Chapter 65
Chapter
Sixty-Five
EVIE
T wo days.
I’d been absent from this world for two days.
“You didn’t run,” I said.
“You were still breathing,” Adara muttered. “If I thought you dead, we wouldn’t have been having this conversation.”
“Careful, Adara, you might become an optimist,” I said to distract myself from my heart breaking all over again.
I’d woken up.
Zandyr hadn’t.
We watched Elysia mutter under her breath and treat Zandyr’s wound with the veritable apothecary she’d brought along with her. The room smelled of rosemary, sage, and a peppery scent my recluse nose had never encountered. She gently swabbed and dabbed his neck, retrieving vials from a leather bag that was almost as big as her, movements slow and deliberate.
Zandyr still wasn’t breathing.
But I was.
I was standing and walking.
Why hadn’t he woken up alongside me?
Adara sighed. “We need all the optimism we can get.”
“Elysia is very good,” Leesa muttered from beside me. “The Fair Isles tried to convince her to work there, but she refused.”
“I would have rather cut my own bangs than live among those arrogant bastards.” Elysia wiped the sweat off her brows and finally stood. She locked eyes with me. “I used every trick and treatment I know of. He’s in the gods’ hands now. I don’t understand how he’s still alive.”
“You saved Dara’s fiance,” I said, hating how hopeful I sounded.
“ Calyx wasn’t injured so close to his heart and brain.” I understood why they called her The Viper. Sure, she had her potions and venoms, but that youthful voice of hers rattled like a snake’s tail before striking. “It’s a wonder he’s still with us.”
“How can you tell?” Adara asked. There went the optimism.
“It’s faint, but the wound still bled, which means his heart is still beating.” Elysia licked her lips. “How you managed to do it, I have no clue.”
I frowned. “Me?”
“The poison should have infected his blood before you carried him into this room. I don’t know if it was your power shielding him, you sucking out his blood, or that weird kissing thing you were doing. Maybe the gods just don’t want him yet.” She looked down at him, her stern face softening. “And if you die, I swear to Xamor and Ryker’s strange gods that I will murder you in the afterlife.”
She clenched her jaw, gaze once again finding mine. “I can’t lie. His chances are slim. He might never wake up, stuck in whatever state this is.”
I grabbed onto Adara’s shoulder as my knees shook.
Stuck in an eternal slumber was a fate worse than death.
No warrior death, no meeting his gods, no living, no…nothing.
What if he was once again trapped in those chains, to be tormented for eternity?
I righted myself a second later, still feeling the effects of my trek through his memories. The abyss’ call had quieted, but there was still an echo of it at the back of my mind.
“How close are you to finding a cure?” I asked.
Elysia’s face tightened. “As close as I can while just coming back from a war and without knowing what the poison actually is.”
Very far away then. My sigh echoed around us.
“I’m doing the best I can,” Elysia snapped, surprising me. “You think it’s easy seeing him like this and not being able to help more?”
What in Xamor’s name–“I didn’t say it was easy–”
“Everyone expects me to pull some miracle out of my ass, when nobody in Malhaven has even heard of this poison, let alone seen it,” Elysia went on. She was looking at me, but it didn’t feel like she was talking to me. She was arguing with herself, shame spilling out of her. “I am one person, not a god. I already have the Blood Brotherhood Elite on my back, now I’m questioned by a Vegheara bra–”
“Watch it.” My voice slashed around us and Elysia finally stopped her meltdown, breathing heavily.
“I am just stretched as thin as possible–”
“Everyone is,” I hissed. This Viper might have been fearsome, but Veghearas were too. “So take whatever is making you scowl at me somewhere else, because I am in no mood for a temper tantrum.”
“Zandyr is my brother . I’ve known him for years .”
“I don’t care.” Honestly, good for him for having such loyal friends, but I was in no state to entertain misplaced emotions now. “You do not talk to me like that.”
The Viper flinched, as if she was just realizing who she was talking to. But ego shined in her dark gaze. “Right. You’re the future queen.”
“Yes. And don’t forget it,” I said. “We’re all worried and we all want the same thing. You’re his friend, and I respect that. I’m his wife, and you respect that .”
The air turned tense as Adara’s eyes jumped from me to Elysia. Neither of us backed down.
Finally, Elysia huffed a laugh. “Oh, I like you.”
She finished wiping her hands and threw her rag into the enormous bag she’d brought, closing it with a click.
“You can point me to a bed, now, please,” she said to Adara. “He’s in good hands.”
Crisis averted, they walked out without another word. Only then did I release a long sigh. Dax would have his hands full with that one. Then again, so would she.
“She means well,” Leesa whispered. “She was tired–”
“Don’t do the work for her, let her excuse herself if she wants to,” I said, rushing back to the side of Zandyr’s bed. He still had that small smile on his face, the bastard. Taunting me with the hope that those gorgeous eyes of his would pop open and laugh everything off as a joke.
Elysia had cleaned his wound beautifully. No sign of the green poison, but the skin around it had darkened, as if charred.
“Did the ruse work?” I asked, to keep my mind from going back to the grim reality Elysia had laid at my feet.
What if Zandyr never woke up and laid in this state forever?
Leesa came to stand behind me. “Everyone thinks you’re in mortal danger and that the prince is beside himself. Kaya is keeping all the attention on her. Frostfall Reach sends their prayers.”
Prayers wouldn’t help us now.
“Evie?” her small voice sounded hesitant.
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry.”
I frowned and turned to her. “Why?”
“I distracted you in the fight.” She bit her lower lip. “You wouldn’t have been there if I’d defended myself better and not fallen on the floor, and the prince wouldn’t have–”
“It’s not your fault,” I said, leaving no room for argument. Maybe, one day, I’d believe it wasn’t my fault Zandyr got struck, either. “You’re my friend, of course I would protect you.”
“You’re also the Blue Queen.”
“So?”
“Remember what I told you when we first met?” Leesa smiled shyly. “You make the sacrifices so we sleep better at night. You risked your life to save mine. I’m still sorry, but thank you, Evie.”
“You’re welcome, Leesa.”
“But please don’t do it again. We need you.”
“And I need you.”
“I’m just your lady-in-waiting.”
“You’re my friend. Never forget that, Leesa.”
Her small smile grew. “It’s going to be alright. I can feel it.”
“Let’s hope the gods agree with you.” I kneeled on the bed, taking Zandyr’s palm between my hands. Still so cold. “When Kaya comes back, please tell her to come here, we need to talk.”
Leesa frowned, but nodded all the same. After pestering me some more to eat–a promise she’d made to Goose, apparently–and making sure I drank some water, she left.
Zandyr and I were alone again.
Thank the gods she hadn’t asked why I needed to see Kaya.
I couldn’t have explained anything to her. I still had trouble grasping the gravity of what Kaya had suffered through, and I’d seen it.
We’d all had marks on our childhoods, but Kaya had an entire gash. Looking back, there had been glimmers of it. Her parents–though they didn’t deserve the name–treated her like property. I’d noticed the changes in her and was concerned–but the haze of disappointment and sadness had been too strong to truly see beyond it.
I needed to apologize once more.
She wasn’t powerless. Naive, yes, but after being infantilized and tortured–because she had been tortured, whether she believed it or not–by her own parents, it truly was a miracle that was her biggest flaw.
The strength it had taken her to endure that…
For us to take down the advisors, she needed to be strong once more.
What would have happened to her if Zandyr hadn’t intervened?
I held on tighter to his hand, searching the bond. There was still that warm glimmer of him I held onto for dear life, but it hadn’t grown.
The hours passed, the warm orange light filtering in through the windows turning purple as the sun set.
This man, who everyone feared, the one they called The Dragon, the fearsome Blood Brotherhood prince, had saved so many lives with sacrifice after sacrifice, without asking anything in return. He would never admit it, but his heart was too big for Malhaven–and I’d been on the verge of breaking it.
What had I been thinking, talking about divorce? If I had truly wanted to leave him, I would have already, instead of stewing in my own hesitation.
He hadn’t wavered, even though my own replica tormented him each night, spewing things I’d never say.
My words hadn’t been kind, either, after he broke my heart.
Reap, sow.
He’d sown mistrust.
I’d sown harshness.
Now we had to live through all of that and reap what the both of us had sown. But he had to live first.
“I keep calling you back.” I pressed the back of his cold hand against my forehead. Even my power was wailing inside me, numb and empty. “And nothing happens.”
Tears streamed down my cheeks, and I was as powerless to stop them as I was to wake him.
“I’m sorry I hurt you. I know you’re sorry you hurt me,” I whispered. “You need to wake up, so we can make amends. Don’t let me face this life alone. We’ve already lost twenty-one years, don’t deprive me of a life without you.”
My power cried harder, desperately reaching out through the bond.
“Wake up. Come back. We need you. I need you.” I sucked in a sobbed breath. “Don’t leave me alone.”
Why hadn’t he woken up? Why wasn’t he here with me, trading jokes and plans?
“Zandyr Kaelor Arkyn Bolthar Mordayn Rohenstorm, of the Rohen Dynasty, The Dawnbringer of my Clan and The Great Dragon of the Blood Brotherhood,” I incanted. “I don’t care if I’m selfish, I want to live and I want you to live with me. Come back!”
He remained stubbornly still.
In the stillness of the room, I heard the door creak open behind me. I sucked in a breath, trying to calm myself before facing Kaya.
But these familiar steps were too agile to belong to her.
Kaya wasn’t the one prowling toward me in the darkness.