34. Chapter 34
Chapter thirty-four
Cyrus lay on his back on the ground with his arm resting over his face.
It was easier to focus his sight through the birds this way.
He could do it while standing, but melding his mind with the birds’ often threatened his balance.
He also found that this helped with the pulsing pressure in his head.
“Is the queen traveling with a maid at all?” Orion asked him.
Cyrus’s stomach grew heavy. “No,” he said. “No maid.”
For two days he watched as the Shadow King and Norah made their way north. They traveled with a smaller legion of soldiers—a few thousand. And the Shadow commander. That man was probably going to be a problem. Cyrus would have to figure out what to do about him.
“So, what’s your plan?” Orion asked on the third day, as Cyrus again lay watching.
Cyrus ignored him. He ignored the cold seeping through his layers from the hard earth underneath him; he ignored the wind. He pushed everything out—the crackling campfire, the animal chitter in the distance, the sound of Orion whittling a sharpened tip on a broken tree branch that he’d found.
Cyrus focused.
The Shadowmen traveled openly—an interesting choice. Their alliance with Aleon must’ve made them feel safe.
Good.
Feeling safe made one careless, although the king was still traveling with a legion, so he wasn’t as careless as Cyrus would have liked.
“You do have a plan, right?” Orion asked.
Cyrus gave up the birds for a while and pushed himself up. He cut Orion a sharp eye but still didn’t answer. He’d have a plan when it came to him.
Orion nodded with a frown. “Right.” He cut another sliver from the tip of the branch he held.
“You planning on using that on the job?” Cyrus ribbed him.
Orion gave a slight smirk. “Feels like it fits the theme—two reluctant partners with no plan, care to the wind, against the famed Shadow King, the Destroyer, and a group of the most skilled warriors in the world.” He butted his lopsided spear on the ground. “’Tis my valiant weapon.”
Cyrus couldn’t help a small chuckle at that. He liked this man. He was a lot like Kord—unafraid to speak the truth, brave, and skilled, with a good heart. He looked at Orion, growing more serious. “I would have called us friends, but I think the rest of it sounds about right.”
Orion’s smirk turned into a smile. A small one, but genuine nonetheless. The assassin nodded to himself, turning his gaze to his makeshift spear. “Can I ask you a personal question?” he said.
Cyrus gave a short nod.
“I get why you want to kill the Shadow King, but I’ve always wondered—what made you hate your own brother so much? Why did you want to kill him?”
Cyrus had never thought about it as a secret, but he’d only shared it with those closest to him. Maybe because it hurt. And that hurt carried shame. But he didn’t mind telling Orion.
“He abandoned me,” he said finally. “He was my brother, the one person I trusted most, and he left me.” He paused as the familiar hurt returned. “Then he lived… a beautiful life, like I never even existed. Like I never even mattered.”
His chest tightened. He hated that the memory could still feel so raw after so long. Alexander was dead, and it still hurt. He was gone, and Cyrus still couldn’t get out from underneath it. And it was crushing…
“But look at all the people that you matter to now,” Orion said.
Cyrus’s eyes locked back on Orion, and the pain in his chest stalled.
The assassin gave another wayward look at his stick. “They’re all waiting for you to come back, so it’s probably best I use something better than this spear, yeah?”
And Cyrus couldn’t help a smile.
The nearer he got to Mercia, the more Cyrus felt his chances slipping away, yet there was nothing he could do. The army kept their king well surrounded, well protected. Cyrus could only follow. And wait.
Until they reached the Free Cities.
The cities stretched along the southeastern border of Mercia, each blending into the next, so it was difficult to tell where one ended and another began.
However, they were very different from one another, with their own unique primary trade.
Farther north, Hanset held the world’s largest fur trade outside of Tarsus; to the east, Borden dealt in rare gems. Cyrus had never been to any of these places, but these were known facts.
It was here that Jaem met them. He wouldn’t be joining the attempt against the Shadow King, but Cyrus intended to return to Rael with him. Cyrus smiled when he saw his friend, and they locked arms with an embrace when they reached each other.
“Cyrus,” Jaem greeted him with a grin.
“It’s good to see you,” Cyrus told him. Then he nodded to Orion. “You remember Orion.”
Jaem gave him a friendly nod and extended his hand.
Orion took it. “Hey, um, I’m glad I can tell you this in person—I just wanted to thank you for what you did. Trying to find Vitalia.”
“Of course,” Jaem said. “And if there’s anything else I can help with, let me know.”
Orion gripped his hand in appreciation.
Cyrus’s chest tightened. “All right, let’s get moving.”
The city of Redding sprawled as far as the eye could see. Cyrus’s younger self would have loved to explore, to have taken in everything the diverse spread had to offer, but he was no longer his younger self, and that boyish curiosity had long died.
Now he was focused on one thing.
He hadn’t expected the Shadow army to stop in the Free Cities or even pass directly through.
Populous areas carried risks of ill-intentioned company—company like Cyrus.
So when the Shadowmen paused on the south end, and the king broke away and entered the city with a small group of men, Cyrus sprang into action.
A city never felt so big until one was trying to quickly make their way through it.
Throngs of people knit tightly in between brightly colored market stalls slowed his pace.
Orion slipped from shadow to shadow, as smooth as silk, while Jaem stealthily blended in with the masses.
Cyrus gave up trying to copy them and resorted to simply pushing his way through.
Merchants yelled words he didn’t understand, likely telling him to slow down or be careful. He did neither of those things.
Finally, they made it to a narrow, hilled pocket street that had a broad view of the mainway. Cyrus sidled against the shadowed stone wall as he watched. And waited.
He didn’t have to wait long, and he froze when he saw him.
The Shadow King.
Cyrus had been inside his mind, he’d seen him in visions and in the minds of others, but this was his first time actually seeing him in person. He was tall and broad-shouldered, a beast of a man. He stood like a wraith, like the toxic darkness he spread.
The promise of violence flooded Cyrus’s veins.
The king looked like his ruthless father.
He was guilty like his father.
He’d die like his father.
But one thing stood between him and Cyrus: Norah.
She meandered freely through the streets, hidden in plain sight in the mix of travelers and merchants. Her hair hung loose around her. She made no effort to cover it. No one knew her here. Or she didn’t think anyone knew her.
He hated that she was here. He hated that she’d see another person she loved die, even if it was the Shadow King.
But, most of all, he hated that she’d find out about Cyrus this way.
He slipped out from the alley and wove a path along the side of the mainway, careful to keep hidden behind the sellers and their wares.
He waved Jaem to stay back, but Orion followed.
From merchant to merchant, they moved. Closer, and closer still.
“I count eleven with him,” Orion said quietly. “Including the Destroyer.”
Yes, Cyrus had seen the commander.
“They’re too close,” Orion added.
Norah paused at a stall where a portly man grilled meat over a pit fire. After a short exchange, she pointed to a plate of sausages, then dropped a coin in his hand before spearing one with her knife and taking it.
Closer still, he moved.
She turned back to the Shadow King. When she offered him part of the sausage, he bit the whole piece. That earned him an affectionate berating, at which the king chuckled.
Cyrus stiffened. Rage surged through him—this man could laugh, he could be happy. It was the cruelest injustice of the gods.
Promising her another sausage, the king lumbered back toward the meat market stall. Norah stayed where she was, watching him with a smile that he didn’t deserve. Cyrus was only a few paces from her now.
Slowly, he pulled his sword from the scabbard. When the king returned to her…
“Not yet,” Orion said in his ear.
This was the closest he’d ever come to being able to kill the Shadow King. The closest he might ever be. He could end it all.
Here.
Now.
Cyrus’s body tightened—every fiber of his being coiling for launch. He focused like he focused in the bloodsport arena, and his body surged with fight. The air heated around him, and the cobblestone under his feet softened to sand. The blood-laden smell of the sport flooded his nose.
Time slowed.
The Shadow King wouldn’t know what hit him. It would be over in moments.
“Not yet,” Orion said again, firmer this time. “The Destroyer is still too close. You won’t get out.”
Cyrus glanced at the commander. He was a monster of a man, and he was close, but was he fast? Cyrus was pretty sure he was faster. “I can do it,” he said.
“Are you really willing to take that gamble? You have your woman tethered to you.”
“You don’t think I know that?” he hissed. He looked back at the king. He could make it.
“If they’re comfortable enough to stop and get sausages, they’ll be lax the rest of the way through the cities,” Orion told him. “They might even stay overnight in one. Another opportunity will come.”
Cyrus shook his head. “You don’t know that.”
“I know you won’t make this.”
Cyrus clenched his jaw. He could. He was confident he could.
But was he confident enough to bet Essandra’s life on it?
No.