CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Gusts of air forced their way down my lungs like I’d been robbed of it for years, my chest rising and falling so rapidly it was almost painful.
A deep voice rumbled against my back. “Easy, love.”
It triggered a bubbling sensation deep within the lower parts of my stomach. I barely had time to process who it belonged to before that bubbling soared up my throat, sending the contents of my stomach splattering onto the floor.
Ever so slowly, the blots of color dotting my vision cleared, while my lungs continuously fought to capture enough air. Battling against the tightness relentlessly threatening to crush them.
Warmth, a solid force, surrounded me. Kept me sitting upright.
Someone’s warmth, I realised, knocking my boot against theirs. I could feel the hardness of their collarbone behind my head.
Pressure around my middle eased, then steady hands were rubbing reassuring lines down the length of my forearms. It took all but a moment for me to realize exactly who I sat against, their scent of pine and petrichor, the calm after a storm, still strong despite being trapped in this tower.
No smoke. Nothing that hinted of ash. Just him.
“Kodhan.” Panic seized my muscles, but his thighs pressed against my own, pinning my hips in place. “Please,” I gasped.
Surely, he couldn’t have chosen now of all times to end me. I was already injured, weakened by blood loss. I needed to staunch my bleeding, needed to—
Another large gust of air forcefully made its way down my windpipe, distracting me from the rising chaos inside my head.
Stunning amber eyes caught mine, close enough that I could have lost myself in them.
“Breathe, Eloise.”
Brannon. A simple order, and yet, somehow it felt like he’d asked me to hand him my very soul. But I grit my teeth against every inch of my body that worked against me and took another breath.
“That’s it. Good. You’re alive,” he reassured softly, the set of his face hard, but not cruel. Determined. Worried. “You’re alive.” He carefully slipped his hand underneath mine, and gently pried my stiff fingers out of the white-knuckled fist I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.
Gone were the burgundy skirts, the silk ribbons. No cuts lined my arm. No pain radiated from my collarbone.
Kodhan’s body tensed as he gently brushed strands of hair out of my face, clearing the rest of my shrouded vision. I wasn’t bleeding. I was alright.
More air, though less forceful this time.
“Keep breathing,” Brannon chastised, but it held nothing a usual scolding would.
It dawned on me then that he was using his magic to remind my lungs how to function. Compensating for their uselessness.
Ever so slowly, it began to feel less like they’d been tied into frayed knots. The pressure pinching them at odd angles melted, allowing them to expand fully.
“There.” A wobbly smile found its way to his face. “That should do it.”
Lapis swiftly replaced amber, and a second pair of arms gathered me in an embrace that held all of my fragile pieces together. Theia.
Whether I said her name out loud, or she’d heard it through my thoughts, her arms tightened in acknowledgement.
“You were there,” I whispered into her hair, inhaling lilies and cinnamon. “You stopped me.” Fragmented images shot across my mind, cruel and horrid.
“All of it was just a dream. None of it was real.” She retreated, rocking back on the balls of her feet. “I’d been trying to wake you since you left that garden. But the king’s magic was much stronger than I’d anticipated. I’m sorry it took so long.”
Pushing to stand, she veered towards the puddle of vomit next to Kodhan’s leg.
Stars—I was still cradled against him. I should’ve moved right then. Should’ve put as much distance between our bodies as I physically could. It was the logical thing to do.
But for some unknown reason, I couldn’t find a single part of me that wanted to. And so it was surprisingly easy, at that moment, to toss logic right into the wind.
I startled as she stomped, hard, right in the center of it.
“What are you doing?” I gasped, cringing at the twist of her heel, digging further into the mess.
Silently, she lifted her foot, but didn’t back away. She held it aloft, just high enough for me to see what, exactly, she’d stomped on.
Kodhan loosened his hold enough for me to lean forward. I nearly vomited again.
A small, grey insect, no longer than a gold coin, twitched on its back.
Covering my mouth with the back of my hand, I muttered, “Tell me that did not come out of me.”
Theia stomped on it again. It no longer twitched.
“We believe that is what made the hallucinations so potent.” Brannon studied the crushed insect, upper lip curling.
“The king can plant whatever images he wants into peoples’ heads.
But such visceral, dream-like visions, in the heads of so many people—visions that cause such a violent physical reaction…
” He ran a pensive hand across his jaw. “He must have infused the insects with his magic, like a virus. Hid them in the food so they could root themselves inside us and take hold.”
“We all had them.” Despite his constant heat, even without magic, Kodhan’s lethal whisper sent shivers down my back. “All had those things crawling around inside of us before Theia overpowered them with her own magic.”
Theia backed away, wiping the sole of her boot across the floor to clean it.
“I’ve rarely seen anything like it. I managed to help Brannon and Kodhan rather quickly.
” Her brows scrunched together as she examined the insect, then me.
“It was much harder with you. Like Maverick himself had his hand on your shoulder while the insect did its work.”
“He will pay.”
I twisted halfway in surprise, and Kodhan’s eyes snapped straight to mine, stopping my heart dead in its tracks. He meant it. Vengeance against the crown.
I felt the vow down to my very marrow.
His heart hammered against my back. Why was it beating so fast? He wasn’t afraid. Not after making a threat like that so confidently. The man moved with unwavering purpose, and after Strength, I knew that it would take more than insects to shake him. He was angry, that much was obvious.
But it felt like his heart was straining against his ribs. Reaching, like it wanted to claw its way out of his chest.
A glint of desperation shone in his eyes. Begging me for the answer to a question I couldn’t understand.
Brannon’s spoke, his words splashing me like a bucket of cold water.
“I searched the corridors while Theia tried to wake you. Some of the others died in their sleep, likely because they took too long to wake. Weren’t breathing properly, like you were.
They were unnaturally stiff. Like they’d been so afraid that everything simply… stopped working.”
I tore my eyes away from Kodhan’s. Tried to ignore the rapid beating of his heart, all while he pressed closer, making it infinitesimally difficult. “That’s what it felt like when I woke,” I said slowly. “My body acted against me. Like it had forgotten how to survive.”
“Further effects of the insect, no doubt. A virus with a single cure.”
“Courage.”
“Precisely.”
“I was only able to pull you out when you decided to fight back,” Theia mused. “To do whatever it took to get out of that place.”
But I hadn’t been courageous at all. I’d been a coward.
“You were not a coward,” she hissed vehemently.
“Defending yourself against foes not even the strongest of warriors could face is far from cowardice. No one else would’ve been able to raise that knife.
Your heart was nothing but pure. Is nothing but pure.
” Her narrowed eyes were like daggers of ice.
“Never speak of yourself that way. Is that understood?”
Her words settled something in me that had been cracking apart for longer than I dared admit. My throat closed up on itself, barring any protest, any argument. “Fine.”
“I’m glad we have an agreement.” She folded her arms over her chest. “I will be happy to remind you, lest you forget.”
Of that, I was more than certain.
It was Brannon’s turn to stand. He dusted his hands across his thighs before locking them behind his head. “That makes two trials officially completed. Only one left. Thank the gods,” he sighed.
Anger, a familiar crutch, already waited for me to lean on.
“That was not a trial.” The root of the dream might’ve been an insect, but it was infused with Maverick’s magic.
He had chosen what images to plant into those nightmares.
He knew what their deaths had done to me.
And he’d used them against me, regardless.
“That bastard deserves the number of traitors vying for his head. You should hope the gods find enough common sense to help them pry it from his shoulders.” Kodhan’s chuckle sent my hackles rising.
I turned to look up at him again. “Is there something amusing, Son of the Second?” I asked, lacquering the pointed question with false sweetness.
I became all-too aware of how his hands drifted from my arms, casually making their way down to rest across my lower stomach.
His fingers intertwined loosely, a sign that he wasn’t inclined to move, either.
A small, idiotic part of me wondered what else, exactly, those fingers could be used for.
It would only take less than a few inches to find out, after all.
“Yes, the venom that you spew is often quite amusing. But it is exquisite when you direct it towards the king.”
“Jealous?”
His smirk grew. “Hardly.”
“Maybe the insects should have taken you down, too.”
He dipped his head closer, as if he could drink the insult directly from my lips. As if it fueled him. “Maybe?” Before our noses could touch, he turned his face so that his words reached the shell of my ear. “If you’re going to insult me, Eloise, you have to say it like you mean it.”
“You’re insufferable,” I hissed, and made to squirm out of his hold.
His locked fingers held firm. His thighs pressed harder against mine. Trapping me again. “That’s better.” He smiled against my cheek.