Chapter 22 The Tylock Inheritance #3
Riding ahead, Ridan had Iylah ready in his tent by the time Jonen and Brune rode into camp. They brought Corric to his and Ridan’s nest, laying him on the thick furs.
“Boy.” Iylah snapped her fingers at Brune without looking at him. “Stoke the hearth. We need it sweltering in here.”
While he did that, Ridan and Jonen helped Iylah take Corric’s damp clothes off. She tsked, but said nothing as she examined his pupils, skin, and pulse. He looked a little pinker than he had on the mountain, and his chest rose and fell in shuttering breaths, but he was still unconscious.
“It’s probably for the best,” the healer said as she prepared a tea for him. “The warmth returning to his limbs will not be pleasant.”
The tea she created smelled musty, but Jonen took it without complaint and slowly spooned it into Corric’s mouth, encouraging him with soft croons to swallow.
Iylah stayed until he was done and then left to oversee her other patients, giving them strict instructions to keep Corric warm and to find her if anything changed.
Jonen dutifully massaged Corric’s limbs while they waited.
The tent became unbearably stuffy, but they didn’t dare let the hearth die down.
Ridan paced, occasionally looking up to demand answers they had no way of knowing before going back to his pacing.
Despite the heat, he kept Brune’s cloak on, burying his nose to inhale the alpha’s scent.
Time seemed to fade away as they sat in the hot tent.
Waiting. Their eyes trained on Corric to pick up any minute movement.
In a way, it was exhausting. Lingering on a thread of hope, hearts slamming into their chest at the barest hint of improvement, only to settle with the bitter taste of despair when it was only wishful thinking.
Close to midnight, Schok and Buzzard appeared.
Who told them, Brune didn’t know. But one moment the tent was still and the next the magic user and Harpy were walking in with hoods pulled high.
Ridan nearly hissed at the intrusion, hand moving to his sword as the strangers drew closer to his nest. Even when they dropped their hoods and he recognized him, there was a tension in his shoulders that hadn’t been there before.
Schok didn’t say a word, he just stared down at his little brother. Buzzard’s wings fluttered behind him.
“He smells like magic,” Buzzard said after a moment, glancing up at Schok.
The eldest Tylock’s lips were set in a thin line, the skin around his eyes tight. “He smells like Sinestrus.”
Jonen bared his teeth at Schok’s words. “How do you know?”
Schok ignored him, kneeling beside Corric.
With a solemn face, he reached out and pushed some of his hair from his eyes before laying his palm over Corric’s heart.
He pressed until his fingers splayed out.
Small flames licked around his knuckles.
Jonen growled, his scent spiking, but the older alpha wasn’t cowed.
Corric’s skin remained unburned, only pinking a little.
With a start, Corric opened his eyes. His hand jerked up, nearly smacking Jonen in the face. His chest heaved as he looked around the room, wild eyed with a scent that stank of fear.
“Corric?” Jonen asked tentatively.
The omega blinked, fingers curling into fists before his lips wobbled. Swallowing thickly, he closed his eyes against the fat tears that started to spill.
“I saw him,” he croaked, voice strained and so low they had to lean forward to hear. Ridan stepped close enough he could scent Corric, rubbing his wrist down his back and across his arms.
Corric shuddered. His muscles trembled as he looked at Ridan, held in place only by Jonen’s strength.
“I saw it. He’s been waiting, Ridan. Since the fall of Artrax he’s been…he’s been planning. Putting things in motion. I was…he used me.”
“Corric, stop. It’s—”
“No!” he screamed, voice cracking. “I freed him. I was—from the beginning! I was always meant for this. I thought I escaped, but it was all…” he trailed off with a sob, head falling. “You have to kill me.”
Jonen gasped, his eyes narrowing at Ridan as he pulled Corric closer to him. Buried in the alpha’s arms, Corric tried to pull away, but Jonen held firm.
“I freed him! It was all me! I failed the clan. I put everyone in danger again! I don’t deserve to live.” His eyes were shiny, misery and guilt painted across his pale face.
The tension in the tent was unbearable. Between Jonen’s growling and Corric’s pleading, it was hard to know where to look. Ridan was still, staring at Corric with an unreadable look on his face.
“Jonen, you bare your fangs at me one more time and I’m going to choke you with your own knot,” he finally snapped. The alpha closed his mouth with a click.
“And Corric, your self sacrificial tendencies are becoming tiresome.”
Struggling against Jonen, Corric tried to grab for Ridan. Tears slipped down his angular cheeks. “Don’t you understand?”
Ice was beginning to form on Corric’s arms again, spreading around the tent beneath him.
“My mother knew! She knew he would use me, so she tried to hide my magical abilities away. Sealed it so far inside me I didn’t even know it was there!
” His breath fogged from the cold. “But even that wasn’t enough.
He still found me! It was all his plan! He made Schok a thrall so he could find me and then…
I broke the scale…I…” he trailed off, the magnitude of what he’d done sinking in.
Ridan didn’t answer, too busy staring at the ice growing around him. He touched it tentatively, hissing at the cold.
“Now you understand.” Schok’s voice cut through the tent, colder than Corric’s ice. He lowered a hand to melt the ice Corric was creating, leaving behind a puddle. “You’re a true Tylock, after all.”
Corric stared at his brother, his face flickering between horror and despair.
The words were cruel, but they were spoken with an air of resignation rather than malice.
A conversation fizzled between the brothers, an unspoken understanding that Brune didn’t think he’d. understand, even if he heard it.
If Brune thought Schok was going to comfort Corric, he was sorely mistaken. The older Tylock simply busied himself with melting the ice, letting his brother wallow in his misery. It was hard to look at and even harder to understand.
Sinestrus had manipulated them all. Even locked away, he played a game of such strategy and length it spanned generations.
Was any of Krait Tylock’s decisions his own?
Or was he just as much a pawn as his sons?
Niklas had once told Brune that the Tylock family was the oldest family of magic users—it made sense that Sinestrus would use them to his advantage.
He had them all right where he wanted them.
Sinestrus used Schok, knowing that Corric would do anything to save his brother.
They thought Halm had sent Corric into the thrallscape with Buzzard’s magic, but had he?
Or was it Corric’s own abilities, latent and lethargic but willing, sparking to life like a flare in the night? Luring Sinestrus right to him.
“Why did he let you go?” Brune suddenly asked, the words falling past his lips before he realized.
Everyone except Corric—who was still staring at the ice spreading from his fingertips—looked up at him.
Scratching at his scruffy chin, he continued. “I mean, Sinestrus had Corric. So why let him go? Why not take him and continue manipulating him? He had to know he’d come back here and tell us everything.”
Brune wasn’t really expecting an answer, but Buzzard had one.
“He needs a body,” he said as he plucked at one of his feathers. “After all that time rotting in the mountain, he wouldn’t have one. You said you found Corric encased in ice?”
Ridan nodded. “Made his own tomb.”
“Corric must have used his ice to protect himself,” Buzzard continued, preening his feathers a little faster as he worked through his thoughts.
“Think about it, all the times he’s spoken to anyone he’s been as the wind—speaking, moving things around, but unseen.
Untouchable. Why? Why not just grab Corric? Because he couldn’t.”
Brune felt his eyes widen. Of course. There was no reason for Sinestrus to encase Corric in ice, to nearly kill his savior. No. Corric must have instinctually used magic to save himself. To close himself off from Sinestrus.
“That’s the Corric we know,” Ridan said, sliding his fingers through his damp strands. Corric didn’t respond, eyes vacant and lip quivering.
“I’ll get Iylah to give him something to help him sleep. Jonen, I’m guessing I don’t have to ask you to stay with him.” The alpha didn’t even look up at Ridan.
“Schok, can you stay on top of this ice? Make sure he doesn’t freeze the place.” Ridan didn’t stick around to see if he would answer, just moved towards the front of the tent.
Brune followed him, stepping into the night.
Ridan had his nose buried in Brune’s cloak as he stared into the night.
Chewing on his lip, he didn’t look up when Brune took his place beside him.
He smelled like burning wood and ice, black tea and Brune’s dusty scent.
His own sweet pepper peeked out, soured with worry.
Not that Brune needed his scent to tell what Ridan was feeling. When they first met, he found his feelings to be indecipherable. Now, Brune could read him clearer than a mystic with tea leaves.
“This isn’t your fault,” Brune began, knowing Ridan wouldn’t believe him. He wasn’t surprised when he didn’t answer. “Ridan, I’m serious.”
“How is it not?” Ridan snapped, refusing to look at Brune. “Sinestrus practically told us he was coming after Corric. We just…ignored it. We ignored all the signs because it was easier. And now Sinestrus has come after my pack.”
Brune didn’t know what to say to Ridan. Nothing would change his mind. He would never believe he wasn’t at fault. He could talk until the sun had fallen beyond the horizon for the last time. Still, Ridan would blame himself.
Ridan needed to stop feeling guilty and start getting angry.
Anger led Ridan to disobey his mother and fight Bargrave. Anger had him holding fast against the other chieftains. Anger burned in his blood.
“Sinestrus came after your pack,” Brune agreed, pleased when Ridan finally looked at him. “Not just your pack, but your clan.”
Ridan’s fingers tightened into a fist.
“What are you going to do about it?” he asked, pushing forward until he was in Ridan’s face. “Are you going to sit here blaming yourself for things that have already happened? Let Sinestrus write his victory with the blood of your people?”
The omega’s lips curled in a small snarl.
Brune shoved him just hard enough that Ridan had to take a surprised step back.
“Will you watch as he topples the mountain your ancestors have stood under?”
Another step, another shove.
“Watch idly as the bones of your people bleach in the sun?”
Another step.
“Weep quietly as the land turns to blight? As the rivers dry and the trees wilt?”
Ridan’s back hit the tent, his hands shaking and scent so strong it nearly made Brune’s eyes water.
“Cower as—”
He was cut off with a roar, staggering back as he was struck with an angry blonde battering ram.
Ridan tackled him around the middle, fists pounding into his chest as they both toppled to the ground.
Teeth flashed as they dug into Brune’s arm, the sharp pain pulling a cry from him as he wrapped his arms around Ridan and flipped them.
Trying to pin Ridan’s hands, he got a knee to the gut for his efforts.
Ridan had him flat on his back while he was trying to catch his breath. Baring his fangs, his eyes were nearly black as he loomed over him.
Through his wheezes, Brune smiled. “There’s my omega.”