Chapter Eleven #3
“I believe so. I believe the elixir she used on you and Quinn was one of those. There were markings on the shards of the glass vessel we found in the throne room.”
Cyrus has been busy while I’ve been gone. “So explain what you’re suggesting.”
“If you were to take one of those elixirs in one of those glass dispersal vessels and drop it, say, from a griffin into their camp, you might be able to clear a great number of them with a small force.”
“So they die defenseless or never walk again? Father, come on. This is insane. Look at what happened to me. Ronan, you can’t be considering this.”
But I have to consider this. If Cyrus is right—if the elixir merely immobilizes people and only temporarily, if what happened to Quinn was just a freak accident caused by a fall that could have happened under any other circumstance, then maybe it would be worth it.
Sylvie and Taran might be knocked out themselves, but if we had a small group on the ground to retrieve them and take them back to the boat—
“But I thought all the elixirs were destroyed during the Guild raid,” says Typhon, confused. “Obviously Adria had some, but the rest of them should be gone now.”
Cyrus’s feelings shift uncomfortably: from fear, as he realizes he’s been caught in a lie, to regret, either for doing it or just for me finding out.
Then it’s true. He lied to me about the elixirs’ destruction.
“We—I and some of the other viziers—thought there might be value in them. In the research. We couldn’t see the use in destroying them, not when they were within our control.”
“Sylvie was within our control until she wasn’t,” I snap. I rise slowly, letting my height intimidate Cyrus. “You will never lie to me again, for any reason.”
“Yes, sir. I’m sorry, sir.” He almost sounds sincere, but my trust in him has been shattered. I can barely stand to look at him. “But the plan…” he starts, his voice trailing off when he sees my face.
“If Cyrus is right,” begins Queen Claudia.
She looks at me for permission to speak—a strange thing, coming from my grandmother, but it’s the respect she shows me in formal situations.
I nod. “If using the elixirs could bring them back with minimal loss of life, it would not only benefit you, Ronan. It would mean Nithyria loses its greatest bargaining chip.”
She’s right. I know it, but the betrayal is too fresh for me to see anything but ulterior motives where Cyrus is concerned.
If he lied to me about this, he may have been lying to me all along.
He may have some other motive I’m not aware of yet, something that will only be revealed if I’m foolish enough to continue trusting his counsel.
But dismissing him now would put me at even greater risk.
He knows more than almost anyone about our defenses, our strengths, our strategies.
And it’s also possible that Cyrus only kept this one thing from me because he knew how I would respond if he asked me to keep the elixirs, even though he was right about it, as he’s just proven.
“Your majesty?” asks Larus, raising his hand. I’m still unaccustomed to seeing him without his dreads. He favors Typhon a bit as they sit near each other, both of them now bald and with similarly in-over-their-heads demeanors. “If I may.”
“Please, Larus,” I say with a deep sigh.
I’m beyond tired—not just from lack of sleep, though that’s a huge part of it, but I’m also just tired of all of this.
Tired of the politics and the betrayals and the lies.
I know Larus is as capable of that as anyone here, but I know he’s also as committed to getting Sylvie back as I am.
“If you do what Cyrus is suggesting, it may work. It probably will work. But if something goes wrong, if the elixir doesn’t work like you’re expecting, I don’t know if Sylvie will be able to forgive you.”
Sylvie. Fuck, I need her. That’s exactly what’s wrong here. I need her here to help remind me that there might be another way, another option beyond violence. I need her calming presence; I need her to remind me who I am. Who I’ve chosen to be.
Larus is right. If I compromise who I am and what I believe in so that I can get her back, I’m no better than who I’m fighting.
I would burn the world down for her. There’s a part of me that will always want that, a part of me that will not hesitate to destroy anyone who threatens her, anyone who dares to harm her. And I know she accepts that part of me, that she understands that sometimes there truly are no other options.
But the man she fell in love with is someone who has to try to find another path. And she’s that person, too. It’s why I fell in love with her. She believes in redemption, in renewal, even when it feels impossible. Even for people who don’t deserve it.
She’s probably in that camp right now trying to get Seth to repent and let her go.
She will protect Taran. They will protect each other while we find another way. I believe in them.
“I agree,” I tell Larus.
“Good,” he replies. “Because I have an idea that just might work.”