoulder to see her eyes open and scanning the puzzle. I smile. Her gaze is present, not miles away like it was yesterday.

“This one?” I point.

She nods once. I pick it up and fit it into place with a smile. Then I continue sorting.

Over the next two days, between meals, mineral baths, and Silk Girl checkups, Ana helps me connect many pieces, and eventually, she joins me on the floor by her bed.

By the first-light on day three, we have connected over one thousand five hundred pieces, Ana has eaten a few small meals, and a spark has returned to her eyes.

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter Twenty

Rome

Standing in the depths of a lithium mine, the air dense with an acrid odour, I scan the cavernous abyss.

I know now why I wanted to visit. The five-day journey with my thoughts, distance from all that threatens to tame me, and an emotional void to disappear into.

It is here, that I belong. Not in her arms, not smelling her hair, or deep inside her. In this suffocating blackness, the oppressive silence broken only by the clanks of hammers from men working into the last-light, I am reminded of what my soul must look like.

I continue into the mine. Each descending step is like a demand to fill me with more darkness and press her from my mind. Nothing soft and gentle down here; the walls are jagged, sharp, and lance inward as if on the attack.

I can relate.

“Sire,” a man says, his voice muffed behind a mask, his body in a black shroud, entirely covered as he hammers through the rock. “Do you require my mask?”

“I do not,” I state, and he continues his Purpose.

All the way through last-light, I spend the time walking the labyrinth until I am alone with only the crunch of rock under my feet that echoes into the void.

I breach the top, greeted by the black sky, harsh winds, and the absence of the Missing Moon. However, I have heard that on rare occasions, a star has been spotted above these mines that skirt the beginning of the Horizon. I have never seen a star, but if I ever did, I’d want to show it to her…

Fuck. She is pretty.

On a rough sigh, I stride through the gale toward the large brick fort, which was once a penitentiary, now transformed into the Black Matter Tower.

Inside, the residence houses thousands of men and women. It is simplistic but safe and clean as is assured by The Trade; all seeking Meaningful Purpose are provided for.

I am strolling down the corridor toward my temporary chamber when the soft whimpering from behind a door piques my interest. The gentle cadence reminds me of… her.

Pushing open the door, I find the Black Matter Lord and a Trade doctor conversing while a young girl lies on a small bed, her complexion that of awaiting death. A yellowing to her clammy face. Breath short and rapid.

“What is happening here?”

“Sire,” Lord Coober of the Black Matter Tower bows for me, his short and lean physique perfectly bred for the Mine Trade. “Her mask has been leaking.”

“She's poisoned, Sire,” the doctor confirms. “Her liver is shutting down; we are in the final days of her life. We are discussing ending her suffering now with the La Mu Root.”

“This is the third Silk Girl to come to poisoning here,” Coober states, as I measure the girl up: pretty and strong. Far stronger in appearance than my little creature. “Only one managed to birth a son for my legacy but was so frail from toxicity that it broke her apart during delivery. They do not survive here. I feel I need a Silk Girl with the Xin De genus.”

I walk to her, my chest pulling as I notice the small swell at her hips. My little creature has softened me beyond repair, it seems. The others in the room part for me as I stare down at her. See more than a silk girl. See…

Her eyes blink on my form. “Sire?”

“Yes.” I clasp my hands in front of me, unsmiling. “Do you wish to die today, Silk Girl?”

A shuddering breath escapes her, sucked back in as quickly as it expels. “I will never have Meaningful Purpose.”

“No,” I state. “But you will return to The Crust. You will be part of The Cradle eternally.”

“That is the best I deserve.” She wheezes, slowly batting her long lashes as if the weight of each hair is unbearable.

I feel that fucking pull again—consideration, empathy? What the fuck is this?

I have seen enough.

Felt enough.

I turn to leave when she whispers, “I do not want to die without knowing she has Purpose.”

Her strange declaration sets steel into my boots, halting me midstride. “Who?”

“Aster.”

That name hits me like a bullet, and I lurch around to lean over the girl, hating the use of my little creature’s name through another’s lips. “The fuck did you just say?”

She swallows, her moment of hesitation hangs in the thick, electrified air.

“Say that name again,” I dare.

“My name is Lavender,” she finally manages on a choked exhale. “I know, knew, Aster from the Aquilla Silk Aviary.”

My blood simmers with possessiveness. “What of her?”

She tries to smile, but it’s a distant expression she barely achieves. “Did she get her Meaningful Purpose?”

“She will,” I declare, curt, not trusting this girl, her motivations, her intent until⁠—

“That's good,” she mumbles, and the tension in my shoulders loosens enough for me to think straight. “Can you tell her I said so,” she continues. “That it's good. Can you tell her that I saw her bird? The mutant one. We all did. It chased Iris. It was funny, but we didn’t dare laugh at her. Can you please tell her I'm sorry for what we did?”

“Sire is not your messenger, girl!” Coober growls.