45. Chapter 45
Chapter forty-five
Cyrus waited, his breaths shallow, his heart racing. He watched through the birds as Norah and Adrian made the journey to the valley.
They came alone, which meant they came in secret.
Cyrus was alone as well, with the exception of the dogs. Kord, Everan, and Jaem had helped him make camp, and Essandra had warmed the tent. They’d waited with him, but as Adrian drew closer, Cyrus wanted to wait alone.
He wore no armor. He hadn’t even taken his sword, only a dagger at his waist. He waited in the tent, but he didn’t want to be inside when they arrived, so he stepped outside.
Except it was fucking cold outside.
He stepped back in.
His palms were sweaty, his mouth dry. He wondered what Adrian would think of him. By now, Norah would have told him everything.
Would she have told him everything?
They were here.
His pulse beat heavily in his ears.
He ducked outside to meet them.
Adrian wasn’t wearing armor either. Cyrus had seen it before in Norah’s mind. It wasn’t the silver armor with the bear-head pauldron of their father—the armor that Alexander had worn. Adrian’s armor was black with a winterhawk on the breastplate, and he’d left it behind.
Adrian slid down from his horse, and Norah followed.
Cyrus couldn’t help a smile.
Adrian was taller than he’d expected. Taller than he was. And larger. But his face…
Slowly, Cyrus stepped in front of his brother, whose stare was locked on him in return. Cyrus recognized so many of his own features: the blue eyes, the line of his jaw, the shape of his nose. All like Cyrus’s. There was no doubt in his mind they were blood.
Adrian stared back at him. His eyes traveled over his face and down his body, and back up again. Then they welled. Slowly, Adrian lifted a trembling hand and touched Cyrus’s cheek as a tear trailed down his own.
Cyrus couldn’t move. He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t breathe.
Adrian drew his hand down and gripped Cyrus’s shoulder. He was probably thinking the same thing Cyrus was—was this a dream?
If it was, Cyrus didn’t want to know.
He didn’t want to wake.
He didn’t want to ruin it, like he ruined everything.
Suddenly, Adrian pulled him into an embrace.
This embrace wasn’t meant for Cyrus. He knew. It was for Alexander, but he still gave himself to it. And he needed it too. This was the only blood family he had in this world.
When Adrian pulled back, his blue eyes were rimmed red.
Cyrus clasped him on the shoulder. “Come inside,” he said, although his voice didn’t sound like his own. He led them to the tent.
As they entered, Adrian was the first to speak. “Mother told me you had died.”
Mother. A name he spoke only in his nightmares. He glanced at Norah.
She swallowed and wrung her hands tightly as her eyes bore into him, silently begging him to keep quiet. Adrian had loved their mother.
Cyrus would let him keep that. He said simply, “She thought I did. I was taken away.”
The faintest breath of relief passed her lips.
“Norah told me,” Adrian said.
Cyrus glanced at her again, then shifted back to Adrian. “Then you know my story.”
Adrian nodded. “You were taken as a slave, led a rebellion. And now you’re a king.”
“And now I’m a king,” he echoed, more to himself. The concept didn’t seem so strange to him anymore, and he wondered when that had changed.
His brother still stared at him, wide-eyed in disbelief.
Cyrus couldn’t help a small smile. “Do you want to see?” he asked. “I can show you.”
Adrian leaned back slightly on his heel, not immediately warm to the idea.
Cyrus wondered if he’d ever known a seer.
Norah had told him that Alexander hadn’t exhibited any indication of power; they hadn’t even known he’d had it until just before his death.
Regardless, Adrian would have never experienced a seer like Cyrus.
Despite his initial hesitation, Adrian nodded.
Cyrus pulled his dagger, running his thumb down the edge, and blood beaded along the cut. “Close your eyes,” he told him.
Adrian glanced at Norah, and she gave him a nod of reassurance. He closed his eyes. Cyrus took Adrian’s hand and pressed his blood to his skin. Then he closed his own eyes.
His brother’s mind was not like his own. There was no torment; there were no terrors, no sharp memories signifying that they haunted him. There were, however, memories frayed around the edges.
Memories filled with grief.
Memories of Alexander.
Cyrus couldn’t idle long; Adrian was waiting and unaware of his prying. He pushed himself on. He pulled forward images of Rael: the capital around the palace, from his favorite viewpoint—overhead, in the air.
“ Where is this? ” Adrian asked, as he and Cyrus looked down on the golden city.
“ Rael. ” Most of the capital had been rebuilt, and Cyrus took a moment just to appreciate how far they’d come. Progress always seemed so slow in the moment, but looking at the city now, glowing in the rays of the sun—it really was beautiful.
He let Adrian continue to be riveted by the sight as he broke away for a moment to offer his hand to Norah to share the image with her as well.
She took it, letting him touch his blood to her skin, and closed her eyes. He let his own eyes close again and fell back into the vision.
Adrian still looked on, enthralled. “ You can fly? ” he asked.
Cyrus chuckled. “ No. Now that would be power. ” He pulled them down to the cobblestone street and shifted the vision to show a flock of birds overhead. “ I see it through them ,” he said.
“ You control them? ” Adrian asked.
“ I can .”
“ Can you control all animals? ”
“ Most, I can. With blood. ”
Adrian quieted for a moment, then asked, “ Did Alexander have power? ”
Cyrus dropped the vision and brought them all back to the tent. As they opened their eyes, his gaze bore into Norah. She hadn’t told him everything.
“He had power, yes,” Cyrus said, “but it was different. What it was—I don’t know.”
Adrian’s eyes were still on him. “You—” His voice hitched, and he swallowed. “You look just like him.” His breaths came short and shallow. “Just like him.”
Cyrus could feel Adrian’s loss, the grief he still held. “Norah said you two were close.”
Adrian nodded, and his eyes filled with emotion again.
“I like to think we would have been close.” Cyrus had many brothers—all brothers the arena had given him—brothers he would die for, and who would die for him. But to have a brother like Adrian… They would have been inseparable.
“We could be,” Adrian said.
But they couldn’t. His brother was so naive to this world. Perhaps Cyrus should be happy about that. “If I had known… about you… things might have been very different. I’m sorry, Adrian.” He wasn’t sure how they would’ve been different, but they would have been.
“Things don’t have to be this way,” Norah said, finally speaking. “Mercia’s not your enemy.”
“I don’t see Mercia as an enemy.”
“And Kharav isn’t the same kingdom as it was,” she added.
He took a step back. How could she say that? It was exactly the same kingdom it had always been.
“The king you knew is dead,” she said. “Everything has changed.”
“Does the Shadowlands still force people into slavery?” he cut back. “Still buy them? Still sell them?”
She didn’t have a reply to that. Of course. She couldn’t deny the truth.
“Then nothing has changed,” he said. The fact that she was even trying to convince him things were different was insulting.
“Lucien.” She stepped closer. “Change takes time. Mikael is a good king.”
“A good king?” he snarled as his anger flared. “I’ve been in his mind, seen his memories. You think he’s innocent?” She had no idea the monster she’d married.
She stilled as her eyes widened. “He said you didn’t come.” She knew the Shadow King had called him with the blood.
“I didn’t show myself to him. That doesn’t mean I didn’t see.”
“Then you would have seen the good as well,” Adrian said, stepping forward, “unless you chose not to.”
His brother’s position surprised him. Cyrus shook his head, confusion flooding him. “You defend the Shadow King?”
Pain flickered in his brother’s eyes—the pain of betrayal. Did Adrian really think the betrayal was Cyrus’s?
The youth fell from Adrian’s face. He squared his shoulders. “I defend my king.” His voice had a sharpness to it.
Cyrus took another step back. For Adrian to not only defend the Shadow King but anger over his honor, champion him…
Adrian extended his hand. “Brother, things aren’t as they were, and they can be different still.”
Why did they keep saying that when nothing had changed? Cyrus’s eyes shifted to his brother’s outstretched hand, and to the black marking that extended out from under the cuff of his sleeve.
Cyrus’s chest tightened.
A mark of the Shadows.
It was arms that bore these same marks that had taken him so long ago. While over twenty years had passed, he hadn’t forgotten. He would never forget.
A fire lit over his skin. “You’re one of them?” he breathed.
Norah stepped closer to him. “Mercia and Kharav are united,” she said.
His gaze jerked to her. If this was her decision… “Then Mercia will share the same fate.”
“Lucien,” she pleaded. “Change doesn’t always require war. Mikael works for things to be different; he just needs time. Even as king, he has people that he’s accountable to.”
“I do too!” He had people he’d promised, people who’d sacrificed. People who’d died.
She trembled slightly, and he forced himself calm.
“Even if I didn’t want to take the Shadowlands, I have no choice,” he told her.
She shook her head. “There is always a choice.”
He was done arguing this. “Then you’ll just have to accept the fact that I want to.”
Norah reached out and clasped his arm. “Lucien, please. I beg you. Help me change fate. I can’t lose him. I can’t.”
Her words made him still.
Lose him.
Fate.
Did she know something? The realization came to him—she’d seen something…
“The Shadow King falls?” he asked.
“By your hand,” Adrian said.
Cyrus jerked his head toward him. “What?”