Chapter 2 #2
I knock softly, only so I don’t alarm Mylo, who’s been sitting faithfully by my uncle’s side, watching and waiting for any improvement to his condition.
I suck in a deep breath and brace myself for whatever awaits on the other side.
As my hand twists the doorknob, my mind is tangled in the memory of Mylo staggering through the gates, my uncle slumped against him, barely clinging to life.
Mylo and Sir Holden had supported his weight, bringing him to an empty room so I could try to heal him, my heart in a panic as I desperately attempted to mend the damage the Shadow Tsar had inflicted.
And just before unconsciousness took my uncle, his grip tightened weakly around my wrist, his voice rasping the words that have haunted me since.
“Your father is alive.”
I swallow hard as I enter the room. I don’t know if those words were the ramblings of a half-conscious man, or if they hold the weight of truth. But I have to know. And if he’s awake now, if he can speak, I need answers.
The guest chamber he now occupies is warmer than the hall, but the tall windows show a darkening sky.
The fire in the hearth casts golden light over polished floors and embroidered drapes.
It’s a beautiful room, though its grandeur has faded with time.
Dust once gathered in the carved, wooden trim, and the air had been thick with disuse before I had the servants air it out, change the linens, and light fresh candles.
Now, the scent of beeswax and lavender lingers, though it does nothing to ease the tightness in my chest. My uncle lies motionless beneath a heavy, woolen blanket, his face pale against the shadowed curve of the pillow.
The steady rise and fall of his chest is the only reassurance that he’s still breathing. Still fighting.
His body has mended in the days since he arrived—a combined effort between his healing powers and mine—but whatever the tsar did to him lingers. He hasn’t used his telepathy powers to speak to me, and he hasn’t woken since he uttered those damning words out loud.
“Your father is alive.”
If that’s true, what does that mean? Does it mean my father has been held prisoner by the tsar?
When the tsar captured my uncle, were my uncle and father reunited in a dungeon cell?
Did the tsar mean to deliver a message to me by dumping my uncle’s broken body by the border for Mylo to find?
Was he threatening to do the same to my father?
“Your father is alive.”
Unless he meant…
I shake my head, unable to fathom it. Surely, if my father were the tsar, someone would have realized it was King Axel Westergaard. Surely, word would have gotten out, that not only was the ruler of Delasurvia not dead, but he had also taken on a new identity.
But if he is the tsar, that means he faked his death and abandoned his family.
That means he ambushed the previous Tsar of Dulcamar and usurped him.
For what? He already ruled a kingdom. What would he have needed with Dulcamar?
The questions make my head spin, and the whole idea makes no sense, so I’m convinced it can’t be true.
Mylo sits in the corner, his massive frame nearly swallowing the high-backed chair beneath him.
For the first two days, he paced the chamber in restless silence, a man of action forced into stillness, but exhaustion must have settled in, and now he sits as he watches over my uncle with a sharp-eyed patience.
As I step inside, the floor creaks, and his head lifts.
He stands immediately, towering over me, and I have to tilt my chin up to meet his gaze.
“Has he stirred?” I whisper.
Mylo shakes his head, his broad arms crossing over his chest. “Not once.” His deep voice is edged with frustration, as if he’d expected his sheer will alone to wake Kormak from his state. “I don’t like it.”
A quiet knock pulls my focus toward the door.
Ezra steps in, his robes dampened from what I now realize is rain.
He runs a hand over his salt-and-pepper hair, sending raindrops flying.
His face is pale with exhaustion, and he carries a small, leather satchel under one arm.
There’s something fragile in the way he moves, as if the weight of all he knows is pressing too heavily on his shoulders.
He glances at Mylo, then at me. “You’re here,” he says softly, his tone threaded with relief. “Good.”
I nod once. “Have there been any changes?”
Ezra crosses to the bedside, setting the satchel down and studying Kormak’s face with a frown that pinches the corners of his eyes.
“He mumbles sometimes. Unintelligible fragments. Painful memories, maybe. His brow knots as if he’s dreaming—but the dreams don’t bring peace.
His grunting and twitching have worsened.
It tells me the pain is growing, not fading. ”
I step closer, the scent of dried herbs and the sharp sting of alcohol tickling my nose. Kormak lies still, his chest rising with shallow breaths, his features drawn and sunken. My stomach clenches. He’s suffering, and I don’t know how to make it stop.
“Is there anything else we can do?” I ask. “Anything we haven’t tried?”
Ezra hesitates, and in that moment, I can see he’s been holding something back. He looks to Mylo, who gives a single, silent nod, and then Ezra steps toward me.
“There is one thing,” he says slowly. “An elixir—a highly concentrated compound that some alchemists consider too risky. Not only is it… widely unconventional because of its volatility, but there are very few magisters who have access to a key ingredient.” He meets my gaze.
“I must be transparent, Celeste; its effectiveness is inexact. But it’s also the only thing I know of that might draw him back. ”
My heart thuds. “What does it do?”
“It jolts the nervous system,” he says. “In some cases, it can force a body caught between consciousness and unconsciousness to snap awake. But it’s not a gentle rousing, Celeste. It’s like calling lightning into a house already smoldering from fire.”
I flinch at the image. “Could it hurt him?”
“It could,” Ezra admits. “If his mind is too fragile, or if the damage done to him was… more taxing than we realize, it might worsen his state. Confuse the memory. Even burn through the parts of him that haven’t healed yet.
Some texts say it’s been used in cases of poison.
Others say it unmoored a patient’s mind so badly, they never came back at all. ”
My breath hitches.
Regarding me, Ezra draws a breath. “But I’ve studied this version of the recipe carefully. I believe I can make it stable—if we act now. Your uncle’s heartbeat is weakening. If we’re going to try… it has to be soon.”
The silence between us thickens. Rain whispers at the windowpanes. Mylo says nothing, his jaw clenched, his gaze pinned to the man who basically raised us both.
Ezra watches me patiently.
I wrap my arms around my waist, fingers digging into the fabric of my tunic.
My thoughts race, clashing and loud. I see my uncle’s smile in my mind.
His steady voice. The way he always told me the truth, even when it hurt.
He was always there for me, risked everything by seeking out the tsar because of me.
I can’t let him fade without doing everything in my power to stop it.
But what if I make it worse?
What if this breaks him in ways I can’t fix?
Still, doing nothing would mean losing him, anyway. And I can’t bear the thought of not trying.
Fuck.
I look at Ezra. “Do it.”
His eyes search mine for a long beat, as if to be sure. Then he nods once. “It won’t take me long to prepare, but first, I’ll need some of his blood.”
I stiffen. “Why?”
Ezra crouches beside the bed, unfastening the clasp of his satchel.
The leather creaks as he opens it, pulling out a slender, glass vial and a roll of soft cloth.
“To test the elixir properly,” he says, his tone calm and deliberate, “each formulation must be attuned to the blood of the patient. I need to take a small sample and let it interact with the base, test it so there’s no chance the tonic could react badly. ”
He produces a thin, curved blade that’s about a quarter the size of a dagger, delicate and wickedly sharp. “It won’t be deep,” he adds. “Just enough for a few drops.”
I nod, but the air feels tighter in my chest. I move beside him, gently taking my uncle’s arm and rolling up the sleeve of his nightshirt. His skin is hot, flushed, slick with fever-sweat. The sight of him like this—so limp, so unlike himself—sends another wave of helplessness crawling through me.
Ezra presses the edge of the blade to the inside of Uncle Kormak’s forearm, and though the motion is quick, my stomach still knots.
Blood wells slowly from the shallow cut.
My brow furrows when I note that it’s thick and dark, not the healthy crimson I hoped for.
I steady my uncle’s wrist, holding it gently as Ezra lets the blood drip into the vial.
“Almost there,” he murmurs.
I clench my jaw, summoning my power into my palm. The moment Ezra seals the vial with a twist of its cork, I press my hand to the wound. Warmth pulses through my fingers, knitting the skin back together with a soft hiss of heat. The cut vanishes, but the worry inside me doesn’t.
“He shouldn’t have to bleed at all,” I whisper.
Ezra slips the vial into a padded slot in his satchel and places the blade back into its case. “I know,” he says quietly. “But sometimes healing takes a few steps backward first. I’ll start preparing the elixir now. It needs to steep while the blood bonds to it.”
I close my eyes for a second and swallow down the anxiety clogging my throat.
Ezra rises, giving my shoulder a light touch. “I’ll send word the moment it’s ready.”
I nod, but I don’t move. My hand remains on my uncle’s arm as Ezra turns and disappears into the corridor beyond.
I rake my fingers through my hair and inhale deeply. The silence that follows is heavier now. Every breath, every second, feels like it could tip the scale in one direction or the other.
Mylo moves to the window, his hand resting on the sill, eyes on the storm beyond.
And I stay beside my uncle, reaching out to place my hand gently over his. His skin is cool and clammy, the strength beneath it buried—hidden, not gone. Not yet.
Please, I think. Please come back to me.
Mylo scrubs at the growing hair at his jaw, tension wound tight through his frame. “The full moon’s coming. You know what that means.”
I do. The carnoraxis are never quiet for long. And if the past year has taught us anything, it’s that when the moon swells full, the beasts follow.
“I should be out there,” Mylo continues, his voice roughened by the weight of duty. “With the squad. They’ll need every sword.” He shakes his head, focus fixed beyond the window. In the direction of Delasurvia. “Sitting around while those things crawl closer, it feels wrong.”
“It is wrong,” I murmur. “We should be with them.”
The words settle between us, heavy and unyielding. For all the king’s speeches and black mourning veils, the kingdom won’t stop bleeding while we bow our heads.
“We’ll meet our squad, then.” I give him a nod. “Both of us.”
He glances at me then, searching my face. “And the king? The mourning period?”
I let out a soft, bitter laugh. “Let him object.” My pulse thrums faster at the thought of his wrath, but I shove the fear down. “I’m the commander of the Delasurvian Royal Regiment. My duty is to the people. Not to King Silas’s reputation.”
“You don’t think he’ll punish you for defying him?”
“Let him try.” I lift my chin, though my heart slams harder against my ribs. “He can’t afford to lose me—not when his precious kingdom still needs an heir.”
For a moment, there’s only the sound of my uncle’s shallow breaths and the faint crackle of the fire in the hearth. Mylo watches me closely, the tension in his stance easing. But only slightly.
“You’re serious,” he says at last.
“I’m serious.”
His mouth curves into the barest hint of a smile, an edge of approval beneath his usual gruffness. “Good. I didn’t want to sneak out without you.”
I huff softly, shaking my head. “As if you could.”
A beat of silence lingers between us before Mylo shifts, resting his hand lightly against the pommel of his sword. “We’ll leave in three days’ time,” he says. “Right at the full moon.”
And maybe by then, my uncle will have awoken.
I give Mylo a nod, though my thoughts twist and turn beneath the surface. There’s more to this than duty, more than the need to swing a sword. Every instance in which we face the carnoraxis brings us one step closer to taking down the tsar.
And this time, I won’t sit idly by while the moon rises.