24. Enlo
Enlo waited outside of the door to Revi’s quarters. He couldn’t ignore a summons from his cousin and prince, but he didn’t want to have whatever conversation they were about to have in front of the healers, so he waited.
He waited for them to fuss over Revi, to give him a mixture of their meager healing magic, tinctures, and herbs to fight back the poison, and only when those healers ducked past him from the room did Enlo step forward through the doorway.
Revi, in wolf form, lay on his side on the massive bed in the center of the room, bandages wrapped over his silver fur. He was still, so still that Enlo thought he was sleeping at first, until, without opening his eyes, he spoke.
“I was beginning to think you would lurk in the hall all day.”
Enlo gave a careless shrug, despite the fact Revi couldn’t see it. “Honestly, everything they’re using on you smells atrocious. I don’t know how your nose can handle it.”
Revi grunted.
Enlo entered the room a little farther, stopping well short of the bed.
Revi had been unconscious much of the past few days, and they hadn’t spoken since the forest. Enlo could guess what this meeting was about.
Except Revi seemed too calm. Revi didn’t do calm well, and Enlo found it more disconcerting than blustering anger would have been.
“How long?” Revi said. Enlo looked up to see one glowing blue eye fixed on him. “How long, Enlo, have you been going behind my back?”
Enlo stiffened at the implied accusation in those words. “I want the curse broken.”
“And so you sabotage it? You were the one who insisted I make this arrangement with the human man. You were the one pushing me to woo her.” Revi lifted his head from the bed, looking at Enlo straight on. He radiated with fury, but it was a still fury, quiet and freezing instead of Revi’s usual blizzard.
“I only want to help,” Enlo hedged.
“How was hindering me helping?”
“At least I was doing something,” Enlo snapped. “At least I wasn’t just sitting around scaring her, pushing her away. Your pride is going to get us all killed. The Winter Court can’t wait for you to abandon it when we’re all dying. You need to care about someone more than yourself!”
“I have always cared.” Revi rose to his feet for a second before collapsing back on the bed.
“Not enough.” Enlo threw out a hand. “You’ve never cared enough to actually try to break the curse in the only way possible without me pushing you. You are so tied up in the idea of fixing it all alone, content to let our Court suffer.”
Revi snarled. “I have never been content—”
“You did nothing useful for years!”
“I tried dozens of ways to break the curse, or have you forgotten?”
Enlo scoffed. “You never once tried to go find a human to fall in love with you to break the curse.”
“Because no one could love me!” Revi roared, and the force of his words pushed Enlo back a step. “No one is going to love a monster. If that is the only way to break the curse, then it has been impossible to break since the very beginning.”
The pain in Revi’s voice echoed against something in Enlo’s own heart, but he hardened himself against it. Pain was no excuse for Revi’s choices.
He pitched his voice lower. “Then why are you so angry about me seeing Kienna?”
Revi’s sides were heaving. He didn’t look at Enlo.
The silence stretched.
“If there’s nothing else, Your Highness.”
Revi only turned his head farther away. Enlo gave the smallest of bows and strode from the room. Anger vibrated in his every pore. He couldn’t take it anymore. His cousin might be too blinded by his own hubris to save the Court, but Enlo wasn’t, and he would sacrifice anything—anyone—to see it done. No cost was too high.