Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
Kent
The journey from Eagirton to the small village I’d grown up in had passed quickly. Rankor had complained about the awful weather as we went, but I had been unabashedly excited to see my mother and sisters. There was nothing quite like being here.
I loved this town.
I loved our small cottage, which always smelled of salty seawater and freshly baked bread.
I loved the constant sound of the waves crashing against our narrow beach.
I loved it all.
“So, this is where you grew up?” Rankor asked with an appreciative whistle.
I snorted a laugh. Rankor did not seem suited to the fisherman’s life.
He’d wrinkled his nose the second the acidic smell of the ocean hit us, and he hadn’t relaxed since.
“It’s home.”
He made a small huff under his breath. That word meant different things to each of us. The concept of a home away from the castle was foreign to him. I’d never been to visit the small village he’d been born in, but I didn’t think it was too different from this.
Rankor’s father had taken him to the castle before he could even walk, though.
I, however, spent my childhood here, surrounded by family, friends, and love.
Gods, I’d had so much to love in this small town.
I’d loved the father who died before he got to see me as a man.
I’d loved the mother and sisters who still wrote me letters every chance they could.
I’d even loved a girl once. She’d chosen a simpler life than the one I could offer her but I couldn’t return to this village without thinking of our days spent together and smiling.
The castle had become something special to me, too, just like it had for Rankor. He and Clay had become the brothers I’d never had.
But this was home.
“Does it always smell like this?” Rankor shifted his weight uncomfortably.
I threw him a crooked smile. “Do you always smell like that?”
“Rude!” He held a hand to his chest in mock offense before subtly dipping his head to sniff at himself. “I guess I probably could use a bath.”
We’d only been on the road for a few days, but a few days spent on horseback and nights spent sleeping in makeshift tents were long enough for a thin layer of grime to coat our skin.
“You and me both.”
“A bath. A pint of ale. A beautiful woman.” Rankor’s voice turned wistful as he stared ahead at where the town square was coming into view. “I don’t suppose this village has all three?”
The village consisted mainly of small cottages with thatched roofs spread around a single square.
We had a small temple that doubled as a meeting place when necessary and enough merchants to cover the necessities—food, fishing gear like nets and lines, clothing—but otherwise lacked any of the extravagancies he was used to.
There weren’t even enough stores to consider describing it as a market.
We certainly didn’t have the rowdy taverns he was hoping for.
“Do you ever think of anything other than getting drunk and between a woman’s thighs?”
My words were a half-hearted tease because, truthfully, the idea of being between a woman’s thighs actually sounded pretty damn good right now.
“I’m sure we can find a lovely lady for you, too. What do you say?”
“We’re going to be staying in a house with my mother and teenage sisters,” I reminded him with a raised brow.
Rankor rolled his eyes dramatically. “You’ve gotten far too serious in your elder years.”
“Elder years?”
He was a year older than me.
“When was the last time you and I went traveling together? Visiting the local pubs? Losing ourselves in some merriment?” Rankor gazed across the sky. “Spending nights with the attitude that tomorrow isn’t guaranteed is the only good part about war.”
My gut clenched unhappily. The three of us, Clay included, had certainly done plenty of that during the Great War.
There had been more times than I’d like to recall that we had all woken up with raging headaches next to women whose names we couldn’t remember.
That had been years ago, though. That had been a war amongst Descendants, not a war against a God.
“Things are different now.”
“How so?”
“Clay has Thea now, for one.”
During those nights, Clay had been the most successful of us all.
Not a woman in the kingdom had turned him down.
He hadn’t even needed to tell them he was a prince.
He’d just throw out that charming smile and let his eyes flash golden for a moment, and they fell all over him, sometimes two or three at a time.
He had reveled in it too. The attention. The freedom to do and say whatever he wished, away from his father. Clay had been absolutely relentless in his wildness.
Now he just had eyes for one woman.
Rankor huffed. “Okay, and what’s your excuse?”
I didn’t have one. Not really.
There was just far too much on my mind lately to consider meaningless frivolity.
“You desperately need some fun,” Rankor criticized, leaning side to side to stretch out his back. “I swear, you’re too serious for your own good.”
I sighed, feeling a sense of heaviness fall over me. “The time for fun has passed.”
We were fighting one of the most powerful Gods in all of existence. There was nothing fun about that.
A gust of icy wind slapped us, sending prickles of pain against my cheeks. Rankor looked away, jaw twitching, and I fought against the way my magic instinctively lurched towards him, sensing the sudden change of emotion in him.
“Reality is going to find us whether we like it or not, Kent.”
My magic recoiled urgently, snapping away from Rankor and towards someone else—someone feeling something much more intensely than he was.
Fuck.
My powers roared, latching onto a sudden heaviness that left me jutting forward, cowering over the clench in my gut. An inky darkness of emotion was spreading from the path that led to the docks.
“What’s wrong?” Rankor jerked to alertness, his eyes narrowing on the path in front of us.
No.
After so many years of managing my powers, I could block out almost any emotion. I could sever the connection to someone else’s feelings like it was second nature. The only time I struggled was when the emotions were too strong, too unbearable for me to stop myself from letting them sink into me.
Times like this, when it flooded me so completely that I drowned in it.
Desperation.
Despair.
Sadness.
Grief.
“No,” I whispered.
I didn’t say another word; I couldn’t.
With nothing more than a desperate look in Rankor's direction, I kicked my right heel into the side of my horse and leaned my weight forward. The wind sliced through me as I charged down that path.
The path that led to my family’s cottage.
Rankor heeled behind me, the heavy footfall of his horse only seconds behind mine.
Dirt kicked up around us in a plume that invaded the air.
When we made it to the small wooden cottage, I threw myself off the steed and burst forward without a moment of hesitation.
The door kicked against the wall as I threw it open and took in the familiar sitting room and dusty kitchen.
I felt the tug of Kreyana’s emotions first, felt the burst of shock and fear when she saw me. She jumped, dropping the porcelain mixing bowl she’d had in her hands.
It shattered at her feet.
Fear.
Surprise.
Relief.
Pain.
“Kent.” My name was a breath against her full lips.
The house was quiet, the only sound being that of the cracking wood in the hearth. And yet, it was cold. Despite the raging fire, there was a noticeable chill that fell over me as I stepped over the threshold.
The cold of sadness.
“Kressida?” I demanded, looking up the staircase that led to the room Kreyana shared with her twin sister. There weren’t any emotions leaking out of the top floor of the house, though. Kressida and Mother weren’t here.
Kreyana bent to the ground, picking up the shattered pieces of the bowl as she avoided my gaze.
“Ouch!” she hissed as a shard sliced open the tip of her finger. We both remained still, watching the blood bead there for a second before she sucked it into her mouth.
I ignored the twinge of pain in my chest as I bent down and helped her collect the tiny, fragmented porcelain pieces.
A wave of concern pushed into me as Rankor stepped into the house, and I pushed his feelings away forcefully, shutting down the small connection that had formed between us.
“She’s in town, making preparations.”
I felt my heartbeat skip. “Preparations for what?”
Somehow, I already knew the answer as she lifted her head and met my gaze.
Her dark eyes were wide, but serious—too serious for someone still so young. She sighed, setting down the pieces of the bowl she’d gathered, to rest her hand on my shoulder. Gods, she looked so much like my mother when she did that.
“She’s preparing for the memorial.”
I lost control.
Magic rushed in me so forcefully that I fell backwards, my wrists and tailbone stinging as I caught myself. My throat tightened as a torrent of emotion flowed through me. I choked on the metallic taste of it.
“What?” I didn't quite recognize the sound of my own voice.
Kreyana tilted her head, her sympathy pounding into me. I couldn’t tell where I ended and others began. Were these emotions mine, or someone else’s? I could barely even disentangle the strands enough to tell what they were feeling, let alone who was feeling it.
Sadness.
Worry.
Despair.
Fear.
Was that Rankor’s pity or Kreyana’s?
Was it her grief or… mine?
I felt Rankor stepping closer to me as her eyes filled with tears and her fingers reached for mine. “Mother passed in her sleep two nights ago.”
No fire could have warmed the chill that remained within the hollow of my chest.
Not the fire in the hearth, which Rankor had taken responsibility for maintaining.
Not the torches that my sisters and I had carried as we marched through the town square, leading everyone in the village towards the dock.
Certainly not my mother’s funeral pyre, which had long ago sailed out on the ocean waves.
No, that unfeeling ice had remained rooted deeply inside me as I’d sat on the beach well into the night watching the pyre disappear in the distance.
I’d watched it until it was so small I had to squint to make out the shape.
Eventually, the flames died out, and then there was nothing left of my mother.
Still, I couldn’t bring myself to move away from the empty beach.
As a Siren, I was always so filled with emotion.
I was acutely aware not only of my every feeling, but of everyone else’s too.
It was exhausting to be so constantly in tune with everyone else.
But times like this were by far the worst. My own feelings were so loud they were suffocating.
Everyone else’s just felt like lances aimed straight at me.
At least alone, by the water, I felt nothing but the cold sea air.
It was a sweet release. A momentary break from the reality that was bearing down on me.
My mother had been the first, but she wouldn’t be the last loved one I lost before this was all over.
Would Kreyana and Kressida be next?
Iris?
Rankor?
All of them?
The wood of the dock creaked in the distance, and my momentary peace snapped at the sudden sensation of Rankor’s worry seeping into my skin.
“Your sisters have finished packing,” he said, lowering himself next to me.
I glanced sideways at him, noticing the dampness of his hair and his freshly shaven face. He must have bathed while the twins prepared for our journey.
“I couldn’t have done this without you,” I admitted.
It was a small blessing that Rankor had been here during the memorial. My sisters had been sending me needy glances constantly. They wanted me to comfort them, to ease their grief, but I didn’t have it in me. Rankor had thankfully taken over managing them.
It was my own fault they’d become so dependent on me. I was the one who willingly stepped into the role of their father figure.
And now I could barely stand to be around them.
So, Rankor had cared for the girls when Kressida had arrived home, and they’d both started crying.
While I, on the other hand, had stormed out of the house and shouted at them to stay the fuck away from me.
Rankor had then gone throughout the village and told the others about Hyrax.
He warned everyone to be on alert and be prepared to flee.
He’d even gathered a small number of men who were willing to take up arms for their king.
He had continued with the plan like a true soldier, while I had sat on this beach and stared at the waves, nursing a bottle of whiskey.
He clapped me on the back gently. “We should get moving.”
There was a heaviness in his voice, a measure of sympathy that made the lump in my throat feel even more pronounced.
“I thought I’d have more time.”
Rankor sighed, reaching over to take the now-empty bottle out of my hand. “Every day we spend here puts the princesses in more danger. We have to get to them.”
That wasn’t what I meant.
“Before I lost someone,” I clarified, turning to meet his gaze. “I thought I’d have more time before I had to mourn.”
That was the true tragedy in all of this. Not that she died. I had expected the people I loved to die.
It’s that she died before I prepared myself for this feeling.
“Where do you think she went?” I wondered aloud, lifting my eyes to the stars that splattered themselves across the sky.
I couldn’t get the question out of my mind.
Hyrax was here. Pasnia was dead. Thea had opened those portals and allowed the Underworld to spill into our realm.
So, what was left of the Underworld now? Did it still exist without someone to rule it?
Rankor was quiet for a long moment. “She’s at peace. I have to believe that.”
“You don’t know, though. None of us do. Not anymore.”
He cleared his throat, following my gaze upward. “Then we’ll ask Thea. We’ll ask her the second we get her back.”
As if the solution were that simple.
He said it so easily, as if Thea could just pop into the Underworld and come back and tell me that my mother was happy.
“You’re assuming she has her powers.”
She hadn’t when we left the castle. If they’d come back, why hadn’t she returned already?
Rankor sighed and stood, brushing off the tiny grains of sand from his pants. “Right now, we all have to assume that.”
I looked at the ocean once more, focusing on the sound of the waves crashing onto the shore. In and out. Slamming down and then retreating. It was a kind of steady, reliable pattern that existed nowhere else in this realm.
Rankor extended a hand down to me, and I let him pull me to my feet, following his lead back to the house where our horses and my sisters waited for us to continue onward.
Onward to Rankor’s brother and Clay’s sister, as if this memorial for my mother were nothing more than an unfortunate stop in the journey that was war.