Chapter 14
VALANCE
The world slowed to a familiar crawl. A sensation I’d been affiliated with many times. The crawl of grief, a twisted monster in the dark pawing at the edges of sanity, inching closer and closer until it sunk its teeth in.
The monster wouldn’t have me because this wasn’t true. Garret was clearly mistaken.
Dead? Boyd dead? How could he be dead? It wasn’t feasible for him to not be around, for me to not hear his voice or feel his arms around me in a hold of comfort or because something was funny. He liked to hug when he got excited, when he found a scenario particularly hilarious.
Now this elf was telling me he wouldn’t hold me like that again. His eyes told me, his body language told me just as much as the words.
“This isn’t possible,” I told Garret. “Don’t lie to your prince.”
“I’m—”
“Don’t you dare say anything more. Leave. Now. I’ll deal with you later.”
“Your Highness. I beg you. Listen to me.”
My hands balled into fists at my sides, a painful kernel of fury beside my heart.
“I will not listen. I will not hear this—”
At that moment, Maeve hurried into the room. Blood-shot eyes, puffy cheeks, the epitome of sorrow. She came straight for me, took me in her arms, and sobbed uncontrollably.
Reason kicked in. Horrible, grim reality.
Not Boyd.
Please…
Sweet incense burned either side of the bed. My fingers interlocked with Maeve’s as we looked down at the thing before us. The thing I didn’t want to see. Thing that shouldn’t exist.
A black sheet covered his body. It could have been any corpse on that bed smothered in cloth. But when the doctor pulled the sheet back, more reality collided with me.
Boyd. Our Boyd. Our beautiful friend. No more color to his complexion. His eyes closed and covered with two white pebbles. For death. A symbol of the end of his life.
The fabric of me frayed. “What happened?” I asked the doctor.
“He slipped away, Your Highness,” she answered somberly.
“Tell me what really happened.”
“I—”
“If you hold anything back, I’ll take out your eyes.”
I faced her, she recoiled. “I’m sorry, Your Highness. I didn’t want to give you the terrible details.”
Really, I understood and valued her doing that. It meant she was kind, thinking of our hearts because he was our friend. The truth could be ugly, and many craved the lightest dose. Telling the bereaved a loved one had slipped away might work for some, but not me.
“I want every detail.”
Obeying her prince, she did just that.
Boyd had been fine after his terrible night.
Laughing and recovering well. The doctor considered him truly beyond the worst of it, preparing to release him in the morning.
He’d told her his ridiculous jokes, some stories about our adventures hunting unseelie as a trio, some of our mischievous activities from childhood.
All the things a non-sick person could do.
Then it’d happened, the blood spurting from his mouth.
The violent convulsions, the twisting of his lips.
The bloody foam leaking from his ears and nose and mouth, even his eyes.
He vomited blood and flailed so much he broke his ribs.
They tried to help him, to give him medicine.
Nothing worked. Nothing would stop him. The bottoms of his legs twisted and snapped, bones bursting through the skin.
His body had lost control. He’d lost control. The medical staff had lost control.
Now he was gone.
“Where is the blood?” I asked when she finished talking.
“I wanted him cleaned up, this room clear of it for you. I’m sorry.”
I didn’t answer her, stepped closer to the bed with Maeve’s hand still in mine. Together, we loomed over the corpse. His face seemed thinner. The sheet covered him from the shoulders down, hiding the horror done to the rest of him.
I flung the rest of the sheet back.
My stomach flipped at the sight of his chest, so clearly damaged beyond the surface. His legs… Oh, Danu. His legs. A horrible mess of bone and blood. Hence the black sheet to absorb it.
The doctor had taken many measures to shield me from the damage.
It stoked my anger. “You told us he would recover.”
“I… I thought he would. I truly did.”
“But he didn’t. And he was in your care.”
My attention was for Boyd, but out of the corner of my eye, I saw her back away. Frightened for her life. After all, not even doctors and their skills were safe from royal fury. Should a royal be disappointed and stung by grief, then there was no telling what consequences would follow.
The last time a doctor found themself at the end of that wrath had been at my sister’s death.
My mother’s closing off sent my brother on a spiral of destruction.
He’d slaughtered every prisoner in the dungeons, my sister’s servants, moving on to the doctor and midwife who’d been taking care of Jehanne.
Completely uninvolved in her death. Grieving as much as anyone for her and the lost baby prince.
That didn’t stop my brother hanging them all.
As furious as I was, I wasn’t my brother.
Yes, I had my own reputation for being brutal.
You needed to be with your enemies, for those who deserved an iron first. But not this doctor.
She deserved nothing but praise and thanks for her tireless service.
They all did in these wards. Without them, we couldn’t function.
Medical issues would go untreated. Fae healed the sick to a much lesser effect than humans.
“Leave us,” I told the doctor. Tonight, she’d receive no praise. Tonight, I didn’t care to hear another word pass her lips. I wanted to be alone with the two halves of my heart. Together in the room of candlelight and sweet smoke, to let the waves of sorrow come crashing down on my head.
I wasn’t particularly fanciful. The least joyful of the three royal children.
Yes, I enjoyed a good time and indulged in many pleasures.
Yet, I’d also seen too much of the world to close my eyes to the darkness.
Heard myself called cursed or worse too many times.
My sister lived in the light, and my brother dabbled in bloody waters while basking in the light himself.
Their personalities sparkled. The both of them were always shinier than me.
Like Sidhe fae should be. Mother often called me a brooding creature, a mystery to her.
I think she might have been afraid of me.
I pictured the queen knitting baby clothes with golden wool.
Out in the gardens with my sister. Drinking wine, Jehanne sipping tea.
Enjoying one of many lazy days together, a bond forever cemented between them in life and death.
So close, so loving. Laughing and crying together, never apart.
Their own little family set aside from the rest of us.
The doctor left us alone.
I inched closer to the bed.
“Your Highness,” Maeve said weakly.
I stopped beside Boyd’s head and crouched down. Reached out to touch him. Scared of him, even if the magic that’d killed him was spent.
Danu, I really wanted to touch him. To kiss his forehead as I had my siblings.
“You bastard,” I told Boyd. “How could you leave us?”
“Your—”
I silenced my friend. “You’ve left us alone. You weren’t supposed to do that. It was always going to be the three of us together forever. Until… Until the time came…”
Elves weren’t blessed with eternal life like Sidhe. Long lives, yes, but with an expiry date. The idea of it pained me, but I’d always considered it a long time away. The future’s problem.
“You are my family,” I told him. “The family I chose. The family I need.”
Tears gathered on my lashes.
Maeve crouched beside me, crying still. “He’s gone. How is he gone?”
I put my arm around her as hot streams ran down my face. They burned, and they didn’t stop.
“Boyd,” I whispered. “Please wake up. Please.”
He didn’t wake up. He’d never wake up.
Maeve and I held one another by his bedside, collapsing to the floor as grief tore from us in a chorus of wails. She clawed at me. I crushed her tightly to me. Our friend was dead. Our brother.
A price had to be paid.
I watched them drag him from his cell. Maeve was with me. She wanted to see him suffer just as much as me. I wouldn’t deny her that satisfaction.
The elven guards hauled him up and dragged him down the corridor. Ren whimpered from the constant migraine, cried and wailed as much as we had. Oh, I’d give him plenty to cry about.
We followed the guards and prisoner deeper into the mound, down to the bowels of it where it was hottest.
“Please…”
“Don’t you dare speak!” I barked.
He didn’t again.
The cavern I wanted him in was vast and dark. Two more female guards put an end to that by lighting torches—twelve of them in their sconces. They shed light on the vertical cross and chains.
Ren was secured to the cross with those chains, his back facing me, souring the air of the hot cavern with his stench. Goodness! I sweated profusely from the closeness of this place, though it didn’t hinder my plans. Let me drip with sweat. Let me feel sticky and uncomfortable.
More guards joined us, this time with Kormac. They threw the shackled human to the ground. Dressed in rags, not the fine silk I’d given him. Torn and dirty brown garments—pants and a shirt. No boots on his feet.
To think I’d let this creature fog my mind. There wasn’t anything intriguing about him. Just look at him on the ground like a pathetic dog, his head lifting to meet me with his rage.
Useless rage. He’d never get to channel it.
Actually, that wasn’t true.
“Ren!” Kormac cried, getting to his feet.
I noticed his neck was bruised, one of his eyes blackened. Excellent. I liked to see the guards had given him a hard time. If it wasn’t for my plans, he’d be dead now. But I didn’t waste my fun.
The guards grabbed him by the arms, his chains jangling as he struggled against them.
“Don’t hurt him!” he cried.
I laughed. It echoed around the cavern.