16. Chapter 16
Chapter sixteen
A hundred and fifty men were not an army.
However, they were a problem. Apparently Bravat had been picking up random vagabonds along his escapades.
Drifters , Sid had called them. Not only did this complicate things for Cyrus, but it increased their risk of being caught in Mercia even more.
Cyrus had let this carry on long enough.
He pulled Essandra and Everan from the celebration activities, and they quickly made their way to Essandra’s workroom.
Kord came as well, although he made no effort to hide his continued anger at Cyrus over the interaction with Leti.
Cyrus would talk to him about it, but later.
“What are you going to do?” Everan asked.
“What choice do I have but to go after him? He’s going to bring war with a kingdom that we can’t afford to be at war with.”
“You can’t go traipsing across Mercia,” Kord said. “Not right now.”
“I don’t want to go, but what else can I do? I haven’t had to concern myself with Mercia and Aleon, but Bravat will quickly make them my concern. I have to get to him.”
“And do what?” Essandra asked. “He has a hundred and fifty men.”
“Only thirty-three of them are fighters. The rest are these vagabonds.”
“It’s still a lot.”
Kord looked at Essandra. “You could bond him. Like the assassins were bonded. Just do your”—he waved his hand—“magic stuff, and then Cyrus can call him back.”
“It doesn’t work like that,” she said shortly. “And I don’t bond people against their will.”
A knock sounded on the door, and Ram pushed in his head. “Cyrus, a letter from Japheth just arrived.” He held it out.
For a moment, Cyrus forgot about Bravat.
He tore the letter open, his heart in his throat.
This was what he’d been waiting for. He didn’t want to get ahead of himself, hoping that it would be a call to march against the Shadow King—it was too soon for that.
But just the thought had his heart racing.
Gregor’s handwriting was nearly illegible, far different from the pompous script he usually used. He’d obviously been beside himself as he wrote it. But as Cyrus read the words, his shoulders dropped.
“What does it say?” Everan asked.
“He says Aleon has taken Tarsus,” Cyrus told them.
Everan’s brows stitched. “Tarsus—the island trading kingdom?”
Cyrus nodded. He gave a disbelieving scoff as he flipped the parchment over, scanning it for anything more.
“Where…” He scoffed again. “Where’s the rest of it?
He says nothing about the Shadow King.” He handed the letter to Everan and then turned and paced to the window.
“How can he say nothing about the Shadow King?”
“Clearly he’s frantic,” Everan said, passing the letter to Kord.
“With him breaking trade with the Shadowlands, he relies on Tarsus for everything now. If his brother has taken that away, everything has fallen apart for him. I think you’ll hear more, and soon.
This is just him reacting in the moment. ”
“All the more reason not to wing off to Mercia right now after Bravat,” Kord added. “You need to be here. And be ready.”
Cyrus pushed out a frustrated breath as he leaned against the windowsill. They were right. He just had to accept the risk with Bravat for the time being and hope for the best.
The torchlight danced shadows across the wall as Cyrus made his way toward Essandra’s chamber. Two days in a row she’d missed dinner. She could have been caught up in her work, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.
Neither Aaron nor Amiel was by her door, which didn’t necessarily mean she wasn’t there.
She’d been sending them away lately, which Cyrus didn’t like.
He knocked lightly. She didn’t answer, and he knocked again.
He hadn’t checked her workroom first. Perhaps he should have.
If it was work that had tied her up, that was where she’d be.
He was just about to leave when she finally opened the door.
He paused.
Her hair was pinned up, not exactly unusual, although the wisps falling down around her face were. She looked defeated. Or tired. Or both.
“You weren’t at dinner,” he said softly.
She stared at him blankly, looking at him but not quite seeing. “Dinner,” she said in a voice little more than a whisper. “Oh.”
“Are you all right?” he asked her.
She turned away from the door but left it open for him to enter.
He followed her in. “What’s wrong?”
She turned to face him again and swallowed. “It didn’t work.”
“What didn’t work?”
“The spell.”
The realization hit him, and he shifted back slightly. “Alexander? The anchor? You tried it?”
“I can’t figure it out. The only thing I can think of is that using your blood in place of your brother’s is a natural proxy, and maybe you can’t be both a natural proxy and a spelled proxy together.
I just… I don’t know.” She put her head in her hands.
“I keep going rounds with this, and I’m to the point that I’m confusing myself. I don’t know how to make it work.”
“How long have you been at it?”
“Four days.”
He balked slightly before stepping closer. “Four days? Why didn’t you tell me?”
She shook her head. “I… I couldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. I-I just…”
“Essandra,” he said gently.
“I was afraid it would lead to asking something of you beyond your limits,” she said finally, “and I can’t do that.”
He knew exactly what she meant. “Now you need Alexander alive.”
“I’m not going to ask that of you.” She shook her head. “I should have used Perr and Fierra. They offered.” Perr and Fierra were two witches in her coven. Brother and sister.
“You can’t use them now?” he asked.
“I’ve already done the proxy spell on you. There’s no reversing it. And I can’t do it more than once.” She crossed her arms over herself and rocked back and forth, shaking her head again. “I was worried they wouldn’t be powerful enough, but I should have just used them. I should have tried.”
“But if they weren’t powerful enough, you wouldn’t have been able to try again with me,” he said.
“I’m just making a mess of all of this.”
“So, what is it you need now?” he asked. “Alexander’s blood? And you need him alive, at least long enough for you to do the spell?”
“I told you, I’m not going to ask that of you. I’m not going to be the one to stand between you and your brother for my own gain.”
Good. Because that was the one thing he couldn’t do. When an opportunity at Alexander came, he would have to take it, no matter what.
Commotion from outside drew his attention. He moved to the window and looked down below to see guards running toward the courtyard.
“What’s happening?” Essandra asked.
“I don’t know.” But he needed to find out.
Quickly they moved out of Essandra’s room and down the hall. When they reached the crossway, he saw Everan.
“There you are,” Everan said, hurrying toward him. “I was looking for you.”
“What’s going on?”
“Protests at the palace gates.”
Cyrus didn’t ask why. He didn’t need to. The people had been growing increasingly restless about the delay in moving against Serra. “I’ll go talk to them.”
“You can’t go out there,” Essandra told him. “People are angry. It could turn violent.”
“That’s exactly why I need to go—to keep that from happening.” He looked at Everan. “Where’s Kord?”
“Gathering the men.”
“Have him hold them inside. I’ll go on my own.”
“Cyrus,” Essandra said uneasily.
“That’s a terrible idea,” Everan added.
“If I go out with an army, it’s only going to increase the tension. I’ll go alone.”
“At least take the dogs,” Everan said.
“I’ll go alone,” he said again. He didn’t give them the opportunity to argue further, as he struck out toward the front gates.
The number of people holding torches lit the palace entry like day. A thousand, perhaps more. Cyrus ordered the gates open and strode through them. The masses quieted, falling back in surprise.
He walked to the center of the crowd, his eyes traveling around him. No one spoke. “Am I not the one you came for?” he called out.
They fell back a little farther.
“Speak your minds,” he told them.
Slowly, a man stepped forward. He was a little older than Cyrus. He wore a patch over one eye, and thick scars marred his arms. “We want to know when you’ll take Serra,” he said. “We have families suffering there. And all we do is wait.”
Cyrus wasn’t a stranger to that sentiment. He also felt like all he did was wait.
“Most of us have joined you to fight,” another man called out. “But then you sent half our army to Japheth.”
Cyrus nodded. He knew this was a point of contention, and not just for the people but for his council as well. It was because they didn’t see the bigger picture. “The battle we wage has multiple fronts,” he told them. “I am preparing us for them all.”
“What’s in Japheth?” another man asked.
“An opportunity against the Shadow King.”
Murmurs rippled through the crowd. Now they would understand. They’d see why he had—
“We should be focusing on Serra first,” a man shouted from the back. The murmurs grew louder in agreement.
“I hear you,” Cyrus assured them. “I do hear you.” This was the opinion of many, and while he didn’t entirely disagree, he at least expected them to see the necessity of preparing a multipronged approach.
“The Shadow King supports the slave trade—he fuels it,” he explained.
“If there’s an opportunity to bring him down, we must be prepared to take it. ”
“But Serrans are the actual slave traders,” the man with the eye patch said. “Serra is where our families are.”
Cyrus couldn’t argue with that. “We will take Serra. But I ask that you trust me and give me just a little more time.”