Chapter 15 Weight of Blood
WEIGHT OF BLOOD
SEBASTIAN
I'd seen Viktor angry before. Seen him frustrated. Seen him worried.
I'd never seen him like this.
We reached my chambers, and he shoved the door open hard enough to rattle it in the frame. The sound echoed through the empty room like a gunshot.
“Inside.”
I almost laughed. Would have if the sound wouldn't have come out broken and wrong. “What are you now? My jailer?”
“Your guard.” He stepped in behind me, slamming the door with enough force that I felt it in my bones. The lock clicked. Final. “One you made a fool of.”
I turned to face him. “Made a fool of you? How exactly did I do that?”
“By lying!” His voice cracked. Raw. Louder than I'd ever heard it. “By sneaking out every night to play vigilante while I am here thinking I am protecting you! While I am scanning every corridor. Checking every door. Lying awake at night listening for threats that might come for you!”
He moved closer, and I saw it all in his eyes. The fury. The fear. The betrayal.
“While I am bleeding for you! Taking bullets for you! Throwing myself between you and death!” His hands clenched into fists. “And you are out there throwing your life away like it means nothing! Like all of it. All of this. Is just game to you!”
“It's not a game!” I shot back, voice rising to match his. “It's never been a game!”
“Then what is it? What do you call sneaking out at midnight to hunt criminals? To kill people? To put yourself in situations where you could die?”
“I call it living! I call it doing something that actually matters instead of sitting in that palace drowning in protocol and expectations!”
“Your life matters!” He was shouting now. Really shouting. I'd never heard Viktor raise his voice like this. “To your father! To the kingdom! To people who are trying to keep you alive!”
“I never asked you to!”
“You think that matters?” He grabbed my shoulders, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise. Hard enough that I felt it through the jacket. “You think I had choice? From moment I took this assignment, your life became more important than mine! That is the job! That is what I signed up for!”
His grip tightened. His face was inches from mine. I could see every detail. The cut above his eyebrow still bleeding sluggishly. The way his pupils were blown wide. The pulse hammering in his throat.
“But you. You go out there and treat your life like it is disposable. Like it is weapon to be used up and thrown away. Like your death would not destroy people who care about you!”
“Maybe that's exactly what it is!” The words tore out of me before I could stop them. “Maybe I am disposable! Maybe my life is just a weapon! Maybe that's all I've ever been!”
“No.” He shook me. Once. Hard enough to rattle my teeth. “No. You do not get to say that. You do not get to decide your life is worthless when people are dying to keep you breathing!”
“Why not? Everyone else gets to decide what I'm worth!
My father decides I'm worth parading in front of cameras!
The advisors decide I'm worth using as a political tool!
The press decides I'm worth nothing but scandal and speculation!” I shoved at his chest. He didn't budge. “Why can't I decide for myself?”
“Because you are wrong!” His voice broke on the last word. Actually broke. “You think this thing you do at night makes you strong? Makes you free? It does not! It just makes you dead man walking! It just makes you corpse that has not stopped moving yet!”
“So what?” I shoved him harder. Still nothing. “So what if I am? At least I'm doing it on my own terms! At least I'm choosing how I burn instead of letting this palace smother me piece by piece until there's nothing left!”
“You call this choice?” He let go of one shoulder to grab my face, fingers pressing into my jaw. Forcing me to look at him. “This compulsion to throw yourself at danger every night? This need to bleed? This is not choice, Sebastian! This is suicide dressed up as heroism!”
“Better than sitting in that throne room pretending I'm not drowning!” My voice cracked. “Better than smiling for cameras while I die inside! Better than being the perfect prince everyone needs me to be!”
“Then ask for help!”
“There is no help!” The words exploded out of me. Louder than I meant. Rawer than I'd ever let myself sound. “There's no fixing this! She's dead, Viktor! She's been dead for eighteen years and nothing I do brings her back!”
My chest heaved. My hands were shaking. I was shaking.
“Nothing I kill or save or sacrifice makes any fucking difference because she's still gone! Still dead! Still bleeding out in my memories every single night!”
Viktor's grip on my face softened. Just slightly. “Sebastian—”
“She took the bolt meant for me.” The confession came out broken. Jagged. Like swallowing glass.
The memories crashed over me. Rain. Gunfire. The smell of smoke and blood and my mother's perfume.
“She threw herself in front of it. Chose me over herself. Didn't hesitate. Didn't think. Just moved.” My voice was shaking now. Everything was shaking. “The bolt went through her shoulder. She was trying to push me down. Trying to cover me with her body. And I just. I just froze.”
Viktor's other hand came up to my face. Cradling it between his palms. But I couldn't stop. Couldn't hold it back anymore.
“I stood there. Watched her bleed. Watched the light go out of her eyes while she told me to be brave. While she pressed her necklace into my hand and made me promise to be more than this.” Tears burned behind my eyes.
Hot. Unwanted. “And I couldn't do anything.
Couldn't save her. Couldn't stop it. Couldn't be anything except useless.”
“You were child.” Viktor's voice had gone soft. Gentle in a way that hurt worse than his anger. “You were not supposed to save her. That was job of guards. Of security. Of adults whose responsibility it was to protect. Not yours.”
“But she protected me instead!” The tears spilled over.
I couldn't stop them. Couldn't hold them back anymore after eighteen years of refusing to let them fall.
“She chose me! She died so I could live!
And for what? So I could grow up into this?
So I could become this broken thing that can't stop hunting in the dark?”
“You are not broken.” His thumbs brushed at the tears on my cheeks. Gentle. Careful. “You are grieving. There is difference.”
“It's been eighteen years!”
“Grief does not have expiration date. Loss does not heal just because time passes.” His forehead pressed against mine. “I know. I know, Sebastian. I know what it is to lose someone and carry that weight forever.”
“Then you understand.” My hands came up. Gripped his wrists. Held on like he was the only solid thing in a world that wouldn't stop spinning. “You understand why I can't stop. Why I have to keep going.”
“I understand you are trying to die without admitting it.” His voice was rough. Raw. “I understand you are trying to get yourself killed and calling it justice.”
“I'm not trying to die.”
“Then what are you trying to do?”
I closed my eyes. Felt more tears slip free. Felt them track down my face and disappear into nothing.
“I'm trying to find out who ordered the hit,” I whispered. “On my mother. On us. That night wasn't random. It was planned. Coordinated. Someone wanted the royal family dead. Wanted my mother specifically dead. And I need to know who. I need to know why.”
Viktor went still. “Sebastian—”
“I found one of the crossbow bolts. In the wreckage. Broken. Obsidian tip. I kept it.” I opened my eyes.
Met his. “I've been tracking the design.
The craftsmanship. The materials. For years.
And every lead takes me deeper into the city's underbelly. Every piece of information I find is wrapped in violence and crime.”
“So you hunt criminals hoping to find the one who knows.”
“Yes.” I held his gaze. “And I won't stop. I can't stop. Not until I find out who took her from me. Who took her from us. I need to know, Viktor. I need to understand why she had to die.”
“And when you find out? When you have name? What then?”
“Then I make them pay.”
“By killing them.”
“Yes.”
He was quiet for a long moment. Just stood there with his forehead pressed to mine, hands cradling my face, breathing me in.
Then his hands tightened. Not painful. Anchoring.
“Sebastian.” His voice was rough. Raw in a way I'd never heard. “Look at me.”
I did. Saw something broken and human in those winter eyes.
“You do not have to do this alone. You do not have to carry this by yourself.” His thumb brushed my cheekbone. “You do not have to pretend you are fine when you are breaking.”
My throat tightened. “I'm not—”
“You are.” His voice cracked. “I see it. The way you smile when you are dying inside. The way you joke when you want to scream. The way you hold yourself together with nothing but will and fury because you think showing weakness means you have failed.”
“I can't afford to break. If I break, I fall apart. And if I fall apart—”
“Then you fall apart.” His forehead pressed harder against mine. “And I will be there to catch you. To hold the pieces until you can put them back together. That is what people do when they care. They do not demand you stay strong. They give you permission to be human.”
Something in my chest cracked. “Viktor—”
“You lost your mother. You watched her die. You have spent years hunting her killers while playing perfect prince for a kingdom that demands you smile through your grief.” His voice broke.
“When do you get to mourn, Sebastian? When do you get to rage? When do you get to feel anything other than this cold determination to find answers that might not even exist?”
“I can't.” The words came out strangled. “If I let myself feel it, I'll drown. I'll never surface.”