Chapter 64 #2
“I must tell you, Lion, your father is quite clever. He is the most cunning man I have ever faced. We tried offering him the titles of nobility? He refused, allowing him to continue to operate independently and maintain a commendable disposition as far as the general public was concerned. The great ‘noble’ Nightenjoy line, respected and powerful, yet not succumbing to the lure of the corrupted noble class. So we tried to catch him in slips of the tongue or in questionable acts.” A pause paired with an amused laugh.
“Yet through the years, he stayed cleaner than pure snow and harder to trap than a wry fox.”
Gray steals a glance at his father, who has not moved nor altered his neutral expression once.
Layers of shock course through Gray as he studies him—he had not known the truth of his father’s actions.
Yet he knows he cannot allow his shock to stunt him nor let his unsteadiness split him open.
Just as his father is doing—who is bruised and malnourished and being humiliated—he, too, must maintain himself.
Tynan shakes his head, feigning exhaustion.
“And then you, his son, became known as the people’s champion for one spur of the moment act to save a child, spreading the name Nightenjoy like wildfire.
” Tynan stills only a pace away from Gray.
He frowns at him. “You realize it, right? How burdensome that is. We can’t have the people placing their hopes and dreams in you, and yet…
You are beloved by those in the slums. A powerful name of hope in the average common house.
You are even a contending name in the lower noble houses, who are convinced someone like you could champion their own causes and bring them to greatness.
” Tynan rocks back on his heels, groaning as he runs fingers through his hair.
“Ohh, the Nightenjoy name. Such a thorn in my side.”
“Get on with it,” King Alastair demands, his patience clearly running out.
Gray does not miss the flicker of anger in Tynan’s eyes at the instruction.
Yet cool as ice water, he straightens himself.
“So here we are, in a game that will prune those two thorns with one swift clip. It will also provide King Alastair the retribution he seeks for your father’s betrayal.
” Tynan turns on his heels, clapping his hands together. “Bring out the next one.”
The stone again groans open, and it feels like a thousand needles prick Gray’s skin the moment he sees his mother being escorted out, bound and chained in the exact way his father is. She is shoved to her knees beside Gray’s father, whose eyes widen with pure terror.
He didn’t know she was here either.
“Lion of the Heart,” Tynan drawls, prowling to stand behind Gray’s bound parents.
“A name given to you because of your fierce determination to do what’s right, guided by a moral compass rumored to always point true.
” Tynan traces a finger along her jaw, and a fire hotter than anything Gray has ever felt erupts within him.
“Let us test the truth of those claims.”
Gray catches the quiver of his mother’s lip, yet her eyes remain resolved not to cower as they remain only on him. She holds her chin high. His father, however, bucks against his chains, gargled murmurs filling the room as he screams against the binds over his mouth.
Tynan’s eyes are glittering now. “Well, Lion, which do you choose to die?”
The life drains from Gray, and he stands still as a statue, seeming incapable of processing what is happening. “What?”
“Choose,” Tynan repeats. “Show us where your compass points you. What morals guide your choices when there is no clear right or wrong.”
Gray’s mind lags, as if unwilling to interpret the words. For a few heartbeats, all he can do is stare with wide eyes and swaying feet at his mother, sweet and gentle as they come, and then his father, who always tries to remain honorable and true. Kind and loyal.
Gray shakes his head. “No.” The word trembles violently as it flees from his lips. “I will not play your sadistic game. I will not be your entertainment.” He lifts his chin, resolved. “I will not choose.”
Tynan frowns. “No? Pity.”
It happens so fast.
Two seconds—maybe three.
His mother’s eyes are on him one moment, and then they are rolling backward as an onyx blade glides over the delicate skin of her throat.
Blood spurts free. Her body tips forward, plummeting down with the weight of a boulder.
From somewhere far away, Gray is remotely aware of the terrible gargling sound tearing free from his throat. Feels the bite of the hard ground as his knees slam into it. He hears a sob and a voice and a word. Mother. Mother.
“Mother.”
He goes to her, rolling her face-down body over as best he can with the restriction his manacles have on his movements. He presses his fingers against her bleeding neck.
He feels nothing. It is too late.
Her eyes are faded; her muscles forever slackened.
There is so much blood.
He cradles her head to his chest, rocking back and forth. Back and forth. Water droplets drip onto her crimson-stained cheeks. Is the ceiling leaking?
“I’m sorry,” he rasps, clutching her more tightly. “I’m so sorry.”
“No choice is still a choice.” Tynan claps his hands together, the sound an unbearable jolt to Gray’s muffled, distorted senses. “Time for the final round.”
A voice wails in the back of his mind. Please. No more.
The stone again groans, but this time Gray doesn’t even look up to see who the guards bring in. His eyes instead remain on his dead mother, his convulsing fingers trying to swipe the pool of blood from her neck for reasons he can’t explain while his father chokes out sobs beside him.
It isn’t until he hears a tiny, familiar voice squeak out his name that he rips his hollow eyes away from the blood.
“Gray…help me…”
Thestis.
No. Gods, no.
He wears the same chains and manacles, yet is able to speak freely, without having anything put over his mouth. His freckle-filled face is tear-stained, his eyes red-rimmed and so puffy they nearly look swollen shut.
Gray can’t bear it. He can’t bear any more of this.
He leans forward to press a final kiss to his mother’s forehead.
And then he gently rests her upon the cold ground and rises.
He feels a prick of heat, and he looks over his shoulder to where Lyra stands in chains.
She thrashes against her hold. Gray can see she is screaming—rioting against this.
But of course, they can’t hear her, and with her magic contained, she can’t stop it either.
Thestis watches her through his swollen eyes before they again land on Gray, where they remain as his bottom lip quivers.
Gray feels his do the same. “Be strong, Thestis,” he says, voice no more than a broken rasp. “You must be strong.”
Thestis pinches his teeth into his bottom lip and nods.
“You shouldn’t coddle the boy,” Tynan says, striding to rest a hand on Thestis’s shoulder. “He just caused his mother’s execution, after all.”
“What?”
King Alastair answers in Tynan’s place. “He stole gold from my estate. My guards found him hoarding it beneath his bed.”
Gray’s lips part with his disbelief. “Thestis…why?”
Thestis’s eyes remain on the ground. “My Ma couldn’t afford my tutor any longer, and you were away.
I…I wanted to be like King Isaphus, just like you said.
I wanted to be great.” He looks up, a fresh stream of tears falling down his cheeks.
“We all celebrated you and Lyra’s acceptance into Bathara, you know.
My Ma even cried. And I just thought, if that was her reaction to you two being accepted, imagine the pride she would feel if I was, too? ”
Gray gazes at Thestis, his chest crushed beneath the weight of a mountain. Anger rings through him, and Gray sobers the emotion from his face, steeling his eyes and straightening his trembling lips as he turns his attention onto Tynan. “He is just a child,” he growls. “Let him go.”
Tynan shrugs. “It’s not up to me. It is up to the King of Rivara.”
Gray glares at the nefarious king. “Let. Him. Go.”
King Alastair smiles. “Actually,” he drawls with delight, “that decision is entirely up to you, Gray Nightenjoy. See, it is the beauty of Tynan’s game.
I have a thieving child who went unpunished because his mother invoked Samsara, and I have an advisor who has been betraying my trust and his kingdom for years.
Which to choose? Which to punish?” He mocks a shrug.
“I suppose that is for you to decide, isn’t it? ”
Tynan positions himself directly between Thestis and Gray’s father. “Well, Lion—time to choose.”
His father—now resigned to a defeated slouch—murmurs muffled words against the binds covering his mouth.
Tynan cocks his head at the sounds. “Hmm. I’m curious—let’s see what he has to say.” Tynan removes the cloth from his lips.
Gray’s father does not waste a moment.
“My son,” he says, voice so gentle. So calm. “Let me follow her into the next life.”
Gray shakes his head, his chin wobbling in the way it did when he was a child running to find his father after busting his knee open from playing too roughly with Lyra. “I’m sorry,” he says, voice so tiny. “I can’t be the one to do it. I can’t send you there.”
“You must.”
“Come on, Lion,” Tynan coaxes. “You’re running out of time.”
“Son,” he presses. “You know the right choice.”
He’s right. Gray does.
A sudden calmness he has not yet felt washes through him. In this, he is determined. In this decision, he is sure.
He lifts his chin. “Me.”
Tynan narrows his eyes with interest. “Sorry?”
“I choose me. To trade my life in exchange for both of theirs. You said it yourself, I am the greatest thorn in your side. The greatest threat to this new system you wish to create.”
Gray’s father hangs his head, his shoulders drooping forward. Yet he says nothing. Thestis watches Gray, his teeth still pinched into his bottom lip.