Chapter 50
CHAPTER FIFTY
B itty reluctantly leaves via the hatch to meet us in Eryn’s room. Then they’ll take Tovi with them to get Riley and Beans and lead them all to the queen’s old courtyard. I describe where the secret passage is behind the tapestry in the king’s rooms, planning to meet in the small canyon before entering the torture caves.
The blood has begun to dry in the short time I've been myself again, so I quickly wash and change my clothes. My own stench makes me feel unwell. We gather up what little belongings we have, and I tuck my knife into my pants. Tovi puts on her cloak, hiding the fact she isn’t wearing the doxy dress that she should be.
Riley. The need to see him, to apologize, to touch him, to smell him. It almost unravels me entirely. Remembering the package from Riley, I run to my bed, rage roaring louder than ever before. With a metallic taste in my mouth, I realize I’m biting the inside of my cheek. Sliding my hands along the sheets, flinging blankets and pillows, I find it exactly as I left it. I’m staring at the package in my hands when Tovi comes in looking for me .
“I didn’t get to open it before he took me,” I say in explanation to Tovi’s baffled look.
I gently unwrap the parcel. Inside is a pile of leather, jewels, metal, and a piece of carved stone. I pick it up as a small, folded letter falls out of the package onto the ground. I’m too distracted by what’s dangling in my hand to care that Tovi has picked up the folded note for me.
It’s a necklace. Thin pieces of leather are woven together, with tiny blue pearls woven in. Two beautiful, handcrafted metal cuffs clasp either side of the pendant. The carved stone pendant looks to be made from white jade. My breath catches when I see it’s a side view of a firecat in stunning detail. The tail is looped around and attached to the leather.
The firecat, which is already beautiful, has two gems inlaid into it: a purple amethyst in the visible eye and a forest green emerald in the shape of a tiny heart in the chest.
“What…” I rasp, throat thick with confusion, as I look up to a bright red Tovi.
Slightly frantic, she thrusts the folded letter into my hand as if it’s on fire. “I shouldn’t have picked this up.”
“What did it…What did you…Is it bad?”
“I’ll tell you if it isn’t obvious when you’ve read it,” she says over her shoulder, leaving the room as if she can’t get away fast enough.
I sit down on my bed because I am having trouble multitasking simple things like standing and breathing. I gently place the necklace over my leg as I unfold the handwritten letter.
Firecat,
I wanted to give this to you in person, but I’ve been too much of a coward, and now I fear it might be too late. I didn’t want to scare you away, and I wasn’t sure how you felt. But after today, I need you to know how I feel. How my world has not been the same since you came crashing into it.
I have been asleep, choosing to waste my life in a waking nightmare. It took one fiery, pain-in-the-ass woman to punch me in the face and wake me up. And then I wanted to be awake, if I got to be in a world where she existed. Where you exist.
Mika, you’ve changed me, and I cannot go back. I wouldn’t want to, even if I could.
You have found every crack and corner of my blackened heart, but still, I cannot get enough of you. I will never stop filling my heart with everything about you, my Firecat.
Even though I don’t have your heart, you’ve had mine for a long time.
But it’s not real love unless you feel it too. I won’t force you, but I will wait for you. I have no choice, because you’re it for me.
I made the necklace with help from a traveling jeweler in Waadi.
I still had to make the pendant, the firecat. She was hard to carve because I wanted her to be as special as you are.
The necklace is a gift and a promise. I promise I’ll keep trying to be the man deserving of your heart until the day mine stops beating. Longer, if the Divine allows it.
Yours, Riley.
I read his letter five more times. My fingers trace the words where his pen scratches the paper hard enough to make an indent. The piece of fabric it was wrapped in smells like him. I hold it against my nose and mouth, breathing in the scent of him.
Reluctantly, I wrap it back up and slip it into my pocket. It occurs to me only then that the keys are no longer there because the pocket they were in has ceased to exist. Not wanting to lose my necklace or letter, I put them on the bed and shift back into the king to test a theory. The searing pain shoots through my bones and stretches my skin. There, in the pocket of the pants I wear as the king, are the keys. As if I’m not going to lose shit like this…
Yet again, shifting back to myself is easier. I quickly put on the necklace and pocket the letter inside the fabric. I grit my teeth and shift into the king again, sending a silent prayer to the Divine to look after my necklace and letter.
“All good?” Tovi asks, giving me a disgusted look up and down as I walk out to meet her as the imposter king.
Unable to speak my answer, I can only nod. I have his heart, is on the tip of my tongue, yet I cannot say it aloud. And she doesn’t push.
The four guards escort Tovi and I to Eryn’s rooms with no questions asked. When we arrive, I offhandedly say that Tovi can keep her cloak and usher her in.
Turning to the four men, I send the Gifted Patron and one non-Gifted, to get Lottie. I make it clear the Gifted Patron is to relieve her, and the other man can bring her here. The fewer Gifted Patrons around me right now, the better. When the two of them leave, the last two guards take up sentry by Eryn’s doors. I instruct them to knock when Lottie arrives.
Finding the sitting room empty, I proceed to the closed door of Eryn’s bedroom. The young prince searches my eyes as a smile tugs the corners of his lips when I enter the room.
“So that’s what he looks like without his violet eyes?” Eryn says, his eyes wide .
“Can’t see through my tricks?” I tease, flicking my hair sassily.
Eryn scrunches his face. “Oh, that’s so disturbing.”
Bitty had arrived before us and filled Eryn in. Conscious of the time this has all taken, I send them both to get Riley and Beans. Tovi borrows some of Eryn’s clothes and shoes. They don’t look right but are an improvement on the silky shirt and pants she was wearing. She left the cloak in the sitting room already. The two of them climb out the window as my rage bounces around my ribcage. It’s broad daylight—they could be spotted at any moment.
Thankfully, they reach the bottom safely. Tovi salutes me with a rude gesture before the two of them take off running.
Silence. The chaos stops momentarily, the only sounds are Eryn and I breathing.
“This is madness,” Eryn announces into our quiet contemplation.
“There’s more,” I say as I turn to face him. “He…he looks like you.” I shake my head. “I saw the real him after I stole his power. He’s got your hair, but everything is…lighter. He’d be shorter than you for sure.”
I suddenly realize I can show him. I step away, bracing myself. Groaning, I double over with the uncomfortable pain and pressure of the shift.
Eryn comes to the same conclusion I did. “He’s not pure Erduborn.”
“Maybe half Mievaborn. Would make sense why you pass as Erduborn, since your mother was too.”
“And why you pass as Mievaborn because of your mother, right?” Eryn says, studying me.
I scoff, rage rising. Eryn rolls his eyes and drags me to the mirror in his washroom.
“He’s about as pale as you are. We all have the same small, sharp nose and ears,” he says as he points to my features while I am in the imposter’s natural form.
A flash of burning ice engulfs me. This man is my father. Eryn knows it, and somehow, I know it too with a certainty that defies all logic and sense.
“He really does look like the both of us. He’s our father,” Eryn declares, a big toothy smile breaking across his face, as he continues to look me up and down. “I knew it!”
My brother. Mine.
We return to his bedroom and Eryn slumps into the chair by his windows, leaning back with a look of self-satisfaction that changes to confusion. “How is this possible if he was sterilized?”
“ That is something I’d like to know too, but can figure it out later. We need to decide what to do with him first.”
“Our father.”
I sigh, the tension coiling tighter. Until I look at him. My brother . “Yes. Our father.”
“ You are my sister,” he says, a glisten to his eyes that sends lightning bolts that threaten to stop my heart. I can’t…I don’t deserve this kid.
“Unfortunately for you,” I tease before changing the subject like a coward. “Hopefully, Lottie gets here soon. I’m sure Bitty and Tovi will reach Riley and Beans quickly.”
“Bitty.” Eryn crosses an ankle over his knee with what looks like a smirk. “They’re cute.”
Shaking my head. “Oh. Nope. None of that. Bitty is too old for you!”
“You’re my sister for a whole minute…” Eryn grumbles. “And how much older is Riley than you, did you say?”
Five, almost six revolutions. “That’s totally different!” I whisper furiously, kicking his foot with my arms crossed.
Eryn snorts and mumbles something about double standards.
I sigh. “No one can ever know that I’m your sister, Eryn. You know that, right?”
“Why not? You could be a princess!”
“No, I wouldn’t be. And you wouldn’t be a prince. If people know we’re related, it opens up questions as to how. And the “how” is that there has been an imposter as the King Oferdu for a very long time .”
“I wouldn’t be the rightful heir. I’m not the rightful heir. I’m not the prince ,” Eryn whispers, finally understanding.
“The people would dethrone you and find some distant relative to take the crown.”
Eryn’s face contorts. “Riley knows…” he admits. “I told him when I threatened to kick his ass if he hurt you.”
I don’t know whether to laugh or…laugh harder. Riley would flatten him with a flick of his finger. Eryn knew he was my brother long before I was able to confirm it. Maybe I knew it too, with his stupid little brotherly face.
I have a brother. Eryn, this brave, endearing, funny little creature (who towers over me), is my brother. I do not deserve such a Divine blessing…