Between Imminent Fates (The Immortal Accords #12)

35. Chapter Four

Chapter Four

Derikles

Lace. Polar Bear. Pure Light. Oxford White.

Nothing captured the brilliance of what’d burned through the mercenaries that night. Oils, acrylics, chalks: no medium could accurately portray what he’d seen.

Regardless, he would attempt it. As a historian, Derikles knew it had to be documented, whether he wanted to remember it or not. While he’d been temporarily compromised with the shifting psychic web, he’d counted on Ava’s recollection of the event to aid him.

No one else wanted to recount their version of that night. It was too fresh, and the wounds still stung. The she-wolf was his only option.

Though he hadn’t known it at the time, it was the last time Derikles would see his sovereign in his right mind. In the time since, Isaiah had remained sleeping.

Life stood still.

None of their people had made any moves to leave the clan. The shift in the psychic web that connected them had settled, leaving Derikles with the full duties and status of a sovereign. After further exploration, he discovered what Isaiah had done. The man had somehow woven a new web of connections on top of the original net, binding their minds together in a way that overlayed the old clan links with new.

Derikles should’ve known. It’d been what he’d experienced firsthand in the days prior to battle. He’d known something had shifted but hadn’t dug too deeply.

Could he have saved Isaiah from this fate if he had? Key’s plan had been set long before, but his mind still rebelled at the idea that the reality in which Isaak continuously asked when his daddy would wake was the best possible one. Rukia’s patience with her small son was saintlike, but Derikles knew her heart was shredded by grief.

The painted canvas before him was wet to the touch, the colors blending seamlessly below his brush. Eclipsing all else, the brilliant white that illuminated Nina and Isaiah’s forms was both violent and hollow. It echoed what he’d felt in the bleak days that followed.

His first responsibility as a sovereign had been to explain to every member of their clan what had happened. He had been met with every stage of grief. Denial, anger, depression: Derikles experienced them all. As he was still learning to control the influx of emotion coming through the psychic web, the influx battered against him and whittled away at his coping mechanisms.

By the time he’d spoken with all the clan members who’d needed it that afternoon, he’d been running dangerously low. Jaeda, sensing his building distress, had shadowed him home and healed the migraine that followed. Neither of them had said much, but the healer had been there for him when he needed it. Derikles would never forget it.

The smell of paint brought him back to the present. Frowning at the canvas, he realized he’d inadvertently let it start drying while his mind wandered.

Scowling, he tossed the semi-firm brush into the grey water and tapped it against the edges to loosen the thickening paint. Tomorrow, then.

Derikles stuffed his feet into navy-blue Vans and emerged into the oppressive heat of the Utah desert. As he had for the last three weeks, he began the trek to Isaiah’s home on foot, allowing the members of the clan —his clan — to approach him at will.

Several brief but productive conversations led him to Isaiah and Rukia’s home. The sound of Isaak’s laughter and water splashing greeted his approach.

On the terrace behind their home, Isaak and Rukia splashed in a rubber-rimmed kiddie pool. The child who looked just like Isaiah was beaming, his cheeks pink from exertion and his downy-soft wet hair whisked up in a mohawk.

Rukia’s smile was ready, but dull. As a Raeth without a fated mate, Derikles couldn’t pretend to understand the pain of what she was going through. He didn’t claim to.

“Rukia.”

She gestured at the second story. “He’s still sleeping.”

Derikles nodded. On some level, Rukia understood what they had said about Isaiah never waking. But the hopeful part of her heart never gave up. Regardless of how many times they reiterated the depth of Isaiah’s psychic trauma, Rukia didn’t stop believing.

“I’ll check on him.”

He offered the grieving woman a tight smile as he entered through their front door. Without Isaiah’s presence, the home felt smaller somehow.

The silence inside had once been commonplace, but now it was almost oppressive. Rukia had changed everything for Isaiah, given him Isaak, and proved that a fundamental shift in a man twelve centuries old wasn’t impossible. Isaiah had become kinder, more forgiving, and less prone to violence. He smiled more and sneered less. He’d truly become Derikles’ closest friend. That alone made everything so much harder.

The stairs creaked slightly as he ascended onto the second floor. Rolling his shoulders to ward off the overwhelming feeling that he was somehow intruding, Derikles opened the door to Isaiah’s bedroom. There, beneath the pristine white comforter, lay his sovereign, a great man reduced to nothing but a shell.

Derikles’ gaze hardened. Familiar ire sparked, as he simply stared. No intravenous lines or whirring machines broke the silence. Exhaling a shaky breath, he closed the distance between them. His teeth ground together, and he struggled with containing his anger. With what Isaiah had done, abandoning all of them and hoisting the responsibility on Derikles’ shoulders without permission, it was impossible for him not to be angry. The thread of guilt that wrapped closely around the anger was like a red-hot poker.

While the rage was all-consuming, it simply proved how selfish he was. Isaiah had given everything—as had Key and Nina—to ensure they won the war. And here Derikles stood, alive and well, while his sovereign lay comatose for his efforts.

Try as he might, Derikles couldn’t loosen the bitterness that’d gripped him. Isaiah had somehow transferred the sovereignty to him, and with it came a host of obligations he had never asked for nor wanted. How could he be so angry with a man who’d saved his life? How could he not be?

Hot tears blurred his vision, and he dashed them away before they had a chance to fall. Attempting to regain some semblance of balance, he moved to the side of the bed, and gently placed his hand over Isaiah’s heart.

As he had every day, he poured psychic energy into the depleted well of Isaiah’s power. What’d once been overflowing was now bone dry, drained completely from the catastrophic effort of defeating the Citizens .

He had little doubt that Nina would be similarly afflicted.

It was Derikles’ last-ditch attempt at restoring Isaiah to health when nothing else seemed to be working. Daily, he funneled power into his sovereign in a potentially futile bid to right the man’s energy drought.

No one wanted to discuss what would happen in the future. Isaiah couldn’t exist forever in this state. Already, he’d lost a considerable amount of weight, and his skin held a distinctive grey pallor. His eyes, normally a deep brown, had remained frosted white since they’d brought him home. They had never returned to their natural color.

At some point, Derikles and those who loved Isaiah would have to have a very honest and heartbreaking discussion.

A Raeth with his abilities was dangerous. On the battlefield, Derikles had seen the pure destructive force Isaiah was capable of and the damage he could reap. If his gifts returned and his mind didn’t, he could unknowingly murder everyone in the clan.

Though Derikles had been sovereign for less than month, he’d never let that happen.