21. Chapter 21
Chapter twenty-one
Two sets of identical eyes stared back at him. Varian and Martine. The Serran princes. Cyrus stood in the stateroom in the southern wing of the palace, where he held them, because keeping children in the dungeon felt… uncomfortable. So did visiting them, but here he was.
He glanced around the room. It was larger than his own—a grand sitting room turned boys’ bedchamber.
He wanted space for them, not that he kept them here all the time.
They were permitted in various rooms under guard, and outside in the courtyard.
He was satisfied with this, until he could figure out what to do with them long-term.
His eyes stopped on a series of charms above their beds. Moon-colored stones hung from intricate patterns of silver thread.
“What are those?” he asked.
“Moonweaves,” Varian said. He was the more outspoken of the two. He’d been the one wielding the sword when Cyrus had taken them.
“Lady Essandra gave them to us to catch the night terrors and keep them away,” Martine added quietly.
Cyrus tried to swallow the sourness in the back of his throat as guilt tugged at him. It wasn’t his intention to give children night terrors.
“Lady Essandra visits you?” he asked.
They fell quiet.
“What does she say?”
“She tells us to be brave,” Martine whispered.
Cyrus nodded. “I think that’s very good advice.”
“Are you going to kill us?” Varian asked.
Cyrus paused. “I don’t want to,” he said truthfully. “But my people demand justice. And I’m sure there are surviving Serran nobles who will do everything they can to restore you to power.”
“I don’t even want the throne,” Martine said.
“But that’s the thing, isn’t it?” Cyrus told them. “You don’t have to want something for it to be forced upon you.”
Varian clasped his brother’s hand. “We can be different from what our father was.”
“The pressures of the crown will push you to do things you never thought you would do. I know these pressures.”
“So, what are you going to do with us?”
“I don’t know,” Cyrus said. He paused, guilt still needling him. “But I don’t want you to be afraid. I’ll tell you this—mind yourselves, and you will be treated as wards of the crown. No harm will come to you here.”
Martine glanced at his brother, then looked back to Cyrus, his brown eyes large and hopeful. “Do you promise?”
Cyrus nodded. “I promise.”
The ink dried slowly, but he waited. He’d been careful with each sentence and didn’t want to mess it up now. Cyrus did his best to write nicely for Miriel. She took such time with her letters, and he tried to do the same.
He wondered if Essandra had written her back as well. Probably. She sent Miriel things all the time. Cyrus and Essandra often talked about Miriel. Well, they did when Essandra was speaking to him, which she still wasn’t. He rose from his desk and moved to the window.
Essandra’s absence carried the weight of loss. And he didn’t know how to fix it.
“Are you sulking again?” Visa called from behind him.
The dogs jumped to greet her.
Cyrus straightened and turned. “Why would I be sulking?”
She raised a brow. “Why won’t you just go talk to her?”
He sighed and turned back to the window. “She doesn’t want me to talk to her.”
“She doesn’t want you to control her. She absolutely wants you to talk to her.”
“Wh-” He turned back to her. “What has she said?”
“No.” She shook her head. “Don’t ask me that.”
“I know she’s upset with me.”
“Yes. And, again, that’s typically remedied by talking.”
Another sigh escaped him.
“No, you know what—I’m not going to keep watching you like this,” she told him. She grabbed him and pulled him by the arm toward the door. “You’re going to go right now.”
He planted his feet. “I don’t know what to say.”
Visa moved behind him, pushing him. “Well, you’ll figure it out on the way.” She was quite strong for one so small, and she pushed him all the way through the door and out into the hall.
“I don’t even know where to start.”
“You can start by telling her you’re sorry. Yes, you do stupid things, but they do come from a good place.”
“Thanks?”
She took hold of his hands again. “She doesn’t even know that you let go of an opportunity at your brother to bring her back when she was injured.”
He froze, and his eyes locked with hers.
Visa bit the corner of her lip. “Everan told me.”
“I don’t want her to know that.”
Her brows dipped. “Why not?”
He shook his head. “I guess… I don’t want her to feel like I’m using that against her. She doesn’t owe me.”
Her hold on him softened, and she nodded. “I won’t tell her. But, still, you need to talk to her.”
“Fine.”
She raised a brow.
“I will,” he promised.
“Right now!” she pressed, shooing him.
“I’m going!” He started down the hall. As he looked back over his shoulder, Visa gave him another wave of her hand.
His footfalls echoed through the empty halls. He ran through the conversation in his head. He would say that he was sorry for not taking her to Serra.
Except he wasn’t sorry. Serra had proven to be more challenging than he’d expected. It had been dangerous, not the best planned, as Orion would no doubt continue to remind him. He hadn’t wanted her there. He’d been trying to protect her.
Because that was what one did when one felt—
As he rounded the corner, Cyrus stopped midstride as a man stepped from Essandra’s workroom. His face was covered, with his gaze in the opposite direction as he closed the door behind him. His movements were quick. Stealthy.
“Hey!” Cyrus shouted at him.
The man jerked and turned and, upon seeing Cyrus, fled down the hall.
“Stop!” Cyrus demanded, and gave chase, but as he reached the end and hooked around the next corner, the man was gone.
Cyrus raced back and tore into Essandra’s workroom. She whirled around from where she stood over her table.
“Who was that?” he demanded.
A flash of alarm lit her face, which she quickly hid. She pursed her lips. “Who was who?”
“Don’t play games. There was a man in here.”
Her eyes darkened and she cocked her head. “Are you jealous?”
“His face was covered.” Cyrus stepped closer. “Was he an assassin?”
She turned back to the table, picking up the stem of an herb and pulling the small leaves from it.
“Are you freeing assassins?” he pressed.
She finished with the stem and started with another. “And what if I was?”
A storm rippled under his skin, and he grabbed her.
“Let go of me!” she hissed, but he didn’t.
He pulled her closer. “Do you know the danger you call to yourself?”
She wrenched her hand away. “I already face a danger greater than anything you’ve ever seen. I don’t care about the guild.”
Cyrus hadn’t forgotten about Soroya. Far from it.
He thought often about the high witch who was hunting Essandra.
But just because there was a greater danger out there didn’t mean Essandra could ignore smaller ones.
Smaller. He almost scoffed at himself. The danger from the assassins’ guild was hardly small.
And unlike Soroya, who seemed little more than a phantom in night terrors, the Jackals were here.
They were reaching her with no one else around.
“Was he the only one?” he asked.
“The only one this week.”
“How many?”
“Nine?” She shrugged. “Ten?” She finally turned to face him again. “Less if I’d have gone to Serra.”
They’d come while he’d been gone. Rage rippled through him. Whether they timed their fortune like that or not, it didn’t matter. “No more,” he said.
“That’s not your decision.”
His skin grew even hotter. “I’ll kill every assassin that steps foot in Rael.”
Her eyes flashed. “Get out,” she said.
They stood with their stares locked.
Her lips peeled back, showing her teeth. “Get. Out.”
He snorted an angry breath but yielded, finally leaving her workroom. But now things were so much worse.
Talk to her , Visa had said.
Cyrus inhaled deeply, and the salty sea air filled his lungs. The ship bound for Pryam was almost ready and would be sailing soon. Cyrus had come to see it off. This wasn’t a normal habit for him, but he needed something to occupy his mind.
He was supposed to be in Japheth right now, waiting for the Shadow King to arrive under Gregor’s invitation to renegotiate their trade terms in person.
But the Shadow King had refused. Had he known Cyrus would be waiting for him? Waiting to confront him. Waiting to put the tip of his sword against the base of his neck, to look him in the eye as he pushed it through. How many times Cyrus had imagined it, had dreamed about it…
Had the Shadow King known? No , he couldn’t have. But he had to have suspected something.
Cyrus should have known it wouldn’t have been that easy, but he was disappointed nonetheless. Now he’d have to formulate another plan—a more direct plan. That also meant he couldn’t ignore Aleon and Mercia.
He sent Jaem, with his talent for finding information, back to the Free Cities, which were always abuzz with the latest news and rumors. Not all of it was reliable, but most of it was directionally accurate and seemed to fill in what official letters and proclamations left out.
And not everything about the Shadow King’s refusal to go to Japheth was a setback.
In a hasty reaction driven by his insult and anger, Gregor had halted all trade between Japheth and the Shadowlands.
It was obvious now that the alliance between them was crumbling, and Gregor was crumbling with it.
His letters had become more and more erratic, more and more unreadable—Cyrus had stopped trying to make sense of them.
The last four, he’d left unopened. The coward could no longer hide behind willful miscommunication and masked subversion.
Cyrus hoped the fracture was as obvious to the Shadow King.
He gathered it was. Orion had returned from the Shadowlands, reporting a mass callback of Shadow warriors.
What would be the reason to call back forces of that magnitude if not out of concern for a threat?
Their influx through the Canyonlands had been so heavy that Orion had barely been able to make it out undetected.
It had taken Cyrus every bird he could get his hands on to help get him out.
Orion had returned without his woman. She hadn’t been in the Shadowlands. Well, she had been, but she wasn’t there anymore. It was rumored that a freed slave from Elam, who Orion was convinced was Vitalia, was now in service to the queen.
It had been a while since Cyrus had thought about the Mercian queen. Regardless, she’d returned to Mercia, likely with Vitalia.
Orion had just missed her.
Cyrus wished he would have known sooner. He could have let Orion go sooner, although he’d needed him in the attack against Serra. He wouldn’t have been able to kill the king and take the princes without him. And Orion’s delayed trip to the Shadowlands had provided him with valuable information.
Still, the guilt ate at him. He toed at a loose board on the dock where he stood.
Footfalls came behind him, pulling him from his thoughts, and he turned to see Hephain.
The dogs had been sniffing around the dock nearby, and they trotted up to greet him. Hephain gave them a pat.
“Are you ready?” Cyrus asked him.
Hephain nodded with a small smile. “I am. I didn’t expect a royal send-off back to Pryam, though.”
Cyrus glanced around. Hephain was by himself. “Where’s Corwin?” he asked. He hadn’t seen the Pryamese man since the shitstorm dinner they’d had.
Hephain’s smile faded. “He sailed back last week.”
Last week. Right after the dinner.
“I’m sorry,” Cyrus said.
“It’s not your fault. I mean, dinner was an absolute disaster, but…
” He shook his head. “I’d never told Corwin the history there.
He figured it out pretty quickly, though.
And it probably wouldn’t have been an issue if I was over everything, and if I’d been honest with him.
” He swallowed. “But I’m not, and I wasn’t. ”
A silence came between them again. Hephain’s eyes teared, but he blinked them back as Ram trotted up along the dock to them.
“Hey!” Ram said with a grin. “I heard you were going, wanted to say goodbye.”
They clasped arms and pulled each other close.
“Thank you, friend,” Hephain said. “I won’t be long in returning.” He turned back to Cyrus. “I should go,” he added. “You’d said you have a letter for Miriel?”
“Oh, right.” Cyrus had almost forgotten. He pulled the letter and held it out.
“I’ll be back in a few months,” Hephain told him as he took it.
“I’m looking forward to it.”
Cyrus watched as the gangways cleared the dock, and the ship pulled away.
The sun rose above the horizon, spilling light and nearly blinding him. But he didn’t miss the large ship pulling into port as Hephain’s departed.
“Who’s that?” Cyrus asked.
Ram squinted across the harbor. “Green flags.”
Green.
Gregor.
Fuck.