Chapter 846: Settling With Harper [Bonus - ]

Chapter 846: Settling With Harper [Bonus Chapter]

The apartment was completely silent except for the soft tick of the kitchen clock.

Harper stood frozen on the welcome mat with her handbag dangling forgotten from one wrist, both hands cradling the small black cat against her white silk camisole as her violet eyes were wide and glassy behind her glasses.

For one breathless moment, the warm living room in Silverleaf fell away completely.

She was in her bedroom again, the morning it happened, sitting cross-legged on her bed with the golden Khopesh on the nightstand.

The voice in the blade had been so warm that morning… It had told her she was ready.

It had told her the final step to real power was to drop every ward she had and open her core completely, to trust Nitocris with everything and she had.

She had smiled while she did it then the cold had come pouring into her veins like ice water, and her hands had stopped answering her.

She remembered floating outside her own body under a burning sky, screaming at the green-eyed stranger wearing her face to give it back.

Harper remembered her own hand punching through her own chest and closing around her own heart, the wet crunch of it and the blood soaking through her white blouse.

She also remembered watching herself die from three feet away, and then watching the black sand stitch her back together again, because the thing inside her had only wanted to make a point.

’Do you wish to die right now, little scabbard? Or do you wish to stay quiet?’

She remembered the run across the dunes, the story of the betrayal, and the deep bow afterward, an apology so sincere it had only made her more afraid.

Harper remembered Iunu, and the citadel, and the halls full of people who carried the wrong blood… She remembered the guards on the terrace… She remembered the nursery door, and the way her own hand had hesitated for a single heartbeat before it fell.

Harper remembered all of it and she remembered the other things, too.

A sticky honey pastry stuffed into her own cheeks in a crowded market, and a voice inside her head moaning in pure ecstasy about how cold and sweet the ice cream was.

An ancient empress flustered half to death by a subway turnstile… A taxi driver being told to go home and hug his children.

Every technique and formula the woman knew, poured into her soul like a farewell gift and in the empty, silent rotunda at the very end, a voice that had stopped sounding like a monster.

’I never truly had anyone I could call a proper friend… In the end, I truly thought of you as my frien—’

Then the air had frozen, and the golden god had come, and there had been a scream.

A breathtaking bronze-skinned woman had hung from his fist by the jaw like a doll, turning her head with the last of her strength to look straight at Harper.

’Harper… I am sorry. I could not protect you…’

…And then the ash.

Harper’s fingers tightened in the black fur.

“You…” Her voice came out thin and cracked. “You crushed my heart.”

The cat in her arms flinched.

“I know, Nyaa~” Nitocris whispered.

“You lied to me.” Harper’s voice shook harder. “You told me I didn’t have Khemet’s blood… You told me to trust you. I trusted you, and you took my body and made me watch while you… while you used my hands to…”

She couldn’t finish as her breath hitched painfully in her throat.

“I know, Nyaa~” Nitocris said again.

The haughty arrogance that always dripped from her whiskers was gone and what was left was small and tired as well.

“I lied to you… I terrified you… I hurt you to make you obey… I used your hands to do the worst thing I’ve ever done, and I made you watch every second of it and my vengeance was the beacon that brought him back… Everything that god did to you afterward, he could only do because of me, Nyaa~.”

She pressed her small forehead against the underside of Harper’s jaw and stayed there.

“I can’t undo any of it,” she whispered. “I won’t insult you by pretending I can… I only crossed that desert so I could say this to your face… I’m sorry, Harper… I’m so sorry… If you can find it in you, I’m asking you to forgive me and if you can’t, I’ll understand, Nyaa~.”

A hot tear slid out from under Harper’s glasses and ran down her cheek and it dropped onto the cat’s black forehead.

Another followed then her knees simply gave out as her handbag slid off her wrist and hit the floor with a soft thump.

THUMP!

She sank down onto the rug right there in the doorway, still clutching the cat, and pulled the small black body tight against her neck with both arms.

A breathless sob tore out of her.

“You stupid…” she choked into the soft, clean fur, which still smelled faintly of lavender. “You stupid, ancient, dramatic cat…”

Nitocris didn’t move… She let herself be crushed.

“I watched you die,” Harper sobbed. “I couldn’t move, I couldn’t do anything, and I watched him crush you, and the last thing you said was that you were sorry you couldn’t protect me… You were sorry. After everything you did, you were the one apologizing while he killed you…”

Her shoulders shook.

“And I hated you,” she whispered. “I hated you for what you did with my hands, and I hated you for lying to me, and I hated you for being kind to me in that market, because it made everything so much harder to hate and then you died calling me your friend, and I didn’t even get to answer you…”

She pulled back just far enough to look into the cat’s face, her glasses smeared and her cheeks wet.

“I didn’t get to tell you,” she said. “I was going to say it back…”

Nitocris stared up at her.

A single tear welled up in the corner of one violet eye.

It slid silently down through her black whiskers and vanished into Harper’s silk collar.

Even in a cat’s body, she was still a monarch so she didn’t wail, and she didn’t break into sobs but her small frame trembled against Harper’s chest, and her paws hooked gently into the lapels of the blazer and held on.

“Then say it now,” she whispered. “I’m listening. I’ve been waiting a very long time… Two thousand years and then three more weeks under a noodle shop, Nyaa~.”

Harper laughed, it was quite a helpless sound.

“You’re my friend, you idiot,” she said. “You’re my friend.”

Nitocris closed her eyes and leaned her whole head into the crook of Harper’s neck.

“I’m here, little one,” she murmured, her voice thick with proud, restrained affection. “The desert didn’t keep me and you’re whole. That’s all I wanted, Nyaa~”

A few paces away, Silas leaned his shoulder against the hallway arch with his hands in his pockets, watching the two of them with a quiet, gentle warmth in his eyes.

He simply gave them the room.

’So that’s settled… hm? My life sure is interesting.’ Silas thought. ’I thought after Khemet, all of that was over…’

Watching her sit on his floor now, crying into the fur of the creature who’d started all of it and holding her like she’d never let go, he realized it had never really been over for Harper.

’I’m sorry…’

The afternoon sun shifted slowly across the floorboards.

Harper stayed sitting on her heels, holding the cat like a lifeline, stroking the soft fur along her spine over and over as if to make sure she was solid and breathing and real.

The fur was warm and the tiny heart under it was beating fast against her palm.

She could feel it, and every beat of it felt like a small impossible miracle… Every time Nitocris shifted, Harper tightened her grip by half an inch.

“You really survived,” she whispered, sniffling and wiping her nose on her sleeve. “How?”

“It’s complicated soul business,” Nitocris said. “When he crushed me, what was left of me was pulled into him… When Silas killed him, I was the one left standing. I’ll explain it all properly later… I’ve already explained it to your Lord once today. In the bath, Nyaa~.”

Harper sniffled again, then paused.

“…In the bath?”

“Later, Nyaa~” the cat said serenely.

Silas looked suddenly and intensely interested in the ceiling, which had a small crack in the plaster he had never noticed before.

Harper narrowed her wet eyes at him. “Silas-kun… Why are your ears red?”

“…They’re not. You’re seeing things.”

Silas said nothing at all, and Harper was too wrung out to chase it… She pressed one more kiss to the top of the cat’s head and wiped her face with both hands then she took off her glasses, wiped those too, put them back on and cleared her throat with an authoritative little cough.

“Right,” She announced, still sniffling but already rallying. “No more crying… Tears are done and reunions are concluded.”

She pushed herself up off the floor with the cat still clutched under one arm like a living designer purse.

“We have houses to see, Silas and I didn’t run two yellow lights for nothing.”

“And your sister?” Nitocris asked suddenly, twisting her head to look up at Harper. “The little one with the fierce eyes. Penelope… You were so frightened for her when he came. Is she safe? Nyaa~”

Harper blinked, startled, and then her face softened all over again.

“She’s fine,” she said. “She’s in school right now and she’s still terrifying.”

“Good,” the cat said with deep satisfaction. “The terrifying ones always survive, Nyaa~”

Silas pushed off the archway with a small smile, grabbed his jacket and keys from the hook by the door, and followed them out into the sunlight, after locking the door and the gates of course.

Harper walked a half step ahead of him down the path with the cat cradled in her arms as she was humming something under her breath, off-key and happy.

Parked at the curb in front of the building was a car he’d never seen before.

It was long and low and sleek, a gleaming violet so dark it was almost black, with sharp aerodynamic lines and gold accents along the side vents… It looked like it was doing two hundred miles an hour just sitting there.

Silas stopped on the path and stared at it.

“Harper,” he said slowly. “What is that?”

“My new car,” Harper said, beaming over her shoulder. “Do you like it? It was delivered on Tuesday… I had them do the paint custom so it matches my hair.”

“Oh It matches your hair, quite a lot actually.” Silas sighed.

“And my eyes, duh, that’s why I bought it.” Harper said then grew pink as she blinked.

’N-no… Silas was flirting, did I just shut it down?!’

“…Of course it does.”

He walked slowly around the hood, taking it all in.

The engine was still ticking softly as it cooled, the seats inside were cream leather and there was a tiny lightning bolt stitched into the headrests.

“Harper, this thing’s a monster,” he said, genuinely impressed. “It’s gorgeous… I just hope it didn’t cost too much.”

Harper turned a delighted shade of pink.

“I know,” she said, trying very hard to sound casual and failing completely. “Get in, Silas. I’m driving…”

“Is it fast?” Silas asked.

Harper’s smile turned slow and dangerous behind her glasses.

“Hubby~” she said, “it’s so fast that I got two speeding warnings on the way to your house, and I wasn’t even trying…”

“I see, you did say you ran two yellow lights.”

“And two speeding warnings. I was in a hurry…” She tossed her hair. “Somebody said come quick after all.”

Silas laughed and slid into the passenger seat.

Harper dropped into the driver’s seat beside him and set Nitocris on the dashboard, where she immediately sat up straight beneath the rearview mirror with her tail curled around her paws, like a small black statue guarding a temple.

The engine roared to life.

VRRRRRMMM!

Harper pulled away from the curb with one hand on the wheel and the other resting on the gear lever, and Silas found himself watching her drive more than he was watching the road.

She drove like she fought, threading the low car through the quiet Silverleaf streets with a small happy smile playing on her lips.

Every so often, her eyes flicked sideways to check whether he was looking and every time she caught him at it, her ears turned a little pinker.

For about thirty seconds, the car was perfectly quiet then, on the dashboard, Nitocris slowly turned her head.

Her violet eyes narrowed into two gleaming slits of sparkling mischief as she looked at the two of them, and her whiskers twitched with delight.

“You know, Harper…” she began sweetly. “Your Silas was a very, very naughty boy in the bath today, Nyaa~”