Chapter 35
Alow, pain-filled groan awakens me, dragging me from a slumber I am not yet ready to leave. All the same, I pry sleep-laden eyes open. My heart leaps in relief and joy to see that Kyor is awake, although he is grimacing in pain.
‘You’re awake.’ The words leave me as a gasp.
‘The wound. The green …’ He chokes out the words.
‘No sign of the mottled green,’ I soothe him. ‘None at all.’
The faintest attempt at a smile curls his lips, and I try to respond. I should be beaming, but I’m still worried.
‘The healer did his best. He saved your life, but he couldn’t heal all the internal injuries completely.
You’ll need weeks of rest before you’re fully recovered.
’ If you fully recover, I think but don’t say that part aloud.
I don’t need to. He’s a commander in the army.
He knows how injuries work. Especially ones when you can’t get to a healer straight away. ‘How do you feel?’
‘Like I got run through with a spear,’ he says ruefully.
‘You’re lucky to be alive.’
He shrugs his uninjured shoulder. ‘I’ve survived worse.’
There’s the arrogance I know and loathe.
It’s only when his fingers brush against my waist that I remember I’m still cuddled into him.
His uninjured arm is curled around me, just like it used to.
Memories rush in, of us in other beds, awakening like this, flesh pressed to flesh, need hot and urgent singing through us both. I swallow hard and push it all down.
Those were other times.
Things are different now. A lump builds in my throat and I sit up. For a second his fingers remain on me, but then his hand drops away, just like it did in front of his father.
There. That’s the reminder I need.
He didn’t choose me, and no matter how much my heart breaks, nothing has changed between us.
I’m glad he’s alive – of course I am – but I can’t allow the near-death experience to let anything change between us. Because it hasn’t. We still don’t have a future together.
The room is dark. We’ve slept the remainder of the day away and made some headway into the night, too, yet I’m still exhausted, and judging from the way Elska is sprawled out on the floor, I’m not the only one.
Carefully, so as not to stumble into the slumbering wolf, I manoeuvre myself off the bed, lowering my feet almost silently onto the ground.
Elska opens one eye, then promptly closes it again. Okay, less slumbering than I thought. Or maybe I just wasn’t that silent.
‘I made you a pain reliever,’ I say to Kyor, aware he’s watching me. ‘It’s strong. It’ll help.’ On the other side of the room I decant a small portion of the potion into a cup that’s relatively clean. It’ll have to do.
Everything here will have to do.
I return to his side and as Kyor takes the cup in his good hand, I help lift his head enough that he can sip from it.
‘That tastes foul,’ he complains.
‘It’ll do the job. Suck it up and drink it, princeling.’
He levels a glare at me but drinks the rest of the tincture dose without complaint.
As my stomach rumbles, I grab a couple of the remaining stale rolls and determinedly take a bite.
It takes some effort to crunch my way into it, but I’m too tired and too hungry to be fussy.
There’s no chance Kyor can expend this type of energy just to eat, not when he’s as weak as he is, so I use my dagger to hack a second roll into smaller chunks and dip them into water to soften so they’re easier to consume.
In terms of a meal, soggy bread is definitely not fit for a prince, but he eats without complaint.
With Kyor seen to, I pour some water into a bowl for Elska.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say, rubbing my eyes. ‘They don’t have spare meat to give to you here.’
‘She’s okay,’ Kyor tells me. ‘She’ll hunt later when the others have joined us.’ He looks around. ‘Where the hell are we?’
‘The slums in Galreck. We rode ahead.’
He blinks. ‘You found me a healer in the slums?’
‘You’ve just got to know the right person to ask. I presumed you wouldn’t want one of the court physicians tending to you?’
‘No,’ he agrees instantly. ‘The last thing I need is Father’s sycophantic spies reporting back on me.’
A knot coils in my stomach. No doubt part of that is because he is ashamed of me, of riding with me.
I’m his dirty little secret.
I try to push the bitterness away. I’m grateful he’s still alive, and that is what I should focus on.
‘It’s so cold,’ he mutters, and I realise he’s shivering.
‘It’s the slums,’ I shrug. ‘Residual magic from the heart of the cities doesn’t make it out this far, and fires are at a premium.
I managed to get us a flop, but I burned the only log we had when the healer was working on you.
You’ll feel warm enough soon. Robbard’s tincture will make it so you can’t feel anything but goodness. ’
It’s a dangerous potion. The type of pain reliever that stops you feeling the warning signs from your body. My father warned me of countless men and women who had abused the tincture, making their lives and injuries worse, but I have no intention of letting Kyor do that.
‘It’s so fucking cold,’ Kyor complains again between clenched teeth.
‘I know.’
Being here with Kyor, in the slums, brings back all the years of living with Kay in abject squalor.
It’s not like it’s even been a moon since I won our wealth and powers back, yet somehow, since the Retterheld, I’ve already forgotten the acute misery of being wretchedly poor.
Of living with nothing and no one to protect me, with no warmth, no food, and no safety.
I climb back onto the pallet that passes as a bed and settle myself so I’m draped across him as much as possible, sharing what paltry warmth I can.
‘I hate being cold,’ he confesses.
‘Too used to the finery of the High Hold?’ I tease lightly.
He shakes his head a little. ‘Bad memories. When I was a child, if I did something wrong, Father would make me strip naked outside, and he would throw a bucket of ice water over me. He would leave me standing there until my lips were blue and my teeth were chattering. He and Mother would always row when he did it, and though it never stopped him, I loved her for being bold enough to scream at him for it.’
I’m so taken aback, so fucking horrified, that I can’t find words to respond to his confession. I knew about the burning – Korvane using his power on Kyor to test his resolve by seeing how long he could burn him for – but leaving him in ice, too? What the actual fuck?
And this man is our king? The one who oversees the health and wellness of all his subjects? It’s no surprise there are rebels willing to lay down their lives to kill him. If he treats his own son in such a way, the rest of us don’t stand a chance.
‘Sometimes it wasn’t me. Sometimes he made me watch while he tortured others,’ he continues.
‘He thought it was good for me. That it’d make me strong.
Hardy. Follow his orders without hesitation or thought.
’ As the words spill, I realise that this unexpected confession isn’t because of his near-death experience; it’s because the Robbard’s tincture has loosened his tongue.
‘He made me kill my first man when I was thirteen.’ His voice has an almost dreamlike tone.
‘He was tied to a chair, helpless. I didn’t even know what he had done to deserve death.
Father told me to kill him, or he’d kill Leilah.
She’s always been my favourite among the palace staff, ever since I was a child and she’d sneak me food on the days I disappointed him and he made me go without.
Three days. That’s the longest he made me go without food. I was only nine.’
My horror is absolute. ‘Kyor …’ I whisper his name, but it’s inaudible even to myself, and he doesn’t so much as turn his head in my direction.
‘I had to keep her safe,’ he continues. ‘She loved me. She looked after me. I had to keep her safe. Love is a weakness. Leilah … Zelle … I had to keep her safe, so I did it. I killed him. Sliced his throat.’ A thin frown line pinches his brow.
‘I can still feel his blood on my hands … damning my soul. And then I failed to save Zelle. And that damns me even more.’
My heart aches as if it has been struck physically. Tears are running down my cheeks, but I try not to let my anguish show in my voice as I say, ‘Your soul is just fine, Kyor. I see you.’
‘No, it’s not. You don’t know, Thorn. There are things you don’t know.’
‘About the vow you made?’ I question, my pulse flickering faster.
Could he break it now, in this state? Had the tonic not loosened his tongue, I have no doubt that he wouldn’t have told me about his father starving him, torturing him, and threatening his loved ones.
How far does that looseness go? Far enough to spill the last of the secrets he has kept between us… ?
The question lingers in my mind. All I would have to do is ask – ask him to tell me about the vow he made – and I could have my answer.
My veins throb with the possibility. Could I do that?
More than once he has told me that he would tell me the truth if only he could. Perhaps this is the way it happens …
I swallow, aware of how quickly my throat is drying as I contemplate the consequences of what I’m considering.
Say he does break the vow, then what? Will the effects of the tonic erase any ramifications that would happen had he consciously chosen to disclose the information?
My mind moves to the blood vow I made with my friends to keep my brother safe.
Who’s to say Kyor’s vow isn’t saving lives too?
For me to prise that information out of him while he’s in a vulnerable state would be so unethical, I know I wouldn’t be able to live with myself. And how would he look at me afterwards, knowing I stole the truth from him when he was at his weakest?
No, if he wants to bare his soul to me, it should be when he is cognisant of his own words and actions. Whatever secrets Kyor has, they will remain his tonight.
‘Come, sleep,’ I say, pressing my hand flat to his chest without even meaning to, as if I need proof that his heart is still beating. That he’s still here. That he survived.
The tension in his brow smooths.
‘I like resting with you,’ he murmurs. ‘I like you in my arms.’
The throbbing in my chest burns. I can’t bear to hear any more drug-induced confessions. ‘Sleep, Kyor. Rest now.’
He falls blessedly silent, his breathing even as he slips into sleep, his heart steady beneath my hand.