Chapter 11 Kaelen
Kaelen
My hands grip the back of my chair. I can’t sit down—not when it feels as though my legs won’t support another step. “Wait for me outside.”
Eres—damn him—doesn’t argue. He brushes a hand over my shoulder that I pointedly ignore before he offers yet another reassuring smile to the fucking witch and leaves me—and it—alone with my mother.
The witch doesn’t say a word as the shadows creep around it. There’s a flicker of hesitation when they close over its face, but if it has any issue with it, I wouldn’t hear over the darkness.
And more importantly, it can’t hear me as I turn back to my mother. “You have to stop this.”
Of all the times to choose to lead a Council meeting, she chose this one. And now Eres faces a Binding to one of them, and I won’t fucking have it. “Find someone else to bind it. It’s not going to be him.”
“I am still the monarch,” my mother observes mildly. “A little respect, Kaelen.”
I bite the inside of my cheek, hard enough to draw blood, but my next words are still harsher than I intended them to be as they erupt into the air. “You haven’t been a true monarch since he died.”
She stills. At that moment, I hate myself more than I ever have. “You know what I mean. You pick and choose when to pick up the mantle, and now Eres faces this as a result—”
“Faces what?” My mother rarely raises her voice.
Even as a child, when I would race through the castle, weaving through crowds of familiar faces and causing trouble in my wake, she never had to go above her usual soft tone for me to listen.
But now her voice climbs, sharp and high and ragged with emotion.
“The end of our race? That is what we face, Kaelen. We don’t have the luxury of favoritism—”
“Not him,” I rush out. “Anyone else.”
It’s not favoritism. “If anything happens to him…”
My words trail off. Because it is favoritism. “I cannot do this without him.”
Bad enough that Darian no longer stands at my side.
I force my breathing to steady. He’s still here.
Still alive, and breathing, and more irritating with every word that drawls from his lips.
But to lose Eres now, when we already face our end—it would be the end of me.
“I cannot exist in a world where he does not.”
Not for a single fucking day would I keep breathing. Where he goes—where they both go—I will follow.
The silence stretches out between us. When she speaks, her words are heavy. “You can, even if you do not want to.”
Because she did. When my father fell to a Lightbringer unit four years ago, saving his patrol at the cost of his own life, my mother continued on.
But she does not live. She only… exists.
She does not leave the castle. Rarely speaks.
She is as much a ghost as he is, and I was the one left behind to pick up the pieces of her grief.
There is no me who can pick up the pieces of mine.
“A large assault through the Veilspire will finish us,” she murmurs.
“We know it is coming, and soon. Perhaps she will change nothing, Kaelen. But if she could change something, isn’t it better to attempt it?
Something must change, or we have no hope at all.
Perhaps there is some good in her, and she will help. ”
I scoff at that. “You cannot believe that. The only good Lightbringer is a dead Lightbringer.”
“There’s good and evil everywhere we look.” My mother looks toward the witch, her eyes thoughtful. “One cannot exist without the other. I have to believe in something, Kaelen. Perhaps Eres is right. Perhaps she is a sign of something, even if we do not understand it. Don’t mistreat her.”
If possible, I stiffen further. “I have more honor than that.”
I may actively despise the witch, may not go out of my way to make it comfortable, but I’m not going to hurt it. “I thought that perhaps she could be a hostage, if she’s lying about her bloodline.”
Because if the witches care about anything, it’s that. And the witch bleeds light. It can’t hide who it is, any more than I can.
“Perhaps.” My mother rises from the blackstone throne. “Learn what you can. And get that erevas off her.”
She sweeps from the room before I can argue further. Sighing, I step up to the dark shadow encasing the witch and coax my erevas back into my hands, freeing its face. It takes a deep breath, fire eyes skittering around the room before they settle on my own.
We watch each other silently before Eres pushes into the room. He pauses, looking between us. “I’m going to take her back to my room—”
“You will not.” There’s no room for argument in my tone. “She’s going to the prison. Don’t fight me on this.”
“But—”
“Eres.”
He sighs. “My apologies, Lyra. He’s not always this boorish.”
I turn disbelieving eyes on him, but he’s already turning toward the door. Using my erevas to shackle the witch once more, I tow her behind me as we make our way down the corridor and through the great hall. Glancing over my shoulder, I catch her staring around, taking in the rows of tables.
“This is where we eat.” Eres, blatantly unimpressed by my scowl, falls back to walk beside her, his arm sweeping out. “We all take turns to help in the kitchens, which are through that door in the corner.”
Not her. Not in a hundred years would I have her anywhere near my damned fucking food.
I’m pretty sure an audible snarl slips free as I tug the erevas with more vigor than I intended and hear her stumble.
Eres snaps something at me, but I’m already storming ahead, forcing the two of them to keep up.
They’re going to be Bound.
He’s binding himself to one of them, and the thought of it only increases my rage as I cross the courtyard, heading for the small entrance beside the stables.
For once, I’m grateful the castle is close to empty, only a few shocked faces turning to us as I almost rip the wooden door from its hinges and stamp through.
I manage to control myself on the mossy, damp stone steps enough to give her time to make her way down.
Grabbing a lantern from the wall, I light it using the flickering candle on the side before making my way down into the chilled air, past two empty cells and slowly stopping in front of the third.
Fuck. We have nobody to watch her.
I’m going to have to pull someone from training. Two someones, to manage any trickery on her part. Eldritch won’t be impressed, but it can’t be helped.
I jerk my head. “Get in.”
“Please.” Eres almost follows her inside, and I yank him back with a tendril of shadow wrapped around his waist before I slam the door closed.
He scowls, but we both turn to watch her inspect her surroundings through the bars.
My erevas slips away, freeing her ankles, and the witch offers me a brief glare before pulling my fucking cloak tighter around her.
“It’s been empty for a while.” God, he even sounds apologetic. “We’ll get you some things to make it a little less…"
“Damp?” The witch has the audacity to glare at me again, and I feel my fingers tighten around the bars.
“You’re lucky you’re still breathing,” I snap at her. “Be grateful.”
I get an elbow directly to my ribs for the remark, but it’s true. If our fortunes were reversed and I had the audacity to stroll into Solvandyr and request sanctuary, Vaelion would have had me staked against his infamous Glass Dunes before I could even finish the request.
“It’s not for long,” Eres’s jaw is tight as he traces the drops of water trailing down the stone wall behind her. “We need to prepare for the Binding, but we’ll be back in a couple of hours. We’ll work something out.”
To my surprise, he doesn’t wait for her to respond before he turns. His hand slips around my bicep, tightening before he walks away, attempting to drag me with him. It would almost be amusing if it wasn’t for the anger rolling from him in waves.
“What,” he hisses as soon as we’re outside again, cool wind brushing our faces, “the fuck are you doing?”
“What am I doing?” I stare at him, nonplussed. “What the fuck are you doing? She’s one of them. She’d kill you rather than help you, and I won’t let your bleeding heart make you a victim!”
“I made a choice.” His cheeks flush with anger as he steps closer, his finger jabbing into my leathers above my heart.
“I couldn’t save any of them out there, Kaelen.
Everywhere we went, there was only death.
But I could save her, and you’re not going to kill her in a cold dungeon if I have any say in it.
She’s injured. Am I your damned Healer or not? ”
I… may have mis-stepped. Lifting my hands, I attempt to wrestle some control of this discussion back. “Of course you are.”
“Then I decide what’s right for her as her healer,” Eres snarls at me. “Believe it or not, I am thinking rationally. We have a Lightbringer here in Umbraxis for the first time, and I intend to see if she can help.”
My sigh is heavy. “You’re putting expectations on the witch that she can’t possibly meet.”
He sniffs. “As if you care about that. But our whole lives have been given up to this damn war, Kae, and I’m tired of it.
We have lived this war and breathed this war and soon—very fucking soon—we are going to stand out there and die for this war.
And if that happens, then what the fuck was any of it actually for?
Can you blame me for looking for an answer somewhere other than the battlefield?
Because that hasn’t done us much good, has it? ”
When I reach for him, he slaps my hand away. “Do not touch me right now.”
My heart climbs into my throat. “Eres.”
“No.” He points at me again, eyes glittering. “You’re going to get Lyra—not it, but her—ready for the Binding.”
I almost choke on air. “What?”
“I have to prepare.” He turns his head toward the castle entrance.
I do the same, my scowl deepening, and the few watching us curiously suddenly find better fucking ways to occupy their time.
“You know that. She has nobody to help her, so you’re going to do it.
And so help me, if she doesn’t appear at the Gloam or if she has a hair out of place, I will hunt you down and make you regret it. ”
For fucks’ sake—
“Fine,” I snarl back at him. “I will bring the witch to the Gloam, and I’ll try not to kill her on the way.”
“Good.”
He tries to walk away from me. My shadows lash out, wrapping around his body and spinning him as his scowl grows.
Before he can get the words out, I stalk over and slam my lips down over his, pushing my tongue into his mouth before I pull away and hold his chin in place.
“You had better tell me you love me now, or I’m not taking her anywhere. ”
My hold only tightens when he tries to wriggle free. “I will fuck it out of you if I have to.”
I don’t make any effort at lowering my voice.
When I raise one eyebrow at him and fold my arms, he purses his lips. “I love you. Asshole.”
My head cocks. “I’m sorry? I’m not quite sure I heard that.”
The smile plays around the corners of his mouth even as he tries to keep it contained. “I called you an asshole.”
Sighing, I release him from the erevas. He darts forward and brushes his lips over mine. “But I do love you, even when you’re being an overbearing ass. I’ll see you there.”
My mouth twists, torn between a smile and a grimace as he walks off.
I’ll see him at the Gloam. But first, I have to face the witch. And steal two of Eldritch’s men.
I wonder if—
“Kae!”
My head jerks up. Eres shakes his head, his words carrying across the courtyard. “Do not tell Darian to do it.”
Damn it.