Chapter 36 Would That I Could
WOULD THAT I COULD
SAERIS
“SAERIS! SAERIS! HE’S awake!”
I jolted from sleep, too startled to comprehend where I was or what was going on.
For a foggy moment, I thought I was still in Zilvaren, delirious from trying to sleep through reckoning.
Reality came back piece by piece . . . and then there was Archer standing at the bottom of the bed, peering over the footboard with eyes as big as saucers.
Wait, what?
I sat up too fast, my vision pitching. “Archer! You’re here! You’re awake!”
The fire sprite had no eyebrows, but I could still tell that he was frowning. “Not me, my lady. Your brother. Master Hayden has woken up!”
Next to me, Fisher was sprawled on his front, his inked arms splayed out, both hands tucked beneath the pillow.
When he pushed himself up, propping himself up groggily on his elbows, his hair was sticking up in five different directions.
The second he registered who was hovering at the foot of the bed, he sat up brushing his waves back out of his face.
“Archer. What in all five hells are you doing here?”
The fire sprite stepped back, a small flame kindling on his shoulder. “Me, Master? I, well, I came to let the mistress know that her brother—”
“No, why are you up here, in the house? Why are you working?”
“I—I am sorry, Master. I did try to stop that feeder—”
“It’s okay, Archer. You did more than you should have. I only mean to say that you should be down with the pyre, healing from your injuries.”
“Oh.” The fire sprite relaxed. “That’s all right, Master Fisher.
Fire sprites don’t need recovery time after we’re injured.
We’re either alive or we’re dead.” He let out a squeaky laugh.
“The brimstone my brothers donated to me took all night to cool. Once my wounds were solid again, I woke up right as rain.”
He turned, hands in the air, wiggling his hips side to side in a little dance that seemed far braver than normal. When he had completed his dance, he cleared his throat and said rather seriously, “I am one inch taller than I used to be.”
“Oh. Uh . . . congratulations? Well done,” I told him.
He bowed his head, accepting the compliment. “Your brother is in the sitting room, my lady. He’s quite anxious to see you.”
Hayden.
After everything, he was here, and he was awake.
Inside, I was brimming with excitement, but made myself stay calm as I got up and got ready to go see him.
Long before she died, I’d promised my mother I would watch out for him.
Keep him out of trouble and make sure he didn’t wind up in Madra’s cells.
Honoring that promise had been a full-time job.
I’d bailed him out of countless situations where he’d gambled away water or money he didn’t have.
I’d protected him from Carrion more than once.
The things I had sacrificed, sold, or traded to guarantee my brother didn’t die of dehydration .
. . and I’d brought him here. There was an abundance of water in Yvelia.
Plenty of food, too. But after everything I had done to keep Hayden alive and safe in Zilvaren, would bringing him here be the thing that finally did him in?
With the rot and everything else going on in Yvelia, the truth was that Hayden might have actually been safer staying in the desert.
The irony of that was far too bitter to swallow.
What had I brought him here to face?
What was he going to do?
Fisher had said it himself while we were resting: Humans were difficult to keep alive in a place like this, and there was still so much about Fae and Yvelian politics that I didn’t know.
I had barely scratched the surface of what it meant to be a part of this realm, and now I had brought my brother here.
When I’d arrived, I had been the only human in Yvelia.
Now the mantle of that title fell to Hayden .
. . and I had no idea how he was going to handle it.
I moved slowly, getting dressed, watching Fisher out of the corner of my eye as he did the same. The muscles in his back shifted as he shrugged on a shirt and turned to face me, tattooed fingers deftly fastening the buttons. “I can feel you worrying,” he said quietly.
I ducked my head, pulling on my boots. “There’s no point telling me not to worry,” I replied. “He’s my brother.”
“I wasn’t going to.” Fisher lifted his leathers over his head, settling his chest protector in place.
He had the straps fastened over his ribs in no time.
“There’s every reason to be worried. The future’s very uncertain for your brother.
It’s uncertain for all of us.” The floorboards creaked as he crossed the bedroom and came to stand before me.
“But we’re going to figure it out together, Osha.
We’ll get through all of this and have a far better idea of what the lay of the land looks like in time, too. ”
I smiled up at him sadly. “I actually did want you to tell me not to worry,” I admitted. “Can you rephrase all of that for me, please?”
Kingfisher’s eyes danced with amusement as he bent down to kiss me. “Would that I could, Osha. Would that I could.”
Cahlish was a huge place, full of hidden, secret corners. I’d spent days exploring when Fisher had left me here after I’d been attacked by the feeder in the dining room, but there were still entire wings of the estate I hadn’t investigated. Rooms I hadn’t set foot inside.
This was one such room.
The south drawing room, Archer called it. A bank of tall windows overlooked a rose garden shrouded in white. The buds on the thorny bushes were all open despite the cold, and a sea of velveteen blooms swayed on the other side of the glass, their petals dark as blood and dusted with snow.
A tufted armchair sat before a crackling fire.
Gilt-framed portraits hung on the walls.
A writing desk had been positioned in the window, as if whoever had penned their correspondence there had liked to look out over the garden while they contemplated their words.
That was where Hayden stood, on the other side of the writing desk, looking out the window with his hands in his pockets.
The door creaked as I entered the room, startling him.
He turned, his blond curls just as crazy as ever, his face deeply tanned, lips cracked.
His eyes widened when he saw me. He didn’t speak.
I’d imagined this scene in my head so many times since I’d come to Yvelia, but now that Hayden was here and it was happening, none of the scenarios I had anticipated was coming to fruition.
My brother didn’t look pleased to be here with me. He looked scared.
“It’s true, then. He didn’t kill you—that gigantic asshole with the pointed ears.”
I lowered my head, unsure whether to smile at that or not. “No. He did not.”
“Where is he, then?”
“His name is Kingfisher. And he’s gone to fetch one of our friends. He was supposed to bring him back to Cahlish yesterday, but . . . something came up.”
Archer, in the courtyard, leaping to my defense.
Archer, nearly dying to save me.
I blinked away the memories of his brimstone jetting from his throat.
Hayden huffed. Stepping away from the window, he crossed the room and stood in front of me, looking me up and down. The bridge of his nose was dotted with freckles.
Pacing around me in a slow circle, he performed a full inspection of me; his shoulders tensed when he caught sight of my ears poking through my loose hair, but he made no comment on them. At last, he came to a stop, facing me with his hands still shoved into his pockets.
“You look well,” he said stiffly. “Healthy. Carrion told me you’d changed.” He frowned, his eyes growing distant. “He said you’d become something different. Like him,” he said in a small voice. “I understand now.”
“Do you?”
He nodded. “Madra, she’s been telling everyone that you’re dead. Murdered by Fae rebels. She gave a very convincing speech.”
“I’ll bet she did.”
“She’s painting you as a martyr to her cause. Using your name and your story. Twisting everything, making you sound like some kind of Zilvaren patriot who loved her city. She said you were working for her, a loyal subject, violently killed by strangers wielding outlawed magic.”
“And people are believing her?”
Hayden shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s hard to tell. Madra’s always said strange things about the Fae. Especially around this time of year, with the Evenlight Festival right on top of us.”
“I don’t mean about the Fae, Hayden. I mean about me.
That I was working for her. That I was a loyal Zilvaren subject!
” The very idea of it was preposterous. Madra had told some lies in her time, but this one was the most galling.
My whole life, I’d railed against her rule.
I’d done whatever I could to cause dissent and mayhem for her house without getting myself killed, and now she was spreading rumors that I had been working for her all along?
Working for her meant spying on my neighbors.
It meant whispering secrets in her ear that weren’t meant to be shared.
It meant that I was a traitor and a liar, and I had betrayed my friends.
Hayden wouldn’t meet my eyes. “She gave the whole city extra food rations and a triple water supply to honor you. For your service to the crown.”
“What?”
“The people of the Third wouldn’t accept it. They poured their canteens out in the street. They gave their bread to the crows. They cursed you as they did it.”
That fucking bitch.