16. Keldarion
16
Keldarion
A thin line of light glitters along the horizon. Dawn will be here soon. I feel the man within me aching to be free of this cage of flesh and fur.
Rosalina is safe now. I’d felt her fear like a drum beside my heart. I had no choice but to follow her to the dungeon. She should have known better than to provoke the beast. Then again, she should have known better than to return.
Though my chamber looks carved of ice itself, I can’t feel the cold. Every part of me is numb, and for that I am grateful.
Every time my mind wanders to the feel of her arms around my body, I force myself inward. To the cold. To the numbness.
Claws scrape against ice, and I feel his presence like a looming shadow. “So, I’m not the only one who can’t sleep,” I say without turning.
His silence is deafening.
I knew my decision to send Rosalina away would break me.
I didn’t realize how much it would break them, too.
“Have you come to ambush me in my chambers again?” I ask when he still says nothing. “Or perhaps to explain that other human scent I smell?”
“An accident occurred during our visit. The human will be gone as soon as he’s healed,” Ezryn says flatly.
I let out an annoyed huff. I recognized Rosalina and her father’s scent as soon as they stood on the castle grounds. This other wayward human is of no concern to me.
Finally, Ezryn sighs and strides in. There are bones tangled throughout his dark fur, little bird skulls cracked by fungi and covered in moss. Yet, his dark brown eyes shine brightly, flashing nearly yellow in the light.
Are they the same as the man’s? I wonder. Long have I yearned to look upon the face of my closest friend. Perhaps this is one small blessing from the curse. I get to see his eyes.
“You lied to us, Kel,” Ezryn says, the wolf’s voice deep and rumbling. “You knew she was your mate, and you hid it.”
I turn away from him. “I did what I had to. For all of us.”
“You don’t get to make those calls. We should have had a say—”
“I am the master of Castletree,” I roar, baring my fangs.
He rushes up to me, his incisors exposed and dripping. “And we are a family!”
“You don’t understand, Ezryn.” My body shakes. “Every decision I have made and continue to make is for her best interest.”
Ezryn gives a growl of frustration and knocks his snout against my shoulder. “She is your mate , Kel. You do not get to hide from this like you have your throne or your people. You have a duty to her.”
“Do not speak to me of duty.”
Ezryn digs his paws into the ice and his hackles rise. “My father and mother were mates. I saw their bond with my own eyes. They needed each other. When my mother d-d… Without my mother, Father is—”
“Rosalina isn’t dead,” I say. “She will find a way to live with joy and contentment. I will sleep peacefully knowing that.”
Ezryn lunges at my neck, wrestling me to the ground. “The bond cannot be broken. You are her mate. You gave up everything for him and yet you will give nothing to her?”
Fury ignites within me, and I shove Ezryn off, now tackling him to the ground. “I am giving everything up!”
“Traitor. Always a traitor. You could save your realm right now. Free yourself from this curse. And yet, you betray your people again. Betray Rosalina. Betray yourself!”
Ez wants to speak to me about being a traitor?
My teeth sink deep into his flesh, and he roars in pain. “I’m finally doing what is right, Ez,” I say against his skin. “Trust me.”
He jerks up, throwing me off balance. “You have become the very thing that nearly destroyed you.”
The sentiment makes me throw my head back and give a half-laugh, half-howl. “Is that how you see me, brother? Then fine. Let the Vale mark me as a villain. But I would lay waste to every realm, cover every field and mountain in an eternal winter, and keep you and Dayton and Farron and every being in Castletree cursed if it meant saving her.”
Rage alights in his gaze, and he tackles me. I am pinned on my back, and the entire weight of the black wolf pushes down upon me. “Tell me the truth of your bargain with Caspian,” he roars. “Tell me what it has to do with Rosalina!”
For a second, I see him behind the primal rage of the wolf. My brother, my friend. He wants to help me. He wants to keep me safe.
But I cannot tell him this truth.
For if I did, the burden would fall on him, too.
I would so much rather be his enemy than let him carry the weight of this decision with me. I tried to rest in his harbor of safety years ago. Tried to trust him with a secret.
A secret he betrayed.
And there is something much darker in my heart, something I can’t even bear to think of. Because I know what course of action Ezryn would take. An action that would either end his life or the life of…
Caspian’s words haunt my mind.
Kel, we both know if you were capable of doing that, you’d have done it when I first betrayed you.
I stay silent, even though my bones are crushing beneath his weight, and his incisors are dangerously close to my jugular.
Light shivers through the window. His body trembles over mine, the curse fading for another day. Immediately, I close my eyes as I feel the warm touch of his skin instead of fur.
I could open my eyes right now and look upon his face. Bring about the greatest shame any royal of the Spring Realm could endure. That would stop him from questioning me.
But I place a hand over my eyes. We breathe together, skin against skin. “There’s a helm in the wardrobe,” I say.
“I know,” he mumbles.
He presses on my chest to stand, and I wait to hear the clink of metal before I open my eyes. He braces his hands against the wardrobe, body muscular and tan. I’ve kept the helmet in this room precisely for an instance like this when he may need it. The downturned visor makes him look disapproving, a suitable expression. “I don’t care what your reason is, Kel,” Ezryn whispers. “You can’t treat your mate like this. You can’t treat her like this. If I were—”
“If you were her mate?” I growl.
He intakes a sharp breath. “She would never wonder for a moment that I would seize the stars from the sky for her if she asked.”
“Well, that’s where we’re different, Ez.” I fall back to the icy ground, staring up at the ceiling. “I’m doing it without her asking.”
He shakes his head and strides to the doorway, naked besides the helm. My chest grows tight, and I want to call out for him to stay.
I want to crack myself open and admit that I’ve destroyed my world for her, and I’d do it again, but it’s hard . Because I miss him.
“Ez,” I croak.
He turns to me.
“I need your forgiveness.”
He stands rigidly in the doorway, the muscles of his back tensing. “Not for this, Kel,” he whispers. “Never for this.”
I lay there on my back for a long while after he’s gone. For the first time in so long, I feel cold. The ice beneath me seeps through my skin and into my bones. I wonder if I were never to move, what would happen to me? Would I turn to ice like the castle? What would they find when they came looking for me—a skeleton of hoarfrost?
Though I don’t suspect anyone would come looking for me at all. And who could blame them?
Perhaps I shall just wait for my winter to freeze me—
A dark shape skitters on the edge of my chambers. Slowly, I turn to look when something cold presses against my throat.
A dagger.