25. Chapter 25
Chapter twenty-five
“Cyrus!”
Something was wrong. He knew it before his senses had even returned. He knew it before he could see. Before he even remembered where he was. Before he could understand who was calling his name.
“Cyrus!”
It was Essandra. However, he couldn’t place her.
He blinked to clear his vision, but he still couldn’t see.
Something was wrong.
So very wrong.
“Cyrus, what happened! What happened?”
He didn’t know.
All he knew—
He was gone.
Cyrus clawed at his chest. He was gone.
He was gone.
A sob ripped from his lips. “He’s gone…”
“Who’s gone?”
He tore at his clothes. He couldn’t breathe; he couldn’t speak. “Get it off,” he begged. He couldn’t breathe.
Her fingers flew over him, furiously unfastening the buttons of his clothing. She stripped his shirt off, freeing him, but still, he couldn’t breathe.
“Cyrus, look at me!”
He couldn’t see. He clawed at his chest again.
“It’s off! It’s off!” she promised. “Cyrus, look at me!” Her hands grabbed him and pulled him still as her shadow hovered over him. “Cyrus!”
He made out the blur of her face through his tears.
“He’s gone.” They were the only words he could get out.
She held him tightly. “Who’s gone?”
His breaths came fast and shallow, denying him the full fill of his lungs, denying him words.
And all the voices in his head—so many voices.
He tried to push them out, but he couldn’t.
Essandra gripped him tighter. “Cyrus! Who’s gone?”
He paused, shaking. “Alexander.”
Cyrus sat cross-legged on the floor of his chamber, numb. Most of the clothes he’d donned for Kord’s wedding lay strewn around him. His jacket was ripped.
He was wearing a tunic now. Essandra must have put it on him. She’d tried to get him to move to the bed, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t stand, he couldn’t walk, he couldn’t move at all. He could only sit. And stare into the void that surrounded him. The void that emptied him.
Alexander was gone.
Cyrus sat alone. Essandra had left to make sure the wedding continued, but she’d promised to return. He wasn’t sure how long she’d been gone.
Was the wedding over now?
Had it even started?
He should go. He needed to be there for Kord.
But he couldn’t bring himself to move.
Alexander was gone.
And he felt nothing and everything all at once.
Memories flashed around him—memories long forgotten. He tried to push them away. He didn’t want to remember.
But he couldn’t not look. He couldn’t not return.
Cyrus clawed at his head. A sob shook him as he struggled against it.
He couldn’t go back.
He couldn’t go back…
He stared at his reflection in the metal. It shone like a mirror—polished as best as he could get it—and he smiled. He moved on to the next piece.
“Do you need another rag?” Alexander asked him.
“No.” He flipped the rag he had over to use the other side. The linen had pilled, and the edges were frayed, but this made the best rag for polishing.
He set to work on the left vambrace. These were his favorite pieces, aside from the pauldron. He glanced up at the crown head of the great northern bear that hung on the wall. Their father wore it on his shoulder. They weren’t allowed to touch that.
He focused his attention back on the piece in his lap. Alexander liked the breastplate, but it was the vambraces that came back with the stories.
A dark mark streaked the steel—evidence of a blow.
“Look at this one,” he called to Alexander.
“Whoa!” Alexander reached out and ran his fingers along the strike. “What do you think it was? A sword?”
He shook his head. “An axe, I bet. A big one.”
They polished their father’s armor every evening, but their favorite was polishing it after battle. They’d marvel at the marks and dents.
“Boys.” Their father leaned into the room. “Your mother has dinner ready. Wash up.”
“How does it look?” Alexander asked him, standing and holding out a greave.
Their father looked at the armor piece, then smiled back at Alexander. “Good work. It’s important you keep it up for when it’s your own.”
“Mine?” A smile lit across Alexander’s face.
Their father ruffled Alexander’s hair, then stepped out of the room.
Alexander turned, but when their eyes met, his smile fell. “He didn’t mean me specifically,” he said quickly.
But their father had said it to Alexander specifically.
“You’re the eldest, Lucien. It’ll be your armor.” Alexander wrinkled his face. “Plus, I don’t even want it. I want my own, with a reinam on the breastplate.”
A reinam—a mythical sea serpent of the deep. “Reinams aren’t real.”
“Yes they are!” Alexander argued.
“Then how come no one’s ever seen one?”
“They have; they just haven’t lived to tell about it.”
“Boys!” their father called again.
Alexander pulled him up and shoved him through the doorway toward the dining room.
Cyrus wiped his tear-stricken face.
He’d needed Alexander dead for so long, but now… he wasn’t ready.
He wasn’t ready to lose him.
He couldn’t lose him.
Chaos still swarmed his mind—the pull of everyone that Alexander’s blood had touched. Were they near him? Did they see him? Were they touching him?
He had to know.
Cyrus sucked in a ragged breath as he collapsed back and let himself follow the pull of his brother’s blood.
There were fewer now—fewer voices, fewer trails—and a lot of fragments but with little clarity.
Perhaps the blood had been wiped off, washed off.
Cyrus followed what he could, reaching out, searching.
There had been so many before, but now there were so little.
His desperation grew, and he pushed further with his mind.
There had to be something.
He jumped from pull to pull, from mind to mind, not caring who it was, not caring if they felt him. It didn’t matter.
Nothing mattered.
Only finding Alexander.
And then he did.
Alexander lay on a stone-slab table, his skin ashen, his lips tinged blue. Cyrus wasn’t sure whose mind he was in, perhaps the keepers that tended the body, but he didn’t care. He couldn’t take his eyes from his brother.
It was the first time he’d seen his brother in their adult lives.
And he was dead.
His eyes stung, and he blinked back the blur.
Alexander was dead.
The loss in his chest was near unbearable. He needed him back. He needed—
Cyrus stopped.
His eyes traveled over Alexander’s armor.
Their father’s armor.
Alexander wore their father’s armor.
The head of the Northern bear had been placed on the floor at the base of the table.
Alexander had worn the bear-head pauldron.
Cyrus trembled as the heat of anger licked his skin.
“ Alexander? ” a voice called, startling him.
He jerked up his gaze to a woman looking back at him.
And not just any woman.
The Mercian queen.
She was alive. And here. It was her mind he was in.
Cyrus took a step back toward the shadows. He’d been careless in his pursuit of Alexander, not bothering to mask his travel. And now they stood staring at each other. Blood stained her hands and her front—Alexander’s blood, the blood that allowed him to travel the same as his own.
“ Is it really you? ” she whispered.
She thought he was Alexander.
She couldn’t know.
He shouldn’t be here.
He took another step back.
“ Wait! ” she cried. “ Don’t go! Please. ”
He paused. He didn’t want to go, not yet, but he couldn’t be here. She couldn’t know.
In her mind, she staggered up from her chair and drew around the table, closer to him.
“ How is this possible? ” she breathed. “ How are you here? ”
He had to go.
“ Do you not know me? ” she whispered.
Oh, he knew her…
She stepped closer, close enough to touch him now.
He had to go, but he still couldn’t bring himself to. She brought her hand up, reaching for his face, and he pulled back.
“ It’s me ,” she said through her tears. “ It’s me, Norah. ”
He could feel the grief coming off her. He hadn’t noticed it before, blinded by his own, but there was no missing it now. It pervaded every corner of her mind.
This woman grieved his brother.
Deeply.
Her eyes dropped to his neck, and her brow dipped.
Cyrus cursed himself. He knew exactly what she was looking at. He hadn’t taken care to conceal himself at all, much less project something different, and she’d noticed his markings—markings Alexander didn’t have. He should have left sooner. He pulled back into the shadows.
“ Wait! ” she called. “ Alexander! ”
But he couldn’t wait. He wasn’t Alexander.
Cyrus opened his eyes back in his chamber, panting heavily with a cold sweat across his brow. Darkness hung around him, driven back only by candlelight. It was night. How long—
“Cyrus!”
He startled as Essandra dropped down beside him and grabbed his arm
“It’s me,” she said quickly.
He waited a moment for his heart to slow. “How-how long have you been here?”
“A while.” Her eyes darted over him. “I was afraid to pull you out from wherever you were. I wasn’t sure what to do.”
To be fair, he wasn’t sure what to do.
“Where did you go?” she asked. “Where were you?”
It took a moment for him to be able to speak the words. Did speaking them make it real?
“He’s dead,” he whispered. He couldn’t say it without shaking. “I saw him.”
She crept closer. “Are you all right?”
He wasn’t all right. Why did it hurt so much?
“Will you come off the floor?” she whispered.
Slowly, he let her pull him up. His body was stiff from not having moved all day.
“You also need to eat,” she told him.
He wasn’t hungry.
She moved to the side table and poured a glass of water, then pushed it into his hands. “Drink this.”
He wasn’t thirsty.
“I’m going to go get you some food and I’ll be back.”
He didn’t want food.
“I’ll be back, okay?” she repeated.
He nodded again.
She nodded back, giving him a small squeeze on his arm, and slipped out of the room.
Cyrus set the glass of water on the table. His mind was still in chaos. What had just happened? None of it felt possible, none of it felt real, yet all of it felt too real. He dropped his head to his hands, digging the tips of his fingers into his temples.
What was he to do now?
He had to pull himself together.
Cyrus forced himself calm. He needed to think and think clearly. He inhaled deeply, then let it out slowly.
The Mercian queen was still alive. Had she taken back the North? Was that how Alexander had died?
The emotion was too overwhelming. He had to think rationally about this. What was happening?
The queen had been in the Mercian castle.
His breath hitched.
Was the Shadow King with her?
His pulse quickened again—maybe he could find out.
He had a rare opportunity here.
Cyrus needed to go back. He needed to go back to her before she washed off the blood, before he lost this chance. She thought he was Alexander, a ruse he probably couldn’t hold for long, but he might be able to hold it long enough to see what had happened and assess the current situation.
He could still feel her. He needed to pull himself together and go back now .
A knock sounded on his chamber door.
He paused.
Would Essandra really knock? No. She wouldn’t. She’d just told him she’d be right back.
It came again, harder this time. It most certainly wasn’t Essandra.
Cyrus moved to the door and opened it to find Kord. His chest tightened as guilt flooded him. The wedding…
“Kord—”
“Is this where you’ve been the whole time? In your chamber?”
“Kord, I’m sorry. I wanted to come.”
“Yeah, I’m sure you did.”
Cyrus couldn’t do this right now. He needed to return to the Mercian queen. If she washed off the blood, he’d lose his chance.
“I waited for you.”
Cyrus shook his head. “Kord—”
“I made Leti wait.”
As if the dagger weren’t deep enough. “I’m sorry.”
“Are you? Are you really?”
More than he put into words, but… “Kord, I can’t do this right now.”
Kord scoffed. Pain etched across his brow.
And Cyrus hated himself. He tried to explain. “My brother is dead.”
“Yeah, that’s what Essandra said, but I don’t fucking buy it. Your brother’s dead—the brother you’ve wanted to kill your whole life? And now you’re in here, fucking devastated.”
This wasn’t going well. And it was about to get worse.
“Tell me, Cyrus—when will the people you love get as much of your devotion as the people you hate?”
Cyrus wanted to argue; he wanted to deny him. But could he really? Even as Kord spoke to him, Cyrus was reaching his mind back out to the queen. He could still feel her, still return to her, but for how much longer?
Kord cocked his head. “Are you even going to ask me how the wedding was?”
A failure at every turn. Cyrus cursed himself again. “Of course—”
“It was the most beautiful fucking wedding this kingdom’s ever seen.”
Cyrus tried to swallow the lump building in his throat. It broke him that he hadn’t been there. Just like it broke him to say his next words. “Kord, I have to go,” he whispered.
Kord snorted, then gave a nod. He glanced down at the floor and then back up. “Fuck you, Cyrus.” Then he turned and headed back toward the main hall.
Cyrus slumped against the doorframe. What was wrong with him? Why was he like this? But even his self-loathing couldn’t stop him.
Essandra would be headed back soon. If he let her in, he’d miss his chance.
He closed the door, his hand hovering over the lock.
Gods, how he hated himself.
Then he turned it. The click shamed him like a confession, but he focused his mind on the Mercian queen.