Chapter Twenty-Two
Zyr
Burn the records.
Forget the past. Accept this as their due, for the sins of a court that Zyr had never known. Believe what the Monarchs had taught them. That the unseelie suffered because they deserved to suffer. Because their natures required that they be broken, deprived, and abused.
Only Robin kept him moving forward. The man’s presence. The weight of his hand, there at the small of Zyr’s back. His clipped instruction, as they walked.
“Tail around my wrist.”
And Zyr readily obeyed, holding onto the man who was holding him together. He wanted to tear the skies. To rend flesh. To kill something. Instead, he walked.
Out of the lidérc’s house, into blazing sunlight. Down endless flights of stone stairs. A task only necessary because the lidérc willed it so, denying them easy passage back to Zyr’s allotment.
They were nearly to the foot of the stairs when he spotted the shadow.
A huge canine, prowling along one of the sandstone pillars, as restless as the one who cast it was still.
The barghest changeling from the meeting, arms crossed and gaze following Zyr and Robin’s progress.
His cu-sith companion stood a little further back, a lurking, suspicious presence.
“Fancy seeing you here.” Robin said, the sharpness in his voice comforting. “You got an invite to party with an ancient unseelie too?”
The changeling pushed off his pillar, expression unreadable. “Sent to find you.”
Zyr gritted his teeth, forcibly keeping his temper in check. Not for the changeling, but because he didn’t wish to harm Robin, whose bare hand rested against his back.
“Unless this is in regards to Robin’s House, find us later.”
“His House. Your House. This House,” the changeling said, voice all gravel. “Meeting’s starting now. Shit happened.”
“Now? What happened to ‘time is weird for fae?’” Robin demanded, glaring between the pair.
“Kelpie said they couldn’t reach you. Time gets less fluid when House heads get protective. Besides, this might be the lidérc’s allotment, but it’s part of Metara’s House. Means if she says now, it means now.”
Zyr only half listened to the exchange, focusing on attempting to weave the tip of his tail through Robin’s fingers (better to rest his attention there than fill the sky with lightning). He didn’t need the changeling to tell him that shit had happened. He was more than aware.
His home at risk. The veil under threat. Robin kidnapped and then returned. And now, a book of minutia stolen, one that held the true names of ancient fae. There was too much to think about. All of it unpleasant.
And now he was to sit and talk all of it over with a group of people who had already branded him a traitor.
“I see,” he said, voice gone flat with the effort of keeping his temper. Each word clipped and precise. “Bluntly, I’m not in my right mind at the moment. If the fucking cat is present, I will attempt to kill him.”
“Taibe’s got info,” Aultyr answered. “Fucking cat’ll be there.”
“Then–”
“Zyr,” Robin said. Just that.
Zyr cut himself off, as Robin’s hand slid up his spine, to his shoulders. Then his neck. Horn. That demanding, familiar tug, and Zyr shook with relief as he obediently lowered his head.
“I’m present, Robin,” he said. “Mostly.”
“Mostly,” Robin said, quiet. No less edged. “I like how you clarified that. Eyes closed.”
It didn’t take the world away. It didn’t stop the storm of rage still threatening to swallow him. But it didn’t need to. Zyr didn’t expect Robin to heal his past or make the present less oppressive. No amount of closing his eyes or picking emotions would change what he was or what he remembered.
It allowed him to breathe, though. To find solace and self in the dark, to be here and now instead of lost in the past.
“Library first. The cat will wait.” Robin’s crisp, steady voice in the darkness. “An hour. Ish. Hard ish.”
“Not a big reader,” came the changeling’s rough answer.
“It’s a good thing I wasn’t extending an invitation, then.”
“And the concerned kelpie-in-law?”
“He’s not invited, either. It’s an hour-ish or Dinam dies from poor time management.”
Zyr didn’t laugh. He was still too angry. But his lips turned up in a brief, unkind smile.
“I don’t mind them waiting in our allotment, should you wish it,” he said, tail once again playing through Robin’s fingers. “So long as they’re not in the library.”
Our, because that was the word Robin had chosen. Because all that was his was Robin’s, too.
“Choice is to hang out at our allotment for an hour-ish, in the living room, or you can tell Everil and Bo we’ll be there when we’re done.
” The steady weight of Robin’s hand never eased, a promise that even when he spoke to the others, he’d not forgotten it was Zyr who needed him.
“I suppose you could try to strongarm us, but that’d just piss Everil off more. ”
Silence, then, broken by Zyr’s rough breathing.
“I’ll tell them.” That was the cu-sith, all metal on metal. “You bring them in an hour.”
“Ish.”
“Ish. Right.” The changeling sounded mostly amused. “I allowed to put my feet on the furniture?”
“Zyr,” Robin’s voice was low and close. “Answer him. No wrong way to.”
“My furniture hasn’t fared well, of late,” Zyr said, without shifting in the slightest. “Put your feet where you like.”
“We need to start using conjured furniture,” Robin said, in that same quiet, just for them tone. He pressed his cheek to Zyr’s head, letting Zyr sigh further into him. “You heard him. Try not to get struck by lightning on your way in. Aisling would be sad.”
“Got it.” For a moment , that was it, and then the changeling added. “You’re an odd one.”
Zyr didn’t need to open his eyes to feel the pair’s departure. It wasn’t even a matter of magic. Only a sense of others fading, leaving only Zyr and Robin, there on those endless steps.
Robin held on, still. His lips brushed over Zyr’s horn. “Intimate. Awe.”
There was nothing, now, but Robin.
Zyr’s claws didn’t cut into his palms because Robin wouldn’t like him marking himself. His skin barely buzzed because more than that would be dangerous. His eyes remained closed, because that was what Robin had given him. A little bit of darkness.
All of it, a sort of binding, tying Zyr to the moment.
“Thankful. Valued,” Zyr said. True, but far from complete. Robin liked complete answers. “Provoked. Indignant.” And, finally, in reluctant confession. “Grieving.”
“You did well. And she was wrong. Ask to take us to the library. Ask me for the dark, beithir.”
Ask. Another tie to now. A rope to hold onto.
“May I take us to my library, Raven-Robin? Would you lead me into the dark? I wish to remain where you are. I’m trying.”
“You’re succeeding, beithir.” Robin nodded, once, while his thumb ran over Zyr’s horn. “That was well asked. Let’s go.”
Zyr’s library usually calmed him. This time, with the lidérc’s words fresh in his thoughts, it brought the lightning back to his skin and a growl to his throat. He opened his hands before his claws pierced his palms, shaking out his fingers.
He wanted to pace. To shift and run to the hills. To breathe between the numbers, until there was nothing but Robin and the dark.
Focus.
He looked to Robin, there just ahead of him. Tried only to look at Robin, and still his gaze shifted, restless with anger. Robin’s own gaze was level, unwavering. He took a half step closer, then back again, as Zyr’s skin sparked.
Winter’s rise. Robin couldn’t even touch him, not without being hurt.
And Zyr’s temper refused to remain leashed for more than a breath or two.
He couldn’t think, couldn’t order his thoughts in a way that allowed for cool, comfortable logic.
Pages of his thoughts torn from their binding and strewn across the floor. Grief. Rage. Guilt.
The world crumbling away beneath his feet.
First the violation of his collection. Then the threat to his home. Then the entire realm. And now.
Ill done by. The lidérc blaming the unseelie for their own extinction, dismissing the loss of nearly an entire generation with a shrug.
The eldest left of them, agreeing with the Monarchs.
The Winter Court had been out of control, dangerous, vile.
And it could only ever be so by the very nature of its people.
“Can I have–” Robin said, glancing toward the ceiling. “Thank you.”
This time, when he reached for Zyr, his hands were covered with some thin, dark fabric, insulation against crackling sparks of power.
“You’re going to listen to me, Zyr. Eyes closed.” Firm words and firmer pressure, Robin’s hands closed around his horns. “I’m going to talk while we count. We’ll breathe between sentences. Tell me you understand.”
Robin wasn’t crumbling. He was present, solid, fierce and demanding. Offering Zyr what he’d asked for. The dark. It took him a few rough breaths, but Zyr closed his eyes, while his tail twitched and dug at the floor.
“Yes, Raven-Robin,” he answered. “I understand.” And then, lest the man think otherwise, “The electricity isn’t intentional.”
“One. If I thought the electricity was on purpose, I wouldn’t be this close to you. You’re doing an amazing job, keeping it as contained as you are.”
Breathe between the numbers. Breathe and listen and follow the count to nine.
“Two. Nothing excuses what the seelie did.
“Three. What happened to you and the others of your generation is also inexcusable. Crueler and longer lasting than any Wild Hunt.” Deep breath.
“Four. Under no circumstances will we be burning history; anyone who suggests otherwise is ashamed, stupid, or both.”
Breathe. Usually, it helped. It helped now, created space between Zyr and the immediacy of his anger. But the anger was still there.
Anger. Loss. Guilt.
“Five. I’m incredibly proud of how you handled yourself in there. You did so well.
“Six. You’re doing well now, too, counting and breathing and listening.”
And: “Seven. We’ll figure this out together.”