29. Emmerick
Chapter 29
Emmerick
I t was late. I couldn’t sleep, so my hands busied themselves, polishing Sybilla’s blade as my mind wandered.
I needed to rename this fucking sword. It seemed awkward to own a weapon named after a former lover while my mind thought so frequently of someone else.
A crown that I didn’t want lay on a velvet cloth on the desk before me. Of course, it shined gold and was lined with gaudy black gemstones—the most hideous thing I’d ever seen. It mirrored the one that the late Mattock’s ashes were entombed with.
A knock came at the door.
“Come in,” I said as I palmed the hilt of my soon-to-be-renamed sword. Maybe I would name it Bryanna, or Chrysteen, or Thorne, or...
“Elsedora?”
“Shoo!” Fenris’ sister swatted away a sniffing Lynx as though it were merely a house cat. She swaggered into the room and touched countless priceless things as she entered. I swore she might have pocketed something.
“Hello, puppy.”
“Would you stop calling me that?” I ground out.
She smirked. “Sorry— Your Majesty .”
I ran a hand down my face. Fenris’ sister was bold and too much like him. She lacked a certain subtlety that I liked in a woman; today, her leather corset was laced in the front with nothing beneath it, exposing her down to her navel. I tried not to let my eyes wander.
“Fine. Call me whatever suits you.”
Wondering why she was here, I nodded to the chair across the desk from me. Her visits were becoming worrisome.
Whatever she’d come for today couldn’t be good news. I’d angered Sybilla at the last council meeting. It had been as though the words were both mine and not, and I was falling into alliances I’d never expected or wanted . Yet I couldn’t retake the reins.
I waited for Elsedora to tell me that the Sahlms would wage war on the North, but she didn’t say anything. Instead, she kept looking around and running her hands over things as though searching for something.
“Who let you in this time? I assume you used the Egress.”
Instead of sitting in the chair, she rounded my desk and sat on it, right in front of me. “Your Egress guards are easy to distract. And incredibly horny. You should let them out more. Panting dogs—the lot of them.”
I snorted and pushed my chair back to put distance between our thighs. “Who do I owe thanks to for this visit?”
“King Darvanda.”
My jaw tightened. “Sounds like a lie.”
“Only in part. Queen Sybilla sent me, too. She is worried about you after that... display at the council meeting and your decision to position troops at other Corridors’ borders.” She reached out to touch the tip of the blade I’d retired from polishing and had set on the desk.
“That’s also a lie—she’s pissed, and she sent you to scold me.”
She smirked again; her eyes shined with mischief. “No scolding. Unless you’d like that. But you may want to remain seated for this next part.”
I sighed. “Try me.”
Elsedora picked up my sword and spun the hilt in her hand, assessing the weapon with eagle-like intensity.
“Queen Sybilla is betrothed.”
I swallowed hard, wishing I’d misheard her. It wouldn’t be the first time I’d heard similar news. Sybilla had almost married three times. She had a reputation for never making it down the aisle.
I shrugged. “Who agreed to that ?”
Elsedora continued to stare at the blade in her hand.
Maybe letting her remain armed was unwise, but a self-destructive instinct had taken over me. It might be for the best if she ran me through the heart now, before whatever evil there grew.
“My King,” she answered.
“Quit joking,” I scoffed.
“I’m not. It’s a wise alliance, and they know it. None of the other royals will side with you if the Heir of Shadows could come knocking on their door.”
I shot up from my chair and began to pace. “She wouldn’t.”
“She would. She is,” Elsedora said gently.
My breath heaved out of me, hands shaking.
I’d pushed Sybilla too far.
“She could not love me one moment and marry him the next.”
“So you think it was love.” Her eyes narrowed on the hilt of my sword, at the pommel, before she added, “Love is a sacrifice of freedom, one you are happy to make. Do you feel like you both thought each other worthy of such a sacrifice?”
“That’s an awful way to view love,” I answered.
“Is it?” She offered me a pitying smile. “What are you willing to sacrifice for your Queen?”
“She isn’t mine,” I ground out.
“And whose fault is that?”
I glared at her. “That’s complicated.”
She took my sword by its blade and handed me the hilt.
“It isn’t really,” she said. “Love doesn’t come with the freedom to choose when it is convenient. Love defies logic and complexity. There isn’t anything you could do to stop it or dull it or walk away from it.”
“Leave my castle,” I growled. Elsedora stilled, her palms planted on the desk.
“Have I hit a nerve, puppy?” she asked.
I was seething—not at her, but at the underlying cut of her words. Sybilla had always kept me at arm’s length when it had suited her and close when she’d needed me most...Was love a series of convenient distractions alone in the dark where no one else could see us? I’d wanted more than that.
“What makes you an authority on love?”
She smiled weakly. “My parents had that kind of unconditional love. You only dislike what I’m saying because there is some truth in it. It’s okay to dislike me for that. Eventually, you’ll find someone that turns your world upside down. Someone who you would walk through fire to stand beside, no matter the circumstance.”
“You don’t know me at all.”
She tilted her head, assessing me. “No. But I know me, and you don’t seem so different. Fenris has told me your parents—the ones who raised you—are very much in love.”
A chill crept over me. Admitting that I didn’t love Sybilla felt like a betrayal. But to whom?
Elsedora jumped down from my desk.
“What’s in it for him? Why does he want to marry her?” I asked—not knowing whether I could handle the answer.
Elsedora shook her head. “My King rarely reveals his motives. He isn’t going to hurt her, though—that much, I assure you. He isn’t the monster this realm makes him out to be.”
I hated the parts of me that wished he would hurt her. Anger had been boiling inside of me ever since I’d taken the northern crown. What kind of person wished harm on their best friend? Threatened to take their crown by force?
I stood and stepped beside Elsedora, sheathing the sword at my hip.
“Your eyes...” Elsedora noted, watching my face too closely. “They were a very pretty shade of gold when I arrived, but they are a dark green now.”
That cool, dark feeling began to envelop me. “It’s time for you to leave.”
“But—” she tried.
“Go!” I shouted, and Elsedora flinched—seeming startled for the first time. Her nonchalant mask cracked as my face curled into a scowl.
“Very well,” she said, before pulling an expensive-looking golden egg that had been on my shelf from her pocket and dropping it on my desk. She quickly left the room.
I kneeled on the floor and closed my eyes. Then, the darkness descended and whisked me away.
Visions visited me. Memories.
But they were not mine. I saw through someone else’s eyes.
We were in the gilded Helos throne room again. Amara was before me, her stomach round and cheeks glowing under the golden lamplight.
Me—she carried me in her womb.
Then she said, “Why must it be this way, Corric? Please...Do you not wish to know our child?”
“Amara,” a voice not unlike my own answered. “It isn’t safe for even you here...”
“But why? Please tell me why.”
“I cannot.”
Light footsteps drew near the throne room door.
“King Mattock, are you in there?” Firose sang from the hall.
Amara’s eyes widened, the whites showing all the way around.
“Go,” Corric said to her. “Hide the child—from her, from me. Do whatever it takes. I am lost, Amara. I am lost.”
I was lost.
So very lost.