29. Chapter 29
Chapter twenty-nine
“Cyrus, you can’t just leave.”
He absolutely could. He tried to drown out Kord’s very persistent argument in his ear all the way from where they left the army, just north of Japheth’s capital, to the port where his ship waited.
Kord insisted Cyrus meet with Gregor before departing to smooth things between them. And his argument was convincing.
Just not convincing enough.
Cyrus couldn’t talk to Gregor. He couldn’t look at him. He knew he’d gloat at his failing, with his spittled smile, as he recounted how he’d told Cyrus not to march against the Shadow King.
He’d be smug. Unbearably smug.
Then Cyrus would have to peel that smug face from his skull and lay it across Gregor’s lap like a dinner linen.
Orion shook his head as he walked beside Kord.
“What?” Cyrus asked him. “You think I should stay too?”
Orion snorted. “To talk to Gregor?” He snorted again. “Fuck that guy.”
Cyrus almost belted a laugh.
“If you leave without speaking to him, he’ll see it as a slight,” Kord said, under the false hope that Cyrus might yet change his mind. “That will make things even worse.”
Cyrus didn’t care how Gregor saw it. In fact, despite Kord’s incessant argument, he wasn’t even thinking about Gregor.
His mind kept wandering back to Adrian.
Why had his brother been with the Shadow King when his queen was in Mercia? It wasn’t uncommon for allies to share the talents of strategic men between them, but Adrian was barely past age twenty. He couldn’t possibly be critical to war efforts.
Perhaps he was on an assignment for the queen. Surely, he held some position at court, being direct blood to the previous two lord justices.
Kord relented in his argument, finally, and split from Cyrus to prepare for departure. Orion followed, leaving only Essandra walking beside him. Everan had gone ahead to prepare the ship. The port was busy and crowded as they made their way through.
Cyrus wondered what kind of position Adrian would have—too young, too inexperienced to be an ambassador. A lower-ranking man of the army, perhaps. No. If that were the case, he wouldn’t have been with the Shadow King without at least a Mercian legion with him.
A woman’s voice rang above the crowd. “Sabine!”
Essandra stopped, and Cyrus stopped too. Not just because she did. He stopped in hearing the name Essandra had left behind so long ago.
“Sabine,” called the woman’s voice again.
Essandra and Cyrus both turned, and a woman in a dark cloak stared at them from only a few paces away. “Sabine Laveau.”
Essandra’s breaths shallowed, but when she answered, her voice was firm and steady. “You have me confused with someone else.”
The woman’s eyes narrowed for a moment, only a moment, then she gave a polite nod. “I apologize. You just look so much like someone I once knew.”
Essandra papered on a smooth smile. “I hope it brings you warm memories. A pleasant day.” She gave the woman a nod and then kept toward the ship. But her pace quickened as she went.
“Who was that?” Cyrus asked.
She didn’t answer.
They reached the ship, and Essandra stopped only to look back over her shoulder before she swept on board. When they made it to the deck, Cyrus caught her by the elbow to pause.
“Who was that?” he asked again.
She pulled away and slipped behind a mast, taking cover in its shadow as she peered back out across the bustling port. Her fingers dug into the wood. “I don’t know.”
“She knows your old name—”
“Thank you for pointing that out,” she snapped. She sidled closer to the mast, veiling herself deeper in its shadow.
He didn’t react to her lashing out. She was afraid.
He moved into the shadow with her, just behind her, and scoured his gaze through the crowds as well. “You’re sure you don’t know her?”
She kept her eyes on the port streets. “I was very important to Soroya’s coven. More people knew me than I knew them.”
“What about people outside the coven? Could someone know you from somewhere else?”
She didn’t answer, and he wasn’t sure whether he was helping. “Don’t let it bother you,” he said. “You’re safe now.”
Her head jerked as she snapped around to face him. “There is nowhere I can go to be safe from Soroya. Nowhere I can hide.” She turned back toward the port. “I’ve gotten too complacent.”
Wait… “What does that mean?”
She moved to slip back toward her cabin, but he caught her.
“Are you thinking about leaving again?” he pressed. “Is that what you mean?”
Still, she didn’t answer.
“Essandra—”
“Can we please just get out of here?” she begged.
He’d never seen her like this, and he didn’t like it. He didn’t like her afraid. He sighed as his shoulders dropped, then he nodded. Cyrus gave one last look toward the port before giving the command to cast off, back to Rael.
If Gregor was slighted by Cyrus leaving Japheth without so much as a goodbye, that seemed to have been forgotten the moment Gregor found something else to panic about, which he had.
Cyrus flipped the folded letter back and forth between his fingers as he sat at the desk in his study. Although it wasn’t news that he was particularly concerned about, it was news he hadn’t expected.
The king of Aleon was marrying the princess of Osan, or maybe he already had—the timing was unclear. Cyrus hadn’t given any thought to Osan since King Tagasi had withdrawn his proposal for an alliance between Osan and Rael. He remembered his words, though:
Your court not only tolerates but elevates those who walk in the shadows—witches whose hands bend the laws of nature and corrupt the balance that holds kingdoms in peace. Osan does not bargain with darkness.
Aleon must not have witches.
Everan and Kord sat quietly as he mulled.
There was no news of whether Osan was joining the collective alliance between Mercia, Aleon, and the Shadowlands. Gregor tended to leave out all the important details when he sent his news, because who needed those? However, it was safe to assume the likelihood.
Cyrus flicked the letter across the desk to Everan, who opened and skimmed it before passing it to Kord. Cyrus should call his council together, but he wanted to organize his thoughts before that.
This news was, perhaps, of no consequence at all to him. If he wasn’t going to fight against Aleon, he wasn’t concerned about their allies, but it could become a problem if Gregor dragged him into a war against the combined kingdoms.
Essandra stepped into the study, and his attention shifted.
He’d wondered if she’d come. She’d been withdrawn since returning from Japheth, and quiet.
It was a different kind of quiet than the silence she gave him when she was upset with him.
Cyrus didn’t like her quiet at all, but he especially didn’t like this kind of quiet.
She’d said she was fine, but she was tense now, always alert. And she’d barely been eating.
Her words on the ship had worried him. She thought it was no longer enough just to hide from Soroya—she felt the increasing pressure to run. He’d asked her again if she was going to leave.
She hadn’t given him an answer.
“How serious do you think it is?” Everan asked about the contents of the letter.
Cyrus didn’t take his eyes from Essandra.
“How serious is what?” she asked. “What’s happened?”
Kord held out the letter for her, and she took it, skimming over its words.
“I’m not overly concerned yet,” Cyrus said, turning his attention back to the matter at hand. “But I need to eliminate the Shadow King before Gregor pulls us into a bigger war.”
He didn’t have long. Cyrus fisted his knuckles against his lips, thinking. “I need to see the queen again. She’ll tell me if they’re planning something.”
Essandra’s gaze snapped to him. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. She’s past her grief now; she’ll see right through you.”
Cyrus leaned back in his chair. He wasn’t so sure. The grief he’d felt from the queen wasn’t something she’d overcome quickly. And she wanted to see him, or, rather, she wanted to see Alexander—to still believe he remained somehow.
Desperately.
“I need to get her another vial,” he said, and he had to do it differently than he had before—following the previous approach would drive him to madness.
He needed to get closer. He rubbed his temples, then straightened as a thought came to him.
“I’ll travel to the stone circle and send a bird from there. ”
“It’s not safe,” she argued.
“Why not? We’ve traveled to the stone circle many times.”
Her eyes bore into him, but she didn’t argue further.
Within the hour, Cyrus stood ready in Essandra’s workroom, a bird tucked in his arm.
Essandra invoked the tether spell, starting with the bird.
This was the first time he’d been physically bonded to an animal to get it through the portal, and to his surprise, it felt like absolutely nothing at all.
He didn’t know what he’d expected—he felt nothing when tethered to Essandra or Kord, or anyone else he’d taken through, but it surprised him nonetheless.
Then Essandra whispered the tether spell between them.
When she gave the nod, they stepped over the line she’d made on the floor.
The cool air hit his face before his foot even touched the grass on the other side.
He breathed it in. He’d come to like traveling to the stone circle.
It was quiet here—peaceful, cool, a relief from Rael.
He wasn’t sure if it was a relief for Essandra, though, with so many memories here.
So many bad memories.
He wasn’t sure why she still insisted on coming. He could portal himself. Well, he was pretty sure he could do it himself.
“You don’t always have to come,” he told her. “If you don’t want to, I mean. If you have better things to do.”
He went to release the bird, but she grabbed him. “Amana fasora,” she whispered, breaking the tether with the animal.
Right—if the bird died while it was bonded to him, he would die too.
She pursed her lips. “This is why I have to come.”
He supposed he deserved that, and he swallowed his pride as he released the bird into the sky.
It wasn’t a long flight. What would have been a couple days’ hard ride took just over an hour. The blood bond was strong without the burden of time for the animal to cross the Aged Sea, and he pushed it hard.
Cyrus wasn’t sure why he’d expected success on the first try, but he had, which made it all the more frustrating when a winterhawk attacked, severing the bond abruptly. He’d been close. Very close—close enough to see the capital isle.
Then a flash of feathers and talons.
Then darkness.
Anger tore through him, and he stormed back through the portal into the workroom. Fucking winterhawks. He should have killed more while he was in Mercia, not that it would have made much of a difference.
“What are you doing?” Essandra asked breathlessly as she followed him.
“Getting another.” He pulled a second bird from the keeping cage and hastily marked it with blood before attaching a prepped vial.
“Maybe you should take more than one this time,” she told him.
“This one will make it.” It had better make it. He didn’t have the time or the patience. If he lost this one, he’d personally ride out and release another from the bank of the channel.
Cyrus tore through the portal again, back to the stone circle, just as Essandra yelled his name. On the other side, he paused, turning back to her.
“What?” he asked when she came through.
Her eyes were wide as she gaped at the bird and his arm.
“What?” he asked again.
“T-the bird,” she stammered. “I didn’t tether it to you.”
He looked down at the animal, which struggled against the tightness of his hold but otherwise appeared to be all right.
“It’s fine,” he said.
She shook her head, her eyes still wide. “No, that’s not possible.”
He waved the perfectly fine bird in front of her, and she glared back at him. “It’s fine,” he said again.
Still not believing him, she reached out and touched it—testing, poking, prodding.
A thought came to him. “Maybe I never needed the tether.”
“No, you definitely needed it. Remember how the Aether burned your men when you tried to take too many through and overwhelmed the bond?”
Yes, that had happened.
“Is it because it’s small, then, or because it’s an animal?”
She shook her head again. “I think your will alone brought it through.”
“What does that mean?”
“I-I don’t know. I think it means you’re getting stronger. Your power is growing.”
He couldn’t read the expression on her face.
Not fear… Worry, maybe. But he wasn’t sure what would worry her about that.
He still wasn’t exactly sure what his power even was, let alone how it was getting stronger, but he’d think about that later.
He turned his attention back to the bird and the task at hand.
The second try proved successful. The bird dropped its vial onto the Mercian queen’s terrace, and Cyrus let it go.
Now he would wait.
The moment they crossed back into Essandra’s workroom, she went straight to her wall of books. He paused as she pulled a large leather-bound book from the shelf and quickly flipped through the pages. Something was bothering her…
“What’s wrong?” he asked. “Is this about my power growing?”
She ignored him and tossed the book aside as she quickly grabbed another.
“I don’t know why that would be a bad thing,” he added.
She tossed the second book and pulled another.
“Power doesn’t grow. When you come into your power, you come into all of it, all at once.
That’s why it’s so dangerous to those who are young—those who don’t know how to control it.
But if your power is growing, it means you’re different. Something about you is different.”
He shrugged. “All right…” He still didn’t see why this was a problem.
She snapped the book closed. “I need to know what I’m working with, or when I use our combined power, I could accidentally kill us both.” Her voice was sharp and cold.
“Are you angry at me?” he asked.
Her icy gaze piecing him softened ever so slightly. She sighed. “No,” she said. “No, I’m just—”
Her words dropped as her eyes caught on a small purple sachet on her center worktable.
“Where did that come from?” he asked.
“I don’t know.” She stepped closer and picked it up, opening it.
Then she froze as the color drained from her face.
Her breaths came short and clipped as she dropped its contents into her palm.
Cyrus moved nearer and saw it was a necklace with a round pendant. He leaned forward to make out its engraving: a complicated layering of triangles and circles.
“What is that?” he asked her.
Her breath shook as she raised her eyes to his. “It’s a vinculum pendant—it bonds the wearer’s power against their will.”
His brow grew heavy. “Why would you put it on, then?”
“It’s my pendant from when I belonged to Soroya’s coven. She’s found me. And she means for me to wear it again.”