28. Chapter 28 #2
The bird struggled in his hands as Cyrus marked its head with blood.
They never liked this part. He estimated he was within a day’s reach of the Shadow King.
He’d know for sure within the hour. He released the bird into the sky and willed it west. Instantly, an ache creeped up into his head behind his eyes, but he ignored it. Nothing would stop him now.
“So today, then,” Essandra said from behind him.
He turned.
She waved off he guard beside her, who had set a leather trunk at her feet. “Today you kill the Shadow King,” she told Cyrus.
He nodded. “Today,” he said. It didn’t feel real. All the time he’d spent wanting and waiting, working and breaking himself and those around him over and over again, all the time consumed with the thought.
Now it was today.
Her lips were coldly pursed. No warmth came from her, not that he expected any. It was his own fault. He hadn’t apologized to her for what he’d said about loss and desperation. Not really. Not the way he’d meant to. Not the way he should.
He needed to.
“Thank you for coming with me,” he said. That was a stupid start. No, he needed—
“Get dressed,” she told him flatly.
He paused and looked down at his leather armor. “I am dressed.”
“No, you’re not.” She flicked her hand toward the trunk on the ground.
Cyrus stared at it for a moment, then moved to it and opened the latched top to find his armor inside. Not his old armor, but his armor made new.
He pulled the vambraces out in surprise. “When did you do this?”
“The day after you came back from Serra without it.”
His eyes snapped up to her. “The day after?”
She didn’t repeat herself.
He stared back at the impenetrable armor in his hands, armor that would likely keep him alive long enough to reach the Shadow King.
“Essandra, I need to tell you that I’m sorry for—”
“I don’t want to hear it.” She nodded back at the armor. “Put it on. And don’t take it off this time.”
Then she turned and left him to do as she’d said.
Donning his new armor, Cyrus checked the army. They looked good. He was impressed with how far they’d come. From slaves to free men to soldiers, fighting for a cause they believed in—a cause he believed in. Their spirits were high, and so were his.
“Cyrus!” He turned to see Everan and Kord striding toward him.
“Aleon moves to meet us,” Kord said.
“They’re on a path to intercept us, to aid the Shadow King,” Everan added.
Now that was unexpected. The lift he’d felt just a little earlier evaporated. Was Phillip really coming to protect the Shadow King? Maybe Phillip moved his army with the expectation that Gregor was here. Maybe when he saw that Gregor wasn’t, he’d withdraw.
But what if he didn’t?
“Can we reach the Shadow King before Aleon reaches us?” Cyrus asked them.
“You can’t be serious,” Kord said. “Even if we could, once Aleon engages, it will all be over. The combined forces of Aleon and the Shadowlands will completely decimate our army.” He stared at Cyrus, and his face changed.
“You weren’t planning on returning with the army.
” He shook his head. “Were you planning on returning at all?”
Cyrus didn’t answer. He had expected to prevail. But if he didn’t… Well, that would be his fate.
“How far is the Shadow King?” Everan asked him. “Can you see him?”
He shouldn’t be able to yet, but still, Cyrus reached out his mind to the bird he’d sent west. And he stepped back in surprise.
His pulse quickened.
He could see.
He could see the Shadow army.
“I see them,” he said to Everan and Kord, keeping his sight through the bird. His heart raced even faster. “He’s closer than I thought. We can reach him. Today.”
“How big is his army?” Everan asked.
It was hard to tell. “Fifty thousand, maybe.”
Kord swore.
It was a massive army, although Cyrus’s was larger—not significantly, but he had the advantage of numbers. And something more… The Shadow army moved slowly. It made sense: they were just coming off a battle to retake Mercia.
“They look tired,” he told Everan and Kord. “It looks like—”
Cyrus froze.
His chest tightened and his blood ran cold.
“Cyrus?” Everan said.
No, this couldn’t be right.
“Cyrus,” Everan called him again.
He almost couldn’t say the words. “My brother is with them.”
“Adrian? Are you sure?”
He nodded. Adrian wore armor, the color black like the Shadows he rode with, but there was no mistaking his face. He looked exactly as he had in the queen’s memories, only he wasn’t smiling.
Cyrus pulled his mind back. He needed a moment to catch his breath.
“Why is he with them?” he snapped. “Why is he fucking there?” Everan and Kord stayed quiet. It wasn’t a question for them. Cyrus paced a few steps, then turned back. “He should be in Mercia, protecting his queen! Why is he fucking there? ”
Rage coursed through him.
This could ruin everything.
“Why is he there?” he bellowed, and then hurled the helm he held under his arm through the air, sending it far.
He paced another couple of steps, sucking in a deep inhale, and raked a rough hand over his face. He worked his mind for what to do now.
“Cyrus,” Everan said quietly. “It’s all right if you let this opportunity go. You won’t have made a bad decision; you won’t have failed. You’d simply be adjusting after new information—you had no way to know about Aleon, or your brother—and there will be another chance. We’ll help you find it.”
“But the chance is here, now,” he insisted.
“And if you take it, you’ll regret it.”
He wasn’t entirely convinced of that.
“You still mourn the brother you hated,” Everan told him. “Imagine what you’ll feel losing the brother you love.”
Cyrus shook his head. “I don’t love him. I don’t even know him.”
Everan shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. You love the idea of him. You love the idea of family. We all do.”
Cyrus had never thought about the idea of family. It was easier not to, because it hadn’t been an idea that was possible before. But maybe it was possible now…
He threw his mind back out to the bird, finding Adrian again. Everything about him—his hair, his face, the way he sat on top of his horse. Cyrus couldn’t take his sight from him.
“It’s all right to make a change,” Everan said.
Cyrus steeped on that for a moment, trying to think amid the tempest of emotion inside him. He was at a loss for what to do now. But he did know one thing—he couldn’t let harm come to Adrian. He couldn’t march against his brother.
“Prepare the army to return to Japheth,” he told Kord finally, although Cyrus wasn’t looking forward to the next conversation with Gregor.
He turned to a nearby page, who was pretending not to notice the absolute breakdown he’d just had. “Go get that helm,” Cyrus called to him, nodding in the direction he’d thrown it. If he lost it again, Essandra would kill him.