Chapter 37
Drystan could not have been more apologetic if he repented before the Goddess herself. His monster hadn’t hurt anyone. There was no blood on him when he finally returned to himself around dawn in the snow-ridden courtyard. But he hadn’t been able to contain his beast either. Ceridwen had been there. She’d seen the change and been in harm’s way, even if she dodged it this time.
“We won’t try that again. It’s too risky,” he insisted.
“But we’re running out of time,” Ceridwen replied.
How could she not understand the danger he put her in? If she hadn’t left when she did, he could have fully transformed in front of her. He could have harmed her. He’d wrestled with the beast long after she left, trying everything to contain it despite the agony it caused, but it won. It always won.
Yes, it was less than two weeks until midwinter. The sand in his hourglass was nearing its end, but he’d rather fail than harm her.
Drystan paced in front of the crackling fire in Ceridwen’s room. She’d led him there, a safe place where they could talk. He usually preferred his study, but he was grateful for the change today. With light flowing through the windows and her scent teasing him, it soothed some of the aftershocks of his transformation.
Still, exhaustion pulled at him, begging him to sink into a chair, or even better, a bed, but not before he spoke to her and told her what he realized as he crawled through the snow and back inside the manor in the dim, predawn light.
Drystan pulled Ceridwen into his arms, savoring the way she came to him despite all he was and all he’d done. Warmth built in his chest, burning away the pain still clinging to his limbs. He ran his fingers through her hair, relishing the way it tickled his chin as he held her close. “I’ll go it alone. I’ll find a way.”
She clutched at his chest and looked up at him. She traced a path with her fingertips through the prickly hairs on his chin. “You don’t have to do it alone.”
He captured her hand and placed a kiss upon her knuckles. “We tried. I almost turned on you.” His brave woman.
“I know.” She stepped from his embrace and walked to a nearby table. With care, she opened a wide, thin book. He joined her and stared over her shoulder. It wasn’t a book at all, but a musical score—an old one by the looks of it, and not one he recalled seeing her with.
“Where did you find that?” he asked.
“The library.” She turned the page slowly, almost like she thought it might crumble apart.
“I didn’t know we had any sheet music here.”
She flipped the page again to what looked like the beginning of a new song and read the words inked under the lines. “To test the hearts of man, she gifted darkness too. A temptation one can only resist if they stay true.”
“The Goddess?” he mused aloud.
Before Ceridwen could read on, a knock sounded at the door.
“Who is it?” Drystan asked, more a demand than a question.
But Ceridwen didn’t wait for a response. She hurried to the door and threw it open, sweeping her hand in an invitation that released the magical binding he placed on the threshold weeks ago.
Drystan stiffened as Malik strode in. “Why are you in here?” he accused. And why, oh why, would Ceridwen let such a man in her room?
“Ceridwen invited me,” Malik replied with his ever-casual air.
Jealousy flared hot and angry through his center. Drystan’s attention snapped to Ceridwen, not bothering to shield the look of betrayal he knew must be evident upon his face.
Ceridwen winced but offered no response.
Malik crossed his arms and stared at him. “You’re not the partner I would have chosen for a ménage either.”
An inhuman growl slipped from Drystan’s throat and rolled through the air with menace.
“Stop.” Ceridwen stepped between them. “Both of you.”
Drystan’s rumbling growl ceased, even when his frown deepened.
“Neither of you trust one another, but you should,” she continued.
Perhaps he was wrong. Maybe his monster had hurt her somehow, or she’d slipped and hit her head upon the stairs in her flight down. “You don’t know him,” Drystan grumbled, trying to edge between them.
Ceridwen planted her hands on his chest, willing him to a halt. “You’re on the same side.”
“The same side?” Drystan echoed in confusion.
“And what side would that be?” Malik asked, sliding up behind Ceridwen, entirely too close for Drystan’s comfort.
Ceridwen looked over one shoulder at his cousin and then back at him. “The side of the light.”
She might as well have punched him in the chest and knocked the air from his lungs. Stabbing him would have been less painful. The woman he loved, he trusted, had spilled his secrets to the one man in this manor he tried to keep them from. Worse, she knew exactly what she did.
Drystan bared his teeth, his body shuddering. But when he looked at Malik, expecting him to be beaming with triumph, he found only an echoed look of shock and betrayal.
What in the name of the Goddess…
“Ceridwen—” Drystan began.
“We had an agreement,” Malik cut in, staring at her with fury.
“We did. We do.” She held her hands aloft, staring back and forth between both men. “But you two have to talk. No more secrets. No more games.”
Drystan’s chest rose and fell as he searched her face, trying to ponder out her meaning. To his surprise, Malik turned to him and stared him down in somber silence until Drystan met his steady gaze.
Finally, Malik spoke. “I don’t practice dark magic,” he admitted. His voice lacked all humor and playfulness.
Drystan stared at him, unmoving. “I’ve seen you drink blood. We drank it together.”
“I throw it up. Ceridwen caught me in the act.” Malik’s shoulders slumped.
Impossible.It couldn’t be true. “But your father…”
“Would kill me if he knew. Or worse, force me to use the dark magic,” Malik finished, leveling Drystan with a hard look.
The world spun around him. Drystan placed a palm on the tabletop for support.
“He already thinks me weak. Worthless,” Malik continued, letting all his bitterness leak into his tone. “That’s why he chose you, after all. The nephew who did what his own son couldn’t, or rather, wouldn’t do.”
Malik stood still as a statue, only his throat bobbing as he swallowed. His admission hung heavy in the air.
It couldn’t be true. It went against everything Drystan believed, all that he’d been so sure of. But there was an honesty in his cousin’s expression, a vulnerability he hadn’t seen since they were young. The man before him suddenly reminded him of that boy, the innocent kid so like his mother in his kindness and humility. But her death years ago had changed him, or so Drystan believed. It turned him more like his father with his mercurial ways, tricks, and false smiles.
Unless…it hadn’t.
Drystan looked at Ceridwen out of the corner of his eye, catching her slow nod where she stood silently by. This was his decision, his call, but she believed Malik. Perhaps she hadn’t meant to betray him but to give him another weapon in his fight. Could it possibly be true?
With a silent prayer to the Goddess, Drystan heaved a heavy sigh. “I won’t tell him. I plan to kill him instead.”
Malik blinked, his only movement as he took in Drystan’s words. Finally, Malik whistled and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Well, I sure hope you have a good plan.”
Tension slipped from his shoulders, all that pent-up worry shifting in an instant to a heady rush of adrenaline that sent his body humming.
“I suppose you’ve been working on something up in that tower of yours,” Malik continued. “So how can I help?”
“You’d go against your own father?” Drystan asked.
“With pleasure. He’s made my life a misery, and my mother…” He shook his head. “It’s only a matter of time before he stages my own disappearance. A permanent one. I’d guess he’s done plenty to you as well.”
“More than you can imagine.” So much more.
Malik raised his brows. “I can imagine quite a lot. I know why and how my mother died, and I can hazard a guess why you want him dead as well.”
Malik’s mother? She’d been the sweetest woman he knew, taken by an illness far too young. But that was what he’d been told, like the whole kingdom believing him dead for the murder of his parents. How many lies had the king spun in his quest for power?
“I didn’t kill my parents,” Drystan said. Those old memories tried to creep in again, to hunch his shoulders and squeeze his throat until he could barely breathe.
“I see that now, because of how you are with her.” Malik nodded toward Ceridwen.
She crossed the short space to Drystan and wove her arm through his, leaning in close, offering support without even a word. Her touch alone sent his nightmares fleeing back to the recesses of his mind.
“So you’ll help me kill the king,” Drystan said. “You’re that eager for the title yourself?”
“No,” Malik snapped. “I never want to be king.”
The sincerity in his words made Drystan rock on his feet.
“To have my life scrutinized at all times… The responsibility…” Malik ran a hand through his hair, mussing it up. “I just want my old life back. A spare royal with no expectations.”
“You swear it?”
“In the name of the Goddess.” Malik stuck his hand out toward Drystan. “Do you?”
Drystan took Malik’s hand. “In the name of the Goddess.”
Hope blossomed between their clasped hands. If his cousin held true, they might just have a chance.
“So.” Malik grinned like a cat. “About that plan…”