Chapter 45
Lyriat jolted, the three-petaled blooms he’d been gathering flying from his hand. “What the fuck!”
Normally, Lunara might’ve been shaking in her boots, red with embarrassment at treating a Realm Ruler thus. Right now, she couldn’t be bothered to care. “I require the payment that is due to me.”
“Hello to you, too.” He bent and retrieved the flowers from the ground. “Would either of you care to explain why you’ve appeared in my garden?”
Araxis cleared his throat, chin ticking upwards. “There are many reasons, Your Majesty. All of them good, none of them your business unless she or he would like to share it.”
He didn’t wait for a response before disappearing in a winking flash. Probably back to Argoph.
Probably back to Nachthelliae, to tell everyone he bleeding can that you’ve been found.
Interesting. She didn’t give a fuck about that either.
Lyriat loosed a long-suffering sigh. “Do I even want to know?”
Solyrian hadn’t yet cleared the mountain peaks, though the light was bright enough to see. They stood at the base of the biggest tree Lunara had ever seen, its feathered needles littering the ground nearly as long as her arm.
All around them, the trilliatum were rampant, punching up through the tree’s detritus in shades of emerald and ivory. Possibly the most stunning plant she’d ever seen, but she didn’t care.
Didn’t care. Didn’t care. Didn’t care.
Good. Just as it should be.
Maybe if she repeated it to herself enough, it would be true.
“I am the Keeper of Illamiata.”
That brought him up short. His brows popped up high enough to nearly disappear into his copper hairline. “Going by the look on your face, I assume this was something of a surprise?”
To his credit, he didn’t seem repulsed by or terrified of her. Something, at least. Hard to have a conversation if someone’s running away screaming.
“Yes. Entirely.”
He nodded, depositing his collection into a wicker basket. “Brand knows?”
“Yes.”
Lyriat’s mossy eyes narrowed as he straightened. “But not that you’re gone.”
Her heart turned over with a sickening thud. “No.”
“Lunara…” Another sigh, this one almost pained as he pinched the bridge of his nose.
“I attacked the Imperial Family. Committed treason.”
Crossing his arms, he looked utterly bored—as if she hadn’t admitted to being guilty of an offense punishable by death.
“Something tells me that Araxis—the Blessed Nightmare of the Endless Dark, and a male known for his relentless pursuit of transgressors—wouldn’t have happily dumped a traitor of the empire at my feet. ”
“I was completely out of control!” She threw her arms out, but reeled them in just as quickly when she felt another spark of wayward power tingling in her fingertips, like something had been awakened by finding out what she was.
“I haven’t laid eyes on the Tear Stone in over five decades, and already it has a hold on me.
I misted thrice without knowing. Everyone is in danger.
” It belatedly dawned on her that she was in the presence of a Realm Ruler—not a simple friend—and her breaths picked up speed.
“Weeping Sisters…” She took an abrupt step away from him, then another.
“I shouldn’t even be here. I shouldn’t be anywhere.
Please, Lyriat—you owe me. Get me out of here. ”
“What about the Fae?”
“What does she have to do with this?”
“The twins, Baldrir and Nyri, and Thaddeus have kept a constant watch over her—in pairs, as you requested. They’ve followed your instructions. Fern, however, remains unchanged.”
Lunara’s hands sank into her hair, fisting at the scalp. Maybe the pain would ground her. Would make it make sense. “So?”
“You haven’t finished healing her.”
“What?” She searched the ground for answers, finding nothing. “I’m telling you that I’m a monster, that I need your help, and you’re worried about her? You hired me easily enough—find someone else. I don’t understand why it has to be—”
“You’re not the only one capable of remembering deals, Lunara. Fern is a surprise you’ve not yet seen finished.”
She barked out a disbelieving laugh. “Are you joking?”
“Not in the least.”
Under any other circumstance, Lunara would’ve been more than happy to stay and fulfill that duty, even if it was a stretch. She genuinely cared about the Fae and her wellbeing. Had bonded with her in the way only a healer and their charge can.
She wasn’t a healer anymore, though. She wasn’t safe.
Lunara paced away, unable to wrap her mind around what was happening. “You’re pushing it… Twisting it…”
“No. I’m refusing your payment until you do what you were hired to do.”
Cunning Demon arsehole.
He was technically correct, though she could probably find some way to refute it. Except, by the time they came to any sort of agreement, she could’ve gotten it over with and appeased him. If he wanted to bend the rules, well…
“Fine,” she spat, “but if you’re going to manipulate the terms, then I’m adding on to my part.”
“Oh?”
“You take me away the second she’s awake. The second, Lyriat. And…”
She could hardly say the words. Coming here and being demanding was one thing. Actually following through and making it a binding agreement was another. It would kill the last speck of hope she was clinging to, and she wasn’t sure how to survive it.
“And?”
You must.
“Brand can never know where I am.” Her voice cracked. “He can never find me or see me again. Once I’m gone, I no longer exist to him.”
“You’re asking me to destroy my best friend in this world.”
“No.” An invisible hand tightened around her throat, her eyes welling. So much for not caring. “I’m asking you to help me destroy myself, so I can save him.”
“Lunara, that’s not—”
“Do you think this is what I want?!” she wailed, the tears breaking free. “That this fucking tragedy is the ending I envisioned? The story that’s played out in my dreams?”
“I—”
She couldn’t take it anymore. It was just too much. Too much.
“I’m not asking you.” Lunara fell to her knees, her hands planting themselves into the soil. “I’m begging you.”
She fucking hated the pity in his eyes—she had enough of it for herself, she didn’t need his.
“Please, Lunara, don’t— Shite.” He scrubbed a hand over his face, looking to the lightening sky. “Fine. It will be done.”
Brand’s eyes snapped open, the empty, untouched space on the other side of the bed staring back, taunting him, and he knew right down to his very soul—Luna was gone.
She’d fucking left him.
While she’d been passed out after the drama in the study, his father had guided him through building safeguards into the bond, to help the two of them cope. Brand had followed his father’s instructions and laid brick after brick between them to give her some space.
Stupidest fucking thing he’d ever done.
He should have let her feel his devastation.
His ruin. Every raw lash of anguish tearing through him after she’d tried to fucking end herself like it was nothing.
Maybe he’d have felt her shutting him out.
Maybe he would’ve known what she was planning and they could’ve avoided this whole stars-damned travesty.
The betrayal was a crushing fist around his heart. He sucked in breaths, trying to stay calm. To think.
Damn it. He thought he’d gotten through to her. That she’d—
Wait.
There, beneath the lingering moonlight and amber spice, was the faintest scent of caramel spirits and desert orange—and only one creature he knew drank that specific concoction. Someone who terrified her.
No.
Brand’s roar shook Argoph to its foundations, from the monolithic pillars to the tiniest pebbles. The rage was so sudden, so blinding, that it stole his conscious mind.
He had no idea how he ended up in the throne room, the whole of the Weeping City awash in bloody, pounding hues, and he didn’t care.
No, there was only one fucking thing he cared about.
“Araxis!”
Stone surged like a roiling sea and courtiers scattered like insects, their screams nothing more than an irritating muffle beneath his furious bellows.
“Araxis aht Bordoroth, you come and fucking face me!”
Brand was going to choke the life out of his younger brother. If he’d hurt her, forced her…
All of the Evesong would pay. He’d tear Starkeep from the bloody fucking sky if he had to.
“Araxis, where is—”
A spear pulled tight across his throat, strangling him.
Vines shot up from the tempestuous floor, snapping at his arms and torso, coiling around his horns.
Ice crackled through the carnage to seize his legs.
Howls and curses shrieked above the din of the falls.
Tighter and colder, more and more, until there was nowhere for his breaths to go and the world bled from crimson to spotty black.
Brand buckled, his knees hitting the marble with a booming crack.
The spear vanished and vines loosened, and sensation rushed back into Brand’s body with the first free gulp of air. And still, there was only one thought worth expressing.
“Where is Araxis?” he rumbled, fighting to keep himself steady. They’d trap him again if they knew how close he was to the edge.
The Imperial Family picked through the wreckage, almost bored, but slightly worse for wear.
His parents murmured to the couple of brave guards and servants who’d remained.
Vann and Amun were brushing themselves off.
Magnus was retying his robe, an oozing cut on his cheek. Amal had a wary eye fixed on Brand.
No Araxis.
“Release me.”
“You need to keep breathing, son,” Alwyn murmured. Calm and gentle, like it could possibly make a difference. Only half paying attention as he continued doling out whatever instructions. “As soon as you’re calm, we’ll talk.”
“I’m as calm as I’m going to be until I find my mate,” Brand growled. “Araxis took her, and I want to fucking know where—”
“I’m here.”
Araxis appeared from the ether, chin held high—as if he hadn’t bloody betrayed him.
“What the fuck did you do?”
The arsehole only stood taller. “As I was asked.”