Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
W here are my pants? Pants. Pants. I’m chanting in my head as I fumble around the empty sleeping alcove.
“The water canteen is against the wall to your left,” Riley calls out from the main area.
I’m immediately aware of how dry my mouth is, along with my pounding headache. “Ugh.”
I crawl out of the dark alcove, like a monster from a nightmare, squinting at the too-bright light. Crouching on my knees, I glare around at the mess. Why are my clothes everywhere? My eyes widen…
“What happened last night?” I rasp.
“What do you remember?” I can hear the humor in his voice.
Hot. I remember being too hot. Touching Riley’s face…he has nice skin. Riley’s weight on me…oh fuck! I look over at him in alarm.
He gives me a small smile. “Nothing happened. You were in perfect control.” He nods his head toward my pants on the ground as he stirs whatever he’s cooking for breakfast. “It’s too hot for leathers and thick clothes.”
He’s only in linen pants and a light tunic, so I grab my own pair of light pants and throw them on before heading to the privy.
When I return, Riley hands me a bowl with a meager portion of breakfast. It’s oats with nuts and what looks like some spices swirled through.
I smirk as I take the bowl. “This looks nice, thank you.”
“Yes, okay. You were right. Food is better with flavor,” he quips with a grin before shoveling food into his mouth from what’s left in the pot.We eat in silence as I try to concentrate through the pounding at my temples. The food only marginally helps.
I spot the empty liquor bottle resting against the wall near the entrance. “We drank the whole bottle?” I whine.
“I think it would be more accurate to say you drank the whole bottle, but yes, we finished it.”
“And how come you look as fresh as a daisy, and I feel like a shriveled-up piece of jerky?”
Riley snorts. “Maybe because you drank three times as much as me and I’m three times the size of you? How’s the head?”
I grunt in response, massaging my temples.
“Here.” Riley moves forward, pulls my hands away, and starts rubbing his hands together while crouching in front of me. “Close your eyes.”
“Why?” I ask dubiously, and he rolls his eyes.
“Fine, leave them open.” He places his surprisingly warm and steady hands over my eyes and sweeps them slowly around to my ears.
The only sounds to be heard is our breathing and Riley repeating the actions of warming his hands and softly bringing them back to my eyes and ears. My eyes are closed; this would have been weird— weirder —with them open.After only a couple of minutes, I realize that the pounding in my head has stopped.
“How?” I ask incredulously as I touch my ears like I’ll be able to sense some kind of Divine Gift he left behind.
He shrugs. “My father used to do this for me when I was a teenager, and it always worked. It just forces you to relax, I think,” he says with a small smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.
He sits back against the wall opposite me, as I roll my shoulders. “Not your mother?”
“Uh, no. I mean, she used to when I was very young if I had a headache,” he says with a small humorless laugh. “But no. By the time I was getting hangovers at sixteen, my mother wasn’t coming anywhere near me.”
“Wait. Your father was doing this when you were a teenager because you were hungover ?” I can’t hide anything in my voice.
“It was after my brother died. After I killed him.”
I’m gaping. Mouth wide open like a stunned pond fish in Laguz. Riley is busying himself using sand and a rag to clean our breakfast from the dishes.“Do you know the story?” he asks quietly, not looking at me.
I don’t. I know the first-born Prince Ofnemoris died. I know that it was a decade and a half past, and the young Prince Aurelius was only a teenager. Riley’s twin, Amarilyss, was still in Osraed as a Patron and their youngest sister, Nemuel, was not yet born.
But no. Not much is said about it other than it being a tragedy. “I don’t know much or haven’t heard much. I heard King Dillon had to take over royal duties for a few moons while the queen grieved.”
Riley nods. “Lyss didn’t even know she had an older brother when we were able to get her back. It broke my mother’s heart all over again to tell her. Perhaps Lyss already realized, but it’s different gaining a family only to lose a brother you didn’t get to meet. Nemuel didn’t get to meet him either. I robbed them both.”
Riley scrubs the same part of the pot over and over as he speaks. I want to still his hands, but maybe keeping his hands busy is stopping him from unraveling. I can relate.
He looks at me then, eyes glassy, searching my face. “I killed him, and my mother wishes it was me who died instead,” he announces, then he drops everything and stands—well, as much as he can in here—before crawling into the sleeping alcove.
Well, fuck me, what do I do now?
I crawl to the entrance of the alcove and sit leaning against the curved wall.I can hear his shuddering breath, but can barely see anything other than a large, silhouetted lump in the middle of the cave.
“I killed someone the season after I turned thirteen,” I offer, and then want to smack myself in the head because this isn’t a competition. Idiot. Plus, hello? I’m an assassin. Of course he knows I’ve killed people.
“Who?” he asks, clearing his throat.
“Someone I let hurt me too many times.”
“ Hurt you, how? ” His voice is demanding though still whispered.
“It doesn’t matter now.”
“Did you care for them?”
I pause, his shaky voice wreaking all kinds of havoc inside of me. “In a way. Maybe before.”
“Do you regret it?”
Well, that’s the question, isn’t it? Do I? That single act is what started a career of being a killer-for-hire.The catalyst for turning me into the monster I am today. But I cannot regret that he no longer lives.
I’m still mulling over how to answer, chewing on it like a piece of tough meat, turning it over and over in my head, when Riley’s voice startles me. “I’ve spent the last fifteen revolutions regretting everything and wishing it had been me, instead of Dex, who died.”
Whatever I was going to say in answer to his question vanishes from my mouth. I crawl into the cave, my hand finding Riley’s knee in the dark. I shimmy up next to him, not actually touching, but close enough.
“How did he die? I thought it was an accident?”
Riley takes a long breath in and slowly lets it shudder out of his nose. “I was a terror child and an even worse teen. Declan—Dex—was the cool-headed one. Smart, funny…kind. No matter how much of an asshole I was, he never treated me like the disappointment I clearly was.”
Riley takes another shuddering breath, so I use the opportunity to ask, “He was older, right?”
“Yes, by five revs. Never treated me like the annoying little brother though. He was always looking out for me, like he had this sense when I was getting into trouble.”
His voice is thick with emotion, though he’s as still as stone while he speaks.
“That night, during a Royal Gala my parents were holding, I was angry. They’d just announced to everyone they were pregnant again. They hadn’t even told me. I found out at the same time as the vapid cesspit of people they barely ever interacted with. I’m not sure if Dex knew before or not. I never had the chance to ask.”
“Pregnant with Nemuel?” I ask.
He hums a confirmation. “I’m more than double her age right now. Dex was old enough to be her father then.” Riley sighs with a painful quiver. “He wanted to be king, and he would have been…It’s why he hadn’t started his own family yet. He wanted to learn and be the very best for Nemoris.” Riley clears his throat, taking a deep breath before continuing. “So, I left. Went looking for the kind of trouble that can only be found in the back alleys of Nemoris Castle City. Didn’t take too long, of course. I always sought out groups of young men, keeping my identity hidden.” He lets out an angry snort. “They don’t fight when they know you’re a prince,” he says with disgust, but I think it was aimed at himself.
“This time was different, too many in the group. I’d picked a fight I wasn’t going to win. I don’t remember if it was a conscious decision to pick a fight I knew I’d lose. But I definitely didn’t know my brother had followed me and would jump in to help.”
I’m holding my breath. This story had never made it to the public. Granted, I was still in the children’s compound in Osraed when it all happened, but not even the rumors mentioned any of this.
“As soon as he joined the fight with the kids—and they were kids—the one I was fighting brought out a knife and stabbed me twice in the gut, and I went down. Dex screamed and took down the rest of the group before turning on the kid with the knife.”
I let out the breath I’d been holding, far more audibly than I would have liked. It sounded like a whimper. I don’t know if Riley even registered it; his voice now dripped with self-loathing, and he continued without missing a beat.
“All I remember from there is my brother carrying me back to the castle, to our Gifted healer. Flashes of our parents in a panic. The healer arguing with someone. Mother screaming.” He lets out a half-choked sob. “I woke up a few days later, clearly healed by Gift, looking around my empty bedroom. My father entered—I assume to check on me—and I asked where Dex was. He crumbled.”
Riley’s voice changes after a thick swallow. He continues emotionlessly. “Dex had also sustained knife wounds and didn’t tell anyone. He knew the Gifted healer would only have enough energy to heal one of us, and he’d chosen me. It wasn’t until after the healing that my parents realized the extent of Dex’s injuries. The regular healers tried all they could, and they sent for another Gifted healer. But they were too late. Dex died from his wounds not even half an hour after he brought me back.”
Riley finishes in a tone so cold that I shiver. “If I hadn’t been so selfish, Dex would be alive.”
I have nothing to say. What could I say? I move up behind Riley, lying close without touching him.I’m unused to other’s emotions, and touch is foreign. Unsure how to provide comfort to Riley, but wanting to do something, I pat him. I’m propped up on one arm, gently stroking and patting around his face and down his hair.
His breathing slows, and I’m not sure if he’s asleep. We have been lying here quietly for a long time, with only the sound of me patting his head softly. “You didn’t kill him. He saved you. They’re not the same thing,” I say, quieter than a whisper, just in case he’s asleep. Just in case he wants to pretend he didn’t hear me.
But he wasn't asleep, and he did hear me. He snatches my hand from the top of his head and brings it to his mouth, placing a soft kiss on my palm. He holds it there for a second longer, leaving his soft lips pressed against my skin, before letting go.
Something about the softness of the kiss reminds me of…something. Like a dream you can’t quite explain to someone. Like grabbing a cloud with your bare hands only to have it slip through your fingers.
I squeeze his shoulder and then scooch myself out from behind him and move into the main area, leaving him to grieve his brother’s memory.
He stays in there most of the day, or what I assume is most of the day, considering I cannot see the sunrise and sunset, and all I can hear is the wind.I make a cold meal of meat, bread, and cheese, and leave some at the alcove entrance for Riley while I eat mine alone, going over his story in my head.
I’m making jasmine tea when I hear shuffling and see Riley emerge.
“Tea?”
“Thank you,” he says, taking the mug I offer. “Thank you for the food too.”
“I’m sorry.”
He looks at me in confusion, but before he can say anything, I follow with, “For pushing you. About the drinking, I mean. I should have been more kind.” It sounds awkward to me, so it must sound the same to him.
“You didn’t know who I was. I was just some drunk that was making everyone around me miserable. And you were right. I haven’t forgotten the words you said to me after you found me asleep, drunk, on watch, a couple of moons past.”
“I didn’t think you remembered.”
“Oh, I remember.” He touches his cheekbone where there was once a bruise. Something about the memory makes me cringe now. So prone to violence even when someone is clearly hurting.I don’t say anything. I know what I said. I’m not sure which part he’s repeating to himself, and I’m not about to ask.
“It’s hard remembering, I swear the pain is as sharp as it was fifteen revs past. The alcohol makes it easy to forget. Makes it easier to think without feeling too. The thought of losing another sibling is…” He clears his throat and takes a de ep breath. “But it also makes me feel like I’m asleep…in a constant waking nightmare.”
He looks at me then, my rage strangling my heart into a painful ache with the intensity of the pain reddening his eyes. “You have nothing to be sorry for, Firecat. I’m sorry.”