Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Rydian
Three days stretched into what felt like three hundred as I sat in the bone-chilled dungeons of Grey Oak Keep.
Water trickled somewhere nearby, though I didn’t bother to look for it.
Not when it would likely be moldy or worse.
The air smelled of unwashed bodies and rat dung.
Every so often, chains clinked; the only sign I wasn’t down here alone.
No one spoke to me except a guard on day two, who told me, “The king will see you when he’s ready, and not before,” which was not a response so much as a door closing on what power I once might have wielded in this court.
Power that had been relinquished when I’d run Koraz through with my own sword. When I’d stood by as Aurelia unleashed furyfire on the Autumn king—my father.
I hoped the bastard rotted in Hel. Koraz with him. Thanks to the magic-infested wound Koraz left at my hip, I wasn’t convinced I wouldn’t be joining them.
At least, Aurelia was safe.
I could only hope the others would remain at her side, showing her the way the gods had laid out for us all.
On the morning of the third day, boots stopped outside my cell. Keys scraped. Light cleaved the dark as the door swung inward, and a captain I half-remembered said, without looking at my face, “Up.”
They took me not to the gallows but to a guest wing where a bathing chamber containing a basin full of steaming water greeted me. A servant kept his eyes on the tiles and handed me a razor. I washed three days of grime from my skin and let the heat loosen the ache from my shoulders.
When I emerged, clothes waited: a clean tunic, trousers that still smelled of lye, boots that fit.
“Why the charity?” I asked the captain when he returned.
The captain looked at me then, and I saw the regret flash. “You deserved better than a cell for all you’ve done for the Autumn people.”
“Thank you,” I told him.
He cleared his throat, blinked—and the kindness was gone. “The king has summoned you,” he said gruffly. “Don’t keep him waiting.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
The corridors of Grey Oak were too quiet for a palace that had just crowned a new king.
Torchlight skimmed the stone like oil. Servants moved in hushes, their eyes averted, as if sound alone might crack the veneer holding the halls together.
The scent of damp earth threaded with smoke drifted in from the courtyard beyond—rain had come and gone, carrying away the ash from where Duron’s body had been burned to dust on that fateful night.
I didn’t slow. My steps found the old paths without thought—past the east gallery where Duron’s hunting trophies leered from their mounts; through the colonnade the sunlight never fully reached; down the wide hall that had been so intimidating when I was a boy walking these halls.
A guard outside the royal antechamber shifted his spear to bar my way. Fletcher, of course. He’d always been one of Callan’s favorites. “The king is—”
“Waiting,” I said, and pushed the haft aside with two fingers.
The door clicked shut behind me.
The hush inside the chamber was different—thicker, clotted with something that didn’t break apart when I crossed the threshold. Something that nearly pulled me forward, whether I willed it or not.
Callan stood at the table beneath the south window, crown set beside a spread of maps. Rain left pearls on the panes; the storm had left the glass streaked, and the light came through in broken bands that cut his face into pieces—light, shadow, light.
On the table between us, placed carefully over the maps he studied, lay a jeweled crown.
I recognized it vaguely from Duron’s collection, but even he rarely wore such an ostentatious piece.
It was far more ornate than necessary, especially in private company, which meant it was a message.
To remind me of who each of us had become in this kingdom.
To remind me of who held power—and who didn’t.
“You won’t be charged with treason,” he said, voice scraped flat.
A dozen answers rose and fell in me. I chose none of them. “No?”
“Several members of the court,” he went on, “have given statements that you were… attempting to apprehend Aurelia at the scene.” A muscle ticked along his jaw.
“They claim she assassinated my father with her demon-gifted magic, then escaped with aid from the Withered—and the Midnight Court fae she is clearly working with.”
The words landed carefully between us.
I let a beat pass. “You and I both know that’s a ludicrous claim.”
His chin came up, his jaw hardening. “It’s the truth, and the people have a right to know it.”
“Do they have a right to know I’m half-midnight?”
“Of course not.” He didn’t flinch. “How would that look,” he asked softly, “if my midnight-fae brother helped my fiancée kill my father?” He breathed out, and a crack showed beneath the new edges.
“They would wonder what was between them to cause the bastard prince to do such a thing.” Rage flashed, sinking beneath the surface of his calm facade.
“That is a story I prefer not to tell—especially as I begin my rule as king.”
I watched as he inhaled shakily, collecting himself again.
“What do you want from me, Callan?” I asked.
“Gone,” he said bitterly. “I want you gone. This is no longer your home.”
“It never was my home,” I said.
Something flickered in his eyes—hurt or history, I couldn’t tell. “If that is how you want it, then we’ll do it your way. If you are found inside Grey Oak’s borders again, I will treat you as the law would treat any foreign spy and have you executed.”
He moved then, not away from me, but toward, closing the space with that controlled grace he liked to pretend was gentleness.
I suddenly realized why the room had felt so thick when I’d arrived.
Callan was no longer dulling his power. The scent of vervain, his little trick for suppressing it, was long gone from where it had once clung to his skin.
His mouth twisted as he crowded me. “Where is she?”
“Alive.”
“Where,” he said again.
Over his shoulder, the rain scratched at the glass like a thing trying to get in.
I didn’t answer, wondering how long before he touched me. Before he compelled the truth from my tongue.
He took the last step. His fist came with it.
The first punch exploded brightly behind my eyes. The second forced me back a step. Pain rang clean and absolute, shuddering all the way to my still-tender hip. I did not give him a third.
His fist landed in my palm. For a moment, I did not yield it to him, and his eyes blazed with fury that I knew would never truly extinguish between us as long as we both lived.
He stepped back, yanking his hand with him, and I let him have it. Gingerly, I touched the new bruise blossoming on my cheekbone. The bastard had a stronger left hook than I imagined. Good for him.
“Are you finished?” I asked.
He turned away and braced both hands on the table. His right knuckles bloomed purple already.
“You had no right to take her from me,” he said.
“You were going to put her in chains.”
“I was going to keep her safe.” He lifted his head, anger scalding his grief clean. He pushed off the table’s edge, straightening. “The court is already saying she bewitched me. That she murdered him to make room for herself. That I—” He bit the word in half, and the room swallowed it.
“So tell them the truth.”
“Which truth is that, brother? Your betrayal? Hers?”
“About Duron. What he intended to do to her. What he should never have done to his own people.”
His gaze met mine—king and boy at once.
“Where is she?” he said, softer. Not a demand. A plea.
“Somewhere you will not follow.”
“You think there’s anywhere in this realm I won’t find her?”
“There are places even you can’t go,” I said. “Doors that will not open for even an Autumn king.”
He held my stare.
“You always told me she was wrong for me,” he said. “All this time—it was you who was wrong for her.”
I pretended he hadn’t hit a mark.
He cocked his head. “Oh, you thought I didn’t know? That I was too stupid to realize you touched what was supposed to be mine?”
“We never meant to hurt you, brother.”
His expression twisted, and I realized, too late, it was the wrong thing to say. “I don’t have a brother anymore.”
I didn’t bother to argue for myself. There was too much history between us. And too much of our father in the male who stood before me now.
“Her role is far more important than whatever you think you feel for her,” I told him.
His eyes closed a fraction, and for a second, I wondered if I’d finally talked reason into him. When he opened them, the king had returned.
“You’re banished,” he said—each syllable deceptively soft. “From Grey Oak. From Autumn’s borders. If you’re seen inside them again, I’ll make good on every threat I’ve just spared you. Same goes for her. If she’s caught, she’ll be charged with murder and treason and dealt with accordingly.”
“Will you turn your back on an alliance with the Chosen One then? Risk your kingdom’s destruction over your own broken ego?”
The muscle along his jaw worked, then eased. A dozen answers moved behind his eyes. “You always hated me,” he said finally, but there was no bite left in it. “From the first day you arrived in this hall, dripping with your stupid shadows.”
“I never hated you,” I said. “I hated him for what he did to you. And who you became.”
His breath shuddered out. It almost sounded like a laugh. Almost. “I should have killed you in the yard when we were twelve,” he said, voice hoarse.
“You couldn’t then,” I said sadly. “You can’t now.”
“Get out,” he spat with enough force that I turned to go.
The guards closed around me like a tide, releasing me only once I’d exited the castle and reached the outer gate.
Outside, the rain had eased to a mist that made the lamps gutter. The courtyard smelled of wet stone, wet iron, wet leaves—everything washed, but nothing clean.
My eye and hip both throbbed in time with my steps. I couldn’t bring myself to feel relieved that he’d let me go. That I’d see her again after all. To be banished from Grey Oak, to be at odds with its king, only meant this would be harder in the end.
Outside the gates, I did not turn toward the road that led to my townhouse in the city.
Instead, I turned my feet toward the only place in this realm that didn’t require a blood oath from me for entry.
Frithhold was a hidden hinge in the crook of a mountain made from ancient midnight magic.
In a place where time stood still. Where Fate waited for a choice from us all.