67. Chapter 61
Chapter 61
My father was a great many things, few of them good, but he gave his life for the House of Flames. He gave his life for me, for my people, and for the world. He was lonely and miserable for thousands of years, and his only reward was those few weeks we had together. If only I’d understood. My father was a great man, even if I hated him for a thousand years. The King of Flames must embrace pain, and the pain in his heart and soul was more than anyone else could have borne.
~Cole Cyrus, A History of Flames
Cole
My father looks like he’s going to die. The blade—my blade—nicked his heart when Gethin threw it. He’s so still. Unnaturally still. Memories flood my mind of him throughout my life. That look of determination was always in his eyes. It was a clarity that I never truly understood. He seemed to be sure that he was completely right in every decision, but now I know the truth. Every moment was a fight to keep his House alive.
I can’t forget the way he treated me. I can’t forgive him for the Shattering. I can’t even begin to forgive him for the way he used Darian and Lee against me.
But I do understand. It’s no different from how Brenna used her only daughter to save the world. I used countless people to prepare for the moment I pushed Maeve toward Draenyth.
People in terrible situations do terrible things. He is the King of Flames. He is my father. He is not my Da any more than Brenna is Maeve’s Ma. Some decisions burn bridges, and the decisions he made consistently throughout my life did more than burn a bridge between us.
He made me see him as someone I’m not sad to lose.
I lay him down in front of a triage tent alongside dozens of humans who have been injured, and I catch a human nurse by the arm. I point to my father and say, “Don’t treat him. He’ll either heal or he’ll die. There’s nothing you or anyone else can do for him. But if he lives, tell him that his son is still alive and fighting. Do you understand?”
The woman should look frazzled dealing with all the blood and gore of this battle, but she looks surprisingly unfazed by it all. This isn’t her first battle. “Prince Cole?” she asks.
I nod to her, and she says, “I’ll tell him. If he wakes up.”
“Thank you.” I let her arm go, and she goes back to caring for the groaning men and women under her care.
I step out of the tent and look up at the battlements above the gate of Draenyth. A hundred feet tall, the walls loom, covered in soldiers, any of whom could kill hundreds of humans without being injured in most situations.
But there are dead House of Steel soldiers littering the ground between here and the walls, examples of how effective those miniature ballistas are. When Steel soldiers are in the air, they’re limited by their wings. Even with as strong and fast as High Fae are—especially House of Steel High Fae—they’ll never compare to birds in flight, and humans have been shooting birds out of the air since the invention of the sling.
Yet, there’s no movement from either side. A stand-off, exactly as we wanted. Immortals have looked down on humans for as long as they have existed, but history has told us that humans have won almost every war between the two sides. There are too many of them. They’re clever and reproduce too fast. Where Immortals will have a handful of children in five hundred years, humans will have the same number in twenty years.
And while magic generally equalizes the battlefield between humans and Immortals, it doesn’t do enough. There are ten thousand soldiers from a single human country against two thousand Immortals on the walls.
A shadow walker appears at my side, and the black cloak that cascades in billowing waves around him reminds me of the Shadowed Cloak. Would we be better off if I were wearing it? He’s older with a salt and pepper beard and black eyes, a sign that the darkness has begun creeping inside him and he could lose himself to it soon.
“I’m here to take you back to the Queen when you’re ready,” he says. I don’t respond, knowing that she won’t be fighting on her own. Maeve’s smarter than that. I stare at the gate for a few moments longer, trying to figure out a way to win a fight with Gethin. I don’t have answers. So I move to where Sia agreed to stay.
“Any information on the House of Flames soldiers?” I ask the djinn, who has her eyes closed.
They’re free. No one tried to stop the shadow walkers other than a few guards.
The report gives me pause. “Rhion wasn’t guarding the cells?”
No one has seen Rhion. Darian has been looking for him, but he can’t seem to find him. There’s a pause, and I smile. That means that Lee might be right. Rhion might have chosen her over his father. He might have chosen us.
But Cole… I have bad news.
That tone. It’s not just bad news. It’s terrifying news. “What is it?”
I can’t feel Lee any longer. That doesn’t necessarily mean she’s dead. She could be too far away, or she could be unconscious.
Where could she be? I swallow hard. My heart hardens against the desire to hunt her down. I can’t change our plans to save my friend. I can’t… My teeth clench together in anger.
“Thank you.” I know Sia will read everything in my mind. Now that she’s not wearing her collar, it’s instinctual for her. Like smelling food cooking in a kitchen, she’ll be drawn to the intensity of my thoughts and emotions.
This is difficult, Prince Cole. I am having a hard time watching everything. Her violet eyes open and I can see the strain of what she’s trying to do. Watching and listening to so many minds. She’s never been around this many people before, never tried to maintain connections with so many. I’m trying my best. I should have been paying attention to Lee when she disappeared. Then I’d know. She disappeared while the Steel soldiers were attacking.
I shake my head. “No. You’re doing everything you can,” I say. “Keep it up. I have to get back to Maeve.” I pause, recognizing something for the first time. “Wait. Can you see inside Gethin’s mind? Can you read his thoughts?”
Yes. I have tried to focus on him since he drew himself away from the steel-lined rooms. He is… broken. His mind does not flow as it should.
I nod. “Yes, but has he thought of how he can die? Has he focused on any specific things? Weaknesses or fears?”
He only thinks of the Thrones. And Calyr. His mind goes back to a talk he had with Calyr many, many years ago when he was young. He is consumed. Dark hair and a black blade.
I sigh. No, it couldn’t be that simple. “Thank you, Sia,” I say before turning back to the shadow walker. “Bring me back to the void. Echo will know where I came from.”
The man nods to me and takes my wrist before pulling me into the shadows again. That half a moment in the void—where I’m not in control—I feel the pressing weight of the darkness. This time, though, it feels different. I’ve been here a thousand times, no different from the shadow walker ferrying me, and I’ve always felt that oppressive weight.
Now, it feels hungrier. It feels ready to consume me. It feels… like it’s waiting for me.
Is it helplessness that threatens to consume me? Is it the number of times that I’ve gone in and out of the void recently? Are there traces of black in my eyes?
Then Echo’s shadows wrap around me and pull me out of the void and onto the breezeway where Gethin and Maeve should be.
But they’re both gone. I reach out through our bond, and I feel nothing. Just like when she’d talked to The Darkness with Echo. The void has built that barrier in our bond like we’d expected it to, but I hadn’t expected her to leave this place.
Damn it all. Where is she? She can’t be dead. I’d feel that. It wouldn’t be this separation. It’d be a hole in my soul. My bond with her would be intact, but she’d be gone to a place I couldn’t follow. There’d be more pain than I can imagine.
She’s not dead. She’s… missing . Along with Gethin. But why? And where?