Chapter 38
Robin watched the door close behind the healer, then waited for several moments to ensure the woman was out of earshot before she shared her additional information with Ian.
“Robin . . .” Ian cut into her thoughts as he stepped forward, filling the space where Lyra had been. “There is something—”
“Wait,” Robin said, cutting him off. She needed to tell him what she and Aden had found before he worried over her injury again. “There is more. We found something else. Someone . . . something . . . in the monastery cellar.”
Ian sat down loosely on the wooden stool by the small table, as though his legs could no longer bear his weight. “There is more?” he asked, echoing her words.
Robin looked away from him, examining the waxed wooden texture of the log wall to her right. “I did not want to speak of it in front of Lyra just yet. It is . . . gruesome.”
Ian said nothing, giving her space to find the words, which she appreciated.
“Gareth has been using magic to experiment on humans.” She turned her head back to face Ian, needing the connection of his eyes to stabilize the churning horror that was rising up inside of her.
She had not had time to truly think about what she had seen in the cellar, as everything had been chaos since then.
She could only hope that the man had been a willing participant in Gareth’s horrific project.
“We found a man who had been turned into a beast . . . like a bear and wolf that still had human features.”
“Like Aden.” Ian’s voice was barely more than a whisper.
“Yes.” Robin nodded. “Aden . . . was there.”
“Aden saw this . . . experiment?” Ian asked, his face pale.
“I am so sorry,” Robin replied—not that Ian needed her apology, but she wanted to communicate that she understood the horror and concern on his face. “He was in shock. But if he had not been there . . . The beast had the strength of several men.”
“You fought with it?” Ian said.
Robin nodded. “It was too far gone for human reasoning. Aden confirmed that. There was nothing we could do for it.”
“Did you . . . kill it?” Ian asked.
“No.” She shook her head. “We injured it, but then Gautho sent his soldiers after us, it attacked the soldiers, giving us a moment to get away.”
“For a future fight,” Ian said. He dropped his face into his hands. “And there was only the one?”
Robin nodded. “But there were several more empty cells in the undercroft.”
“He is building an army of them,” Ian said, speaking her fear out loud.
“To release upon the Iseldan army when the Majis ships finally arrive,” Robin said.
Ian looked back up at her. His seemed exhausted, as though he had aged several seasons in the few moments his face had been in his hands.
Robin wanted to reach out to comfort him. But he was sitting too far away for her injured arm to reach. “Tell me what you are thinking about?” she asked, reaching out with words instead of touch.
He shook his head, breaking eye contact with her as he looked down. “We cannot fight both an army of magic wielders and magical beasts.”
“If we learn more about them, we can,” Robin countered, hoping to ease some of the worry she saw in his face. “I know someone in the capital city who might be able to get us more information. We can travel there tomorrow—”
“No!” Ian said, cutting her off. He looked up quickly, his face angry. “You must rest.”
“I can ride a horse just fine,” Robin replied, confused at his sudden anger. “Lyra can put my arm in a sling to keep my shoulder from moving too much.”
“You are not going to the capital city tomorrow.” Ian stood up. He ran his hand through his hair and slid it all the way down his scalp until it rested at the back of his head, leaving his elbow sticking up into the air.
“I am not going to lie here doing nothing!” Robin felt her voice rising.
The extra effort burned painfully in her left lung, but she did not hold back.
She was not sure why Ian was suddenly angry, but she welcomed the show of emotion so that she could respond in kind. “Silverreign is six days away!”
Ian walked away from her, all of the six steps it took him to reach the opposite wall of the cabin. “It does not matter.” He turned back to face her and removed the hand from the back of his neck, swinging his arm out wide. “It will not make a difference.”
“If we can learn more about what Gareth is trying to do with these experiments, it can.” Robin wanted to show Ian that she was already making a plan. “I know this new information is terrifying, but we can find a way to fight them or disarm them. Maybe Aden knows something that can help us.”
“No!” Ian shook his head in small, frantic movements as he walked back toward her.
“Understood,” Robin said, lifting her good hand. “We will not ask Aden about it.”
“No,” Ian said again, standing at the side of her bed and looming over her. “You do not understand, Robin. The Majis ships will arrive in a matter of days, and we have nothing!”
“Nothing?” Robin repeated, her anger rising again. “What do you mean we have nothing? I have a plan for this, Ian. I have been planning for the real Return for years. This new information does not negate that. It just might change the plan.”
“What part of everything that happened yesterday,” Ian said, interrupting her, “makes you think we can go back in six days, or nine days, or whenever Gareth decides to launch his grand plan?”
“This has nothing to do with what happened yesterday,” Robin said, cursing her inability to sit up. After her previous painful failed attempts, her body had finally realized she should remain in a horizontal position. For now.
Ian leaned over her, his voice deadly calm. “You nearly died yesterday.”
“This is not the first time I have nearly died,” Robin said. She knew this was about something deeper than just his concern for her, but she could not make sense of the seething anger behind his words. “And I am quite confident that it will not be the last time, either.”
“We went in vastly outnumbered. We had a strategy. We had a plan.” Ian spoke with his hands as well as with his voice.
“I had a foolish hope.” He pointed to himself, and his gaze fell to the floor.
His eyes wandered for a few moments, as though he was listening to the words he had just said for the first time.
He turned his back to her. “I had a foolish hope.” He turned away from her, walking back to the far wall.
“Ian,” Robin said, filling his name with as much comfort as she could. “What are you truly thinking right now? I do not understand this anger—it is unlike you.”
“You do not know me,” Ian said, still facing the far wall.
“I am beginning to, again,” Robin replied. “And I very much like what I have seen.” The words were hard to admit out loud, but she hoped that in sharing her thoughts honestly, he would feel safe enough to do the same.
He said nothing.
So she continued. “You are still someone who always does what he believes is right. You do not bend or twist yourself to fit anyone else’s expectations.”
Ian turned his head over his shoulder, almost looking back at her. “Did I not bend myself to my father’s will when he sent you back to Lockwood?”
“Only you can answer that,” Robin said. “Perhaps I did not understand it then, but what I see now is a boy who believed his father was right, even when he desired otherwise.”
Ian turned back around at that. “So I followed his judgment. I believed the decision was good. That is what I have always done. But what has that gotten me? Thirty-eight seasons of loneliness?”
Robin felt a pain in her heart, but this one had nothing to do with the magical wound in her side. He had been counting the seasons since she left. “I was lonely, too,” she whispered.
He looked up at her, his eyes covered in shadow while his head still hung low.
“I want to know you.” He felt so far away despite the small size of the room. “I want to know who you are now.”
He shrugged. “There is nothing to know. I have spent my life making the right decisions, choosing the harder option if it benefits those around me. And I have nothing to show for it. I cannot keep those I love the most from getting hurt.”
“Ian,” Robin said, finally feeling as though she understood what had driven his earlier anger. “It is not your responsibility to save the whole of Iseldis.”
“Is it not?” Ian laughed as he lifted his head. The sound was dry, short, and hollow.
“No one expects that from you,” Robin pushed back.
“I am the crown prince of Iseldis, Robin.” Ian finally stepped back toward her, his voice growing louder as he moved.
“That is all I have ever been. My father is injured. My people are threatened by the whims of a cruel and manipulative man who grows more powerful every day. It is my responsibility to save Iseldis. That is the only thing I have ever lived for. That is all I have.” He sat back on the stool by her bedside.
“Yesterday, I also had a foolish hope. Today, even that is gone.”
Robin lifted her right hand, stretching it as far across her body toward him as she could reach.
He looked from her hand to her eyes.
She nodded.
He leaned forward on the stool, reaching out his hand to encompass hers.
She twisted her wrist so that it was her hand that supported his. “I do understand. And I still want to know you. This version of you. I know this is hard, and it feels hopeless. But it is the same fight that I have fought every day, season after season.”
His face was closer to hers now that he had leaned forward. She could see the emptiness in his eyes, the desperation as he searched her face for something worth holding on to.
She squeezed his hand. “I do not know if this is a fight that I can ever win, but I will not stop trying to fight it.”
“Are you speaking of Gareth?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I think I am speaking of much more than Gareth.” She smiled, glancing away.
Sharing the raw feeling in his gaze felt like drifting through an unfamiliar sea, but the touch of his hand anchored her.
She needed to return to a place she understood.
“We have new information now. I will not stop trying to follow the plan—I will adjust it and move forward.”
“Tell me what to do, and I will do it.” His face still held no hope, but he was choosing to fight anyway.
She wanted to give him hope, to give him a reason to keep fighting. But she had nothing else to offer, and he was giving her more than he had to give. “Go find me some parchment and ink.”
Ian stood, tugging his hand away from her.
She held on to it, running her thumb in circles over the soft spot between the side of his wrist and his littlest finger. “Then come back and rest here to ensure I do not leave this bed.”