Chapter 12
“Now, for the love of the Sisters, can we please take this somewhere fucking else? I need a damned seat.”
Lunara took Caius’s grumbled request as her cue to back away and get out of there.
Nothing in the realms could have prepared her for coming face-to-face with the Imperial Wolflord again. Thaddeus had been bad enough, but Caius…
Shitting stars.
She’d known he was coming, but reality was oft worse than anything she could conjure up. So much worse. She needed her own place to sit. Quiet and alone.
You never should’ve let yourself believe it when he’d said you were forgiven. Who could ever actually forgive someone that let their mate die?
Not Caius, obviously.
Lunara shuffled backwards, hoping to melt into the crowd of Demons and—
“Now, I’m not sure where you think you’re going, lass,” Caius said, “but I have need of you, yet.”
She swallowed. “But I thought—”
“I know what you thought. I need you to stay.” He turned back to King Lyriat. “It’s beneath me, but I’m bloody begging—clear the room or take us somewhere else. I don’t care which, as long as there’s a chair.”
With a nod, the king flared his nostrils and planted his feet. He seemed to swell, lines of light tracing over his skin that were so faint she might have imagined them.
“Your king commands you from the castle grounds.” His voice was booming and twisted. “Out, until I say otherwise!”
Demons scattered in a rumbling stampede, most heading for the main doors while others exited through hidden ones she hadn’t noticed before.
Lunara wished she was one of them.
Between one breath and the next, King Lyriat reverted to his usual self, no trace of whatever that had been.
Probably the Demonic rage, ninny. What else would it be?
If that was supposed to be the legendary raging of Demons, then it was disappointing. Powerful, yes, but she’d expected more.
“Do you always have to be so dramatic, you wee arse?” Caius said, rolling his eyes.
Lyriat shrugged. “What point is there in being king if I don’t get to have any fun with it once in a while?”
“What point is there in being king if you can’t bring me a fucking chair, Demonling?
” Caius growled. “I know I’m repeating myself, but my bones are so weary I could fall over, and I don’t give a shite how many times I have to say it now that no one else is around to hear it.
Chair. Seat. Bench. A fucking stool. Anything. ”
Brand and Lyriat shared a long, loaded look.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Caius said, his voice strained but gentle. “I’ll swear on whatever you want me to that the Westrealm is innocent. I’ll give a binding oath if it means finding the truth. Just as you said, Baldrir and Fausta were both victims.”
Another tense moment before the king gave the faintest nod, and she would have sworn the room itself relaxed as the guards who’d remained melted back into the shadows.
“Thank the Sisters.” Brand stepped down off the dais. “My skin was starting to crawl.”
“Same. I hate pretending to be something I’m fucking not—like happy to be standing.”
“Calm yourself,” Brand said, the hint of a laugh in his gravelly voice. “I’m getting to it.”
He moved towards Lunara, their eyes meeting. For a single, heart-stopping second, she was exposed, his hazel stare questioning. Searching. Digging for answers she had no intention of ever giving.
And then he brushed past, breaking the connection as he stretched out his hand in the middle of the hall.
Bleeding moons, you have to get out of here.
The floor beneath her feet vibrated, and flagstones folded back over themselves to leave a gaping hole behind. From out of it, the table and chairs from the night before rose upwards, a marbled platform beneath settling into place.
“Your chair, uncle,” Brand announced.
He hadn’t even broken a sweat.
Hedda and Faldir appeared out of nowhere, moving to take a seat along with everyone else, while Lunara hesitated on the fringes, unsure what to do with herself.
Why are you even here? It doesn’t make any sense!
Meliora had been a childhood friend of Lunara’s mother.
It was the only reason she’d agreed via Cordelia to help, despite the risk to herself.
And she’d only been grateful when Caius’s last real words to her had been ‘No matter what happens, we’ll not be speaking of it, lass.
Ever. It’s not for others to know. I’d have my mate mend well and easy, her name safe from the gossipmongers. ”
She’d died later that night.
He’d left nothing but a note behind, absolving her of any guilt or responsibility. The end of it had been a firm goodbye.
More like good riddance, probably.
To stand there, no idea what they’d be discussing or what he wanted with her, was a practice in torture.
A hand landed on her shoulder and she looked up to find Lyriat beside her. “Come. I’m sure he has good reason for it.”
It was not a comfort when she found Caius directly across the table with his eyes narrowed on her—made infinitely worse when Brand settled in next to her.
Her feet twitched beneath the table, begging her to race home to her cottage. To hide from Imperials and kings. From the Elder Council. From everyone.
Silence reigned as a pair of servants brought platters of breads and cheeses amidst colorful fruits, pitchers and tankards beside.
They disappeared behind a false wall as quietly as they’d come, unaware that everything they’d just left was too vibrant, too appealing.
That the joy of food didn’t belong here right now.
Caius swiped up a cup. “I wasn’t entirely truthful before.”
Talk about an opening salvo.
“The Sisters must be laughing at us,” he muttered. “I came here knowing full well that Baldrir was innocent, but you know how it is. Have to keep up all the appearances, and I hadn’t yet been willing to reveal how, exactly, I knew.”
His gaze was a red-hot iron, searing into her, and she fought the urge to squirm beneath it.
“The second Lyriat said your name, I realized fate had wrapped us up together,” he rasped.
No one said a word, and they were all looking in her direction.
Oh, they cannot be expecting you to carry this conversation.
The nervous breath of laughter that flew across her lips was an absolute abomination. No one should ever be allowed to sound so idiotic.
Brand cleared his throat, his mouth opening and closing a few times. In the end, all he offered was a hopeless look, as if to say I’m sorry, I have no idea either.
“I think you might need to be more specific,” Lyriat said, his voice cutting through the awkward silence like a knife.
She could have wept with gratitude. It helped her make sense of the maelstrom of jumbled thoughts, getting right to the heart of the matter. “Yes, I— Yes. I’m so sorry, Caius, but why am I here? What could any of this possibly have to do with me outside of Baldrir’s healing?”
“Look me in the eye, lass, and hear me without making me say it.”
She did as he asked, even though it made her skin feel too tight.
“There were similarities, aye? Not to the same extent, and it’s not what killed her, but”—He leaned back and plucked at the collar of his robe, at a particularly large, black stain—“it was on her.”
All thoughts drained out of Lunara’s head but one.
No, no, no.
“I’m assuming by the look on your face that the same was not true of Baldrir?”
Lunara shook her head. “N-nothing. I swear. I would’ve noticed.”
“Aye, you’d look less sick about it. Can’t decide whether that’s a good or bad thing, honestly. Both of them at least would have made sense.” His cheeks puffed out, the sigh so weary. “Someone’s fucking with us.”
Lyriat leaned in closer, scanning the soiled linen. “What is it, exactly, and how did it get on you?”
How, indeed. Rash, too, since she and Caius had never confirmed one way or another whether the substance had caused Meliora’s illness, or merely been a byproduct.
Sometimes, though she’d avoided touching it directly, Lunara would swear she could still feel it sticking to her skin like a film. An invisible layer of putrescence that never fully went away, no matter how raw her body was with scrubbing.
“It was Fausta’s resting period, and no one realized anything was wrong until she didn’t show up in the kitchens for her duties. I was called back from the Dread Chasm after they finally found her in the middle of the night.”
“That answers nothing.” Lyriat’s voice was hard, getting impatient.
“It got on me because it’s my job to handle these sorts of things when they happen.
I didn’t see it when I first lifted the lass from the pool of her own blood and carried her body out to her weeping mother,” Caius growled.
“It wasn’t until I handed her over, under the blazing light of Solyrian, that it stood out. Does that answer your question?”
“Partially.”
Caius pounded a fist on the tabletop. “If I knew what it fucking was, then maybe Thad’s mother would still be alive!”
Thaddeus shifted in his seat beside Magnus further down, eyes fixed on the distance.
“Maybe, uncle, if you did not insist on being so secretive, we might be able to figure out what it is together and prevent anyone else from succumbing to the same fate.”
For Brand to go from flopping his mouth like a fish on land, to the seething undertone in his voice was jarring. Strangely, it made her want to reach under the table and clasp his hand, just so he would know that someone was nearby. An anchor, in his storm.
Right. And tomorrow you can go ahead and try to fly. It’s about as realistic as that barmy daydream. Which you should not be having.
Caius’s lip curled back, a spark of light catching one of his canines. “I’ve been awake for days, nephew. I’m not interested in rehashing painful history to appease your curiosity.”
“Da—”
“I said I’m not fucking interested!” The glass tankard Caius was holding shattered in his grip, shards and ale flying everywhere.