SEVENTEEN
Shit .
Cyril had all the clues. All the pieces, tiny but substantial, to this jigsaw puzzle, but he had not figured out how to slot them together until now. Now the picture before him was very clear, only, instead of a field of flowers or a portrait of a dear kitten, the picture formed by the puzzle was a grim heralding of his own death.
He might throw up on this horse. He was sure he would throw up on this horse.
“I am so, so stupid,” he murmured.
Tigris tilted her head up. “What? What is it?”
“There was nothing wrong with him. I am the idiot. I am the fool who was played for years . I had one job, one fucking job in that court and I failed at it so miserably, and so–” The words became difficult to form around the lump swelling in his throat. “There is nothing wrong with him but me .”
“I… can think of many things wrong with Atticus.”
“Not Atticus !” he screamed and the cold wind from the ride buffeted his words, muffled them as though he were speaking through a pillow. “ Eufrates !”
Despite how she looked, desperate to ask more questions, Tigris let him continue.
“I told you about him, did I not? How he was not himself. How he became insensible. How he was paranoid . Diseases of the mind . He wasn’t himself. Perhaps if I had not been so absorbed with being a good grand mage, a proper young prodigy, I would have taken a moment to look beyond my own selfish little nose and into the pattern and seen the entanglement. Seen the threads suffocating him.”
Cyril thought of Eufrates. Young, grieving, struggling to understand the power that had been burdened upon him. He himself could not help, so self-absorbed was he in living up to a legacy, but Atticus – oh, Atticus Wulfsbane was a perfect mentor. A friendly face, a brother-in-law to replace the sister he had tragically lost.
Atticus, the master enchanter, had had free access to his tender, golden-hearted husband for decades .
And he had ruined him.
Cyril was having trouble breathing, or perhaps he was breathing too much, he could not decide.
“And me ?” He let out a high, shrill laugh. “ I’ve no excuse for abetting tyranny save for my own cowardice! I watched him be turned into – into a monster , a ghoul of his former self, and I sat there, and I left him ! Tigris, I left him there alone ! I had no threads of magic guiding me aside from my own blackened heart. It is no wonder I lost everything. It is no wonder I do not have a soul.”
He thought of Eufrates, Eufrates, Eufrates. Eufrates struggling to grasp onto his own sanity, begging him to run away together. Eufrates with a darkened cowl that Cyril had just assumed was his hidden nature. Eufrates ordering an execution but flinching at the sight. Eufrates, alone, having to face the rot on his kingdom while having no idea what was causing it, thinking it just punishment for his deeds. Eufrates here , now , transported all the way back to the beginning and being forced by his own husband to live through the torment all over again.
He had tried, had he not? To reach out. He had asked Cyril, so many times, what he was doing. When he pulled him close, when he clawed and grasped at him. He had asked about Tigris. He had been the one to first suggest preventing her death.
Cyril felt the hot tears burn his eyes and dry on his cheeks against the rush of cold air. His shoulders shook and he sobbed, sobbed so loud he was sure any moment a creature from deep in the woods they were traversing would find him and tear out his guts with its teeth. If he were not so concerned about Tigris and the horse, he would seek the beast out himself.
It was a wonder he managed to stay upright on the mount.
Tigris watched him. She did not say a word. She did not reach to him with a paw, or touch her soft head to his chest, or do anything that would comfort him. She just watched . Cyril was eternally grateful. He did not deserve comfort. He did not deserve kindness. He had let her brother be driven to madness, and he should hang for it.
“Cyril…” she said, finally, after his sobs had calmed down into a quiet weeping, the salt of the tears crusting over his face and lashes and blotting his vision.
He nodded towards her, to indicate he was listening.
“If he… was under Atticus’s control where you are from. Is it still happening now?”
Cyril shook his head. His voice came out cracked and hoarse. “I do not think so…”
“Then why…?”
“Tigris, if you had been poisoned for a score of your life, what do you think would happen?”
Tigris sniffed. “I would develop an immunity to it.”
He did not think it possible, not for the rest of his life, but the small huff of a chuckle escaped his lips. How very like her.
“What about your brother?”
“…He would–” Her face fell in realisation. “He would internalize it.”
He grimaced. “Just so.”
She was quiet for a moment, then said with great urgency, “We have to go to him!”
“Yes.”
“I am serious, Cyril, we have to–” She paused. “Yes?”
“Yes, Tigris. He needs to know.”
Cyril yanked on the reins and urged the horse to ride faster, breakneck along the beaten path that led back to Farsala. The wind against his face turned from a cool gust to a constant sting. He had not dressed for travel, so his hands burned red, and his ears hurt so badly he wanted to slice them off.
No matter what, he would make it to Eufrates. He would find him and tell him everything. He would not beg forgiveness; he would only await judgement.
Cyril thought about the letter. He had memorised every line.
His husband had made him a promise.
They made it there with the sun cresting over a copse of pine to the west. It wouldn’t be long until nightfall, when the palace would be engulfed in darkness.
If he were smart, he would wait until then to make his entrance. Under cover of shadows, like the rat he was. But, as had been already made abundantly clear, Cyril was very stupid.
It was decided they would scale up the window to Eufrates’s chambers. They left Titania tied to a tree in a grove just outside the palace and Cyril cast a spell upon them that rendered them sight unseen, invisible to the eye unless one knew what they were looking for. This is how they arrived at the wall to the east wing, underneath the regent’s lofty windows.
He let Tigris climb onto his back, digging her claws into his shoulders to get a good hold on him without a word of complaint. After dropping the first spell, he wove another to make them light as air, gliding up the rocky side of the wall with ease. It was the only way Cyril would ever be able to perform such a feat.
He reached the balcony outside the room, balancing precariously on the railing before he jumped down from it on silent, slippered feet – again, he had not dressed for travel – and he hesitated at the glass door.
It was one thing to be committed to doing something that would most certainly break your heart. It was another entirely to actually follow through with it. He needed a moment to brace himself, to breathe. He wiped the salty rheum from his eyes and slapped his cheeks for courage. The curtains were drawn, so he could not see inside, but the door was unlocked.
Slowly, he pushed in.
It was like looking into a crime scene.
The crime was suicide.