Chapter 63 Hands That Hold and Hands That Harm
Hands That Hold and
Hands That Harm
Desdemona
I
toss and turn until the moon sets and the sun rises. A knock on the door breaks the silence.
“Lady Desdemona, the royal seamstresses are prepared.”
I rise and open the door, nodding to the servant, with guards stationed at his sides. This time, they escort me to the seamstress, protecting rather than confining.
I step onto a velvet-draped pedestal, royal blue spilling beneath my feet as seamstresses begin to work around me.
“Bring me the sapphire silk,” one calls to an assistant at the hem. He hurries off and returns with a spool of fabric, which she fastens at my hips with swift, practiced hands.
The gown is beautiful—shining bodice, elongated sleeves, silk that gleams in the morning light.
But I want to cry.
I look to the ceiling, forcing the tears to stay where they burn behind my eyes. The gown is gorgeous, but it feels too large around my torso, too long on my arms. It feels like a costume, and my reflection is like a stranger.
“Can you…” I mutter, the words thinning before they fully form.
Three seamstresses look up at once, their hands clutching the fabric.
“Can you put me in red?” My throat tightens. “Like a ruby.”
I see in their eyes the instinct to refuse, to tell me no—blue is tradition, blue is lineage, blue is what queens before me have worn. But I am their future queen.
After a breath too long, they bow their heads.
They finish shaping the gown to my body, their fingers careful now. They promise it will be dyed before the evening. Then they ease it from my shoulders and dress me in another gown before taking the blue away.
Guards escort me once more.
For the first time, I venture through the castle halls as something more than a fugitive. Now, I am someone who belongs here.
Queen. Who would have thought? It doesn’t feel right. I’m not a Lyrian. I’m something worse.
Something worrisome.
I smooth my hands over the borrowed fabric, willing it to feel right—
“Let me see her!” A scream echoes through the hall.
I recognize the voice immediately, and it fills my lungs with air.
I turn and run toward the sound, the scuffling. My guards follow behind me.
As I round a corner, I see Leiholan on the floor, his face against the cold marble. His wooden crutches have been tossed across the room, and guards pin him down.
“Let him go!” I shout. In the past, Leiholan would have told me a better way to say such a command. I’m sure I’ll learn soon.
No one listens to my commands—not the guards at my sides, nor the ones holding Leiholan. I am their queen, their Royal, and they still disrespect me, like everyone else before them.
Angrily, I step forward and grab one of the guard’s arms, trying to pull him off Leiholan. He barely budges, but when he finally turns, his hand lashes out, striking me across the cheek.
Pain explodes across my face, the world blurring. How dare he touch me? Doesn’t he know who I am—what I can do?
“Don’t you fucking touch her!” Leiholan roars. He wrenches a hand free and drives a fist into the guard’s face. It’s a blur of superspeed, leaving a bruise beneath the man’s eye.
But another guard lunges forward, pressing a knife to Leiholan’s throat. Without a second thought, I leap forward, landing on the guard’s back as I claw at his uniform. “Unhand him this instant!”
Hands seize me from behind—my guards trying to pull me off. Then I’m falling. Marble slams into my spine. The breath is torn from my lungs, the ceiling spinning above me. I could kill him.
With a single thought, I could kill him.
I press myself upright. The four guards are all looking at me. They’re supposed to protect me.
Only Leiholan offers me a hand. The set of his brow makes me wonder if he knows what’s going through my mind. Makes me wonder if it went through his.
He leans on one crutch as he helps me up.
“You don’t belong on the throne,” one guard mutters as they both turn their backs to me.
The other two stay at my side, frozen.
“Grab them,” I command.
My guards do nothing. Slowly, I turn toward them, but they remain silent.
Do they agree with the others? They walked beside me, swore to protect me—but when I tried to stop the other guards, they held me back.
I watch the traitors retreat down the hall.
No.
When I call to their hearts, the blood answers. It thrums in my veins—and in theirs—like a thread pulled tight between our chests. They stagger mid-step. One tries to move forward, but his legs buckle.
I close my fist. Their bodies seize, and I feel it—their heartbeats stuttering as panic rises. I lower my hand slowly, sensing their knees hit the marble. It would take only a second to kill them, but I go slow, wanting them to realize who they disobeyed.
The two who stood at my side rush forward—my protectors. They drop beside the others, clutching their arms as if they can pry my hold away. I take them, too. Four heartbeats swell, a broken gasp shaking through my chest.
“Kid,” Leiholan says, resting a hand on my shoulder.
The power thickens in my throat like sludge. It’s hard to swallow, hard to breathe against the hot, heavy burn of magic. But it’s alive, and it has a purpose. Their blood sings in my ears, even as their hearts falter.
My lip twitches as I grip their organs tighter, my nails carving crescents into my palms. Why wouldn’t I belong on the throne? I am strength. They couldn’t survive me—no matter how much they wish to. My will eclipses theirs.
Something warm slips down my cheek. I don’t know why I’d cry. But when one of the guards glances back at me, blood trailing from his eyes, I know I’m not. I’m doing something new, breaking them from the inside out.
“Desdemona!” Leiholan shouts. I ignore him—until arms wrap around me. I twist, trying to throw him off, but he holds me in a tight embrace. The blood from my eyes stains his sleeve.
Against my ear, he whispers, “Sometimes power is knowing when to refrain.”
I freeze, feeling his arms around me, momentarily forgetting about my anger and fear, dropping my connection to the blood.
From over his shoulder, I watch the guards. It takes a while, but they get to their feet. They try to run. The movements are awkward and slow.
I nearly killed them, just because I could. I still want them dead.
I shake my head, turning away and looking at Leiholan. My voice quivers. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”
Taking the crown, murdering the guards—surely there’s a reason they don’t want me as queen. How in the worlds am I the best fit for this position?
Leiholan backs away, clutching my biceps as he leans on his crutch. “I do. And it’s okay. You can step onto the wrong path. Just make sure you’re strong enough to walk yourself back off it.”
“It isn’t just a bad path.” I shake my head, unable to meet his gaze. “I killed…” My voice breaks off, my heart snapping with my vocal chords. “Thousands—hundreds of thousands,” I whisper as I realize the scope of what I’ve done. What I’ve been trying to ignore.
A planet. I’ve destroyed an entire planet.
Children in their beds. Mothers in the yards. What happened to them in their final moments? Was it quick and painless, like snuffing a candle, or did they feel everything? Did they feel as every single light—every single soul—went out? Did it burn through their bodies, turning their bones to ash?
The need to get this off my chest is insurmountable. But what then? How can I ever absolve this guilt?
“Folkara fell because of me.”
I find the courage to glance up. Leiholan is watching me. In his eyes, there isn’t the disgust I expected. There isn’t fear.
“There’s a Weapon,” I continue. “Somehow… my power is connected to it. When I used the Memorium to bring back the memories—” I wipe my eyes.
“It’s not your fault,” Leiholan whispers back, resting a hand on my shoulder.
I meet his gaze. “I did it—“
“It’s not your fault.”
“I did it!” I scream, shoving his hand away. Leiholan stumbles back, struggling to balance on his crutch. But anger feels better than sorrow, screaming is softer than crying. “I killed hundreds of thousands of people!”
“You didn’t know,” Leiholan says, struggling as he steps toward me.
“I did it.”
“And it wasn’t your fault.”
The anger I wanted to hold onto falters—I falter. Tears fall. “I didn’t mean to,” I whisper.
“Kid, I know.”
“Why aren’t you horrified?” I ask.
“I fought a war, sweetheart.”
“So?”
“So what you did by accident, I did on purpose. I know the guilt. Not all of us soldiers felt it. You’ll save yourself.”
“How?” My voice breaks.
Leiholan grimaces, his eyebrows folding like he’s in pain.
“I don’t know.” His thumb brushes absently against the hem of his shirt. “But I have no doubt you will. I see it in your eyes—that will of yours. It hasn’t let you go yet. It won’t.”
I gulp and nod, swallowing his words and pretending I believe them.
“Sometimes I think that’s the only reason I made it through,” he tells me.
His will might be good—but I’m scared of what mine has in store for me. The only thing keeping me from tearing down these halls and breaking those men in two is him. He thinks I’m worth saving.
All that time in Visnatus, he was trying to protect me, and all I did was fight him. Now I have no shortage of enemies, and all I want from him is peace.
All I want is a person to talk to. Someone to listen without judgment. And that’s Leiholan. I can’t believe I ever treated him the way I did.
“You know I’m sorry,” I say. “Right? For everything I said last year—”
“Don’t worry about it, kiddo.”
I killed a planet’s worth of people, but to him I’m still kiddo. My eyebrows pinch together as I study him. He remembers me. The arguments. His leg. All my worst moments. And he stands beside me.
I hug him tight.
“Will you be there?” I ask, face planted in his shoulder. “At the wedding?”
With a pat on my back, he says, “I’m there whenever you need me.”