35. Chapter 35
Chapter thirty-five
He’d lost his chance at the Shadow King. And for what? Anger pulsed through him, and Cyrus gritted his teeth so hard his jaw ached.
“Are you going to tell us what happened?” Orion asked him as they rested their mounts along a stream. Jaem had met them on the ridge with three stolen horses, and they’d pushed hard through the night until they were a safe distance from Hanset and the Shadow army.
Cyrus checked the leather saddlebags to see if they had anything helpful in them. They didn’t. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he said.
Orion scoffed and threw his arms in the air. “What the fuck, Cyrus? I get you’re upset about it, but you have to tell us what happened.”
“I said I don’t want to talk about it,” he snapped. He couldn’t talk about it. He’d lost his chance, and possibly worse—he’d kissed Norah. More than kissed her. He’d let himself get caught in a wave of… He didn’t know what it was.
Infatuation? No.
Desire? No.
He craved a closeness—a closeness he’d been denied. No, not denied. It was a closeness he hadn’t even been bold enough to ask for. Not from the person he truly wanted it from. But Norah’s touch had given that closeness. It had felt good in all the ways touch felt.
Although it hadn’t felt right .
Still, he’d let himself get caught in it, and now the shame ate at him. Salt in the festering wound of failure.
“Are you still going to grant me leave to go to Mercia?” Orion asked.
Cyrus pushed out a long exhale. This was neither the time nor the place. “I can’t have this conversation right now.” He stepped back around his horse to remount.
Orion blocked him. “If not now, then when?”
Cyrus paused but shook his head. “We’ll go back to Rael, then we’ll talk about Mercia.”
“I’m already here!” He pointed north. “I’m only days away. I’m going now.”
“No, you’re not.”
Jaem watched them silently.
“You can’t just keep dismissing me,” Orion pressed.
“Don’t,” Cyrus warned.
But Orion wouldn’t relent. “Don’t what? Don’t ask for what you promised me?”
He couldn’t let him go to Mercia. Vitalia wasn’t there. “Orion—”
“Is it because we weren’t successful? Are you punishing me?”
Cyrus shook his head again. “Of course not.”
“Then I’m going.”
“You’re not going,” Cyrus snapped, his patience gone. “That’s final. Get on your horse.” He turned to his own mount.
“All you think about is yourself,” Orion told him, “and what you want. And you don’t care if it fucks over all the people that support you.”
Cyrus spun back to him. “That’s not true.”
“Is it not? You, with your empty promises.”
They weren’t empty. “I’ve never made a promise I didn’t intend to keep.”
“The fuck you haven’t!” Orion spat. “You promised to help me! You promised to help me find Vitalia!”
“Vitalia’s dead!” Cyrus thundered. He regretted the words the instant they left his lips.
Orion’s eyes of steel stared back at him, and his face paled. “You lie,” he breathed.
He couldn’t take it back now. Cyrus shook his head.
Orion burst forward and shoved him. “You lie!” he raged. “You’re angry at your own failure.”
Jaem moved to defend him, but Cyrus held up his hand.
“You lie,” Orion seethed.
“No,” Cyrus told him.
Orion shoved him again. “You lie!” His voice broke, and now it sounded more like a plea than an accusation. He shoved Cyrus yet again, this time pulling a knife.
Jaem stepped forward, but still, Cyrus motioned for him to hold.
Orion pressed the tip of the blade against Cyrus’s neck. Cyrus made no move to stop him, no move to defend himself.
“Tell me that you’re lying,” Orion begged.
“I wish I could,” Cyrus said softly.
Orion sucked in a weeping breath, and his hand trembled as he pressed the blade harder against Cyrus’s throat. “Please,” he begged again.
Still, Cyrus could give him nothing.
He bared his teeth and shoved Cyrus away from him. His chest heaved as he sucked in a silent sob.
Cyrus waited for his wrath. The only sound around them was the sound of the stream.
“How long have you known?” Orion asked finally, his voice hoarse.
“I saw it when I looked in Norah’s mind.”
Orion wiped his face and nodded, but he didn’t sheath his knife.
Cyrus stepped toward him. “I wanted to tell you, but—”
Orion whipped his arm up with his knife pointed back at Cyrus. “Stay the fuck away from me.”
He paused.
Orion had stopped shaking. He stood as still as stone. Calm. Cyrus knew that calm. The calm of hatred. The calm of contemplating violence. Orion tilted the blade ever so slightly. “When I get back to Rael, I’m going to collect my men, and we’re leaving.”
Cyrus nodded somberly. “Take whatever you need with you.”
“I don’t want anything else from you,” he hissed.
And Cyrus understood.
This was how one lost a friend.
The two days it took to get back to the stone circle felt like two weeks. Orion rode ahead, not speaking. Jaem rode beside him, also quiet. When they reached the stones, Cyrus tethered them all. Orion couldn’t even look at him as Cyrus took his blood.
And they stepped through the portal to Rael.
He’d let Essandra know they were coming, but she still startled as they stepped into her workroom, spinning around from where she’d been standing at the center table. Kord and Everan rose from where they’d been sitting near the window.
Essandra started. “What—”
But Orion grabbed Cyrus before he could even focus on them. “Break it,” he seethed between his teeth.
The tether. Cyrus severed both bonds, and Orion leveled his cold eyes squarely at Cyrus.
“I’m bound to you no more,” he said, then he strode from the room.
Jaem remained silent.
Essandra, Everan, and Kord all stared at Cyrus with their eyes wide and mouths open.
“What’s going on?” Essandra asked.
“Did you kill him?” Kord asked. “The Shadow King?”
Cyrus shook his head. He sank into a corner chair and put his head in his hands. “I failed” was all he could say.
“What happened?” Everan asked.
He still couldn’t say it. “I ruined it,” he said finally. “I ruined my chance. I ruined everything.”
“You’ll get another one,” Everan assured him.
“Stop saying that!” Cyrus snapped. “You don’t know that! No one knows that!”
Everan didn’t react to his burst of anger.
Cyrus pushed out a breath. Guilt gnawed at his chest, gnashing down into his stomach. There was no one to blame but himself. No one to be angry with but himself.
And it wasn’t even the Shadow King he was angry about.
“Please,” Cyrus said, calmer now. “I can’t do this right now.”
“Get some rest,” Everan told him. “We’ll figure everything out in the morning.” He stepped from the room, and Kord and Jaem followed him out.
Silence hung heavy in the air. Essandra didn’t ask him what happened again, she only stood by the table, watching him.
“Are you hungry?” she asked finally.
He shook his head.
“Okay, well…” She looked around the room, then cast her gaze down. “I guess tomorrow we can—”
“We followed the Shadow King to an inn in Hanset.”
She grew quiet again.
“The opportunity was perfect. He’d split from his army. It was only him and the queen and a few of his men.”
Cyrus stood. He walked to a pitcher of water that sat on the side table and poured a chalice full, but he didn’t drink it. “I thought the king would be in his room, and I snuck in through a window. But only Norah was there.”
She was quiet for a moment, then she asked, “What did you do?”
He set the chalice down and stared at it as the water settled—until it was as still as he was.
“I kissed her.”
If the quiet could grow quieter…
He finally lifted his eyes to look at her.
She stood in deathly stillness.
“She thought I was him—Alexander,” he continued. “She wanted to believe it so badly. And I let her.”
Essandra showed nothing. Said nothing.
“She looks at me like I’m hers, she touches me like I’m hers, and I… I want that. Except—”
“Why are you telling me this?” she hissed bitterly. Her eyes were darker now, and the lines of her face sharper.
“Because it’s not her touch I want, it’s yours. I need that—with you. And I know that’s not what you want, but—”
“Why do you say that?”
His words left him. “I thought…” He shook his head. “I thought…” He stared back at her.
“Cyrus, I love you.”
The world stilled around him. He couldn’t have heard her right. “You do?”
She gaped at him. “How can you be one of the most powerful seers in the world yet still be so incredibly blind?”
He couldn’t answer. He couldn’t speak.
“Of course I’m in love with you, you fool.”
That couldn’t be true. Slowly, he closed the gap between them. “That can’t be true,” he whispered.
“You’re an idiot,” she whispered back.
He drew closer, until they stood only a breath apart, and he dropped his head to hers.
“I’ve wanted to kiss you for so long,” he told her.
“I’ve been waiting for you to.” Her face tilted upward.
More than anything, he wanted to. He could almost feel her lips on his. But he didn’t want to touch her when he was like this. Unclean. He didn’t want to kiss her like this.
“I can’t,” he said.
Her face fell. “Oh,” she breathed. Her lips closed, and she swallowed.
“I want to,” he said. “But not when I’m like this.”
“You’ve touched me before as a wild mess of a man.”
Yes, he had, but… “That was different then.”
Her eyes moved back and forth between his. “What’s changed?”
“Everything.” He glanced at the door, then back to her. “Will you come with me?”
Slowly, she nodded.
They walked side by side down the hall. He wanted to take her by the hand, lead her, but he didn’t. He was careful not to touch her. Not yet.
It was dark inside his chamber. Essandra lit candles and, in the adjoining washroom, filled the tub with the connected pump as he pulled off his leathers and soiled clothing.
Naked, he stepped to the tub.
She leaned down and touched the water. It steamed.
A corner of his mouth turned upward. “You’ve found another fire witch, I see.” He stepped into the tub and sank down into the water. The warmth lapped his sides. “Make it hotter.”
She did.