Chapter 14 #2
I could picture them: twins, one golden, one shadowed, creeping through ivy-draped stone, mud on their shoes, mischief echoing between mossy pillars.
“Emrys found a ring,” Nisien said. “It was buried under a broken marble slab. Though it was black as pitch, the ring was etched with minuscule runes that seemed to burn with an inner light. We knew immediately that it was powerful, incredibly ancient magic.”
A cold prickling, like tiny spiders crawling, ran down my arms.
“I told him not to touch it. I felt…something. A wrongness in it. But Emrys, ever the curious one, always sought to understand. He picked it up.”
“What happened?”
“It burned him.” Nisien’s voice dropped. “It knocked him off his feet. He threw it away to stop the pain.”
“Did it harm him?”
“Yes.” Nisien let out a long sigh. “But not in the way one might imagine. His skin was unmarked, but his mind was affected. His dreams started that very night. Sometimes, he’d scream in his sleep, though he tried to hide it.
Then his power began to surge randomly with a force not seen since Avanfell’s first emperor, or so they say.
“As a child, Emrys was quiet and reflective, kind, just, and fair—qualities I can only hope to emulate. He is still all those things, and in many ways, he would be a better ruler than myself.”
“Prince Emrys…” I swallowed. “Sounds admirable.”
“He is, Lady Isca.” Nisien’s fingers traced the rim of his goblet.
“My brother has always been magically gifted, but whatever happened that day amplified his strength and took away his ability to control himself. Some call it a curse, others a condition. He calls it a monster or beast. But when his control slips, the castle trembles. No mage on the isles or the continent can match his abilities, and the Mage Assembly cannot figure out how to relieve him of his burden.”
A sick weight settled in my gut. “And the ring?”
“Gone,” Nisien said. “My father had search parties sent out that scoured the area for weeks, but they never found it. It was like it had vanished into the earth. But I harbor a different secret fear that I would not have shared widely. Can I trust in your discretion?”
The way he looked at me, so earnestly, made answering in the affirmative easy.
“I fear that Emrys never actually threw the ring, though he tried. I fear that it became a part of him.”
I stared down at my plate, the scraps of food on it suddenly unappealing.
“Whatever it was, it didn’t leave him,” Nisien added. “It’s like there’s a beast in his skin. Some days, he locks himself away because he fears killing again—he cannot find a way to tame it. Daily he struggles with controlling his tongue, as it pushes him to lash out with words as well.”
“I have seen him kill,” I rasped, the words catching in my suddenly parched throat. “Back in Caervorn.”
“I am sorry for that, lady,” Nisien said, meaning it.
Then, he leaned forward, pointing one resolute finger in the air.
“Understand this. He kills only when it is justified or during war—as far as I know, at least. As a ruler, we sometimes have no choice but to pass down final judgments. Still, it plagues him.”
Memory hung heavy in the ensuing silence. I thought of Emrys’s eyes in the market. They’d held the haunted look of a man bracing for grief. Now, after everything Nisien had told me, his overwhelming sorrow made sense. His grief could’ve been for the lives he’d ended or the life he’d lost—or both.
I felt Nisien’s grief too, but it was a quiet thing. Beneath it, I sensed something else: guilt.
Was his guilt about his brother, or was there another reason?
It was impossible to say for sure. Both men carried around the sort of guilt that hollows a person out from the inside, that slowly destroys their spirit.
I sensed there was much more to uncover about them both, and my exploration had barely begun.
“Emrys should be the sole heir, as he is older than me, though not by much.” Nisien gave a tight chuckle. The way his guilt pulsed with the admission solved some of the mystery of Nisien—and it had been so freely given.
“I understand you’ve been tasked with resolving certain difficulties within our kingdom,” he continued. “Know that I need Emrys. And I think, in some ways, he still needs me too. The Assembly doesn’t yet understand that. So, I will apologize in advance for making your work more difficult.”
If anything, his being so forthright would make it easier, but I still caught his meaning.
“I will confess,” I said slowly, “Prince Emrys is a rather intimidating figure. I’ve felt the darkness inside him, and it nearly brought me to my knees. I have a challenging task ahead of me. Though now, after hearing you speak so highly of him, I am eager to make his acquaintance properly.”
Those weren’t just pretty words to indulge royalty. I meant it. I could be terrified of Emrys, but I wouldn’t let that stop me trying to help him.
Nisien rose and came around the table. I turned to face him, expecting him to bid me goodnight from a polite distance. Instead, he reached for my hand and bowed low over it.
His lips, warm and soft, brushed the back of my knuckles, lingering this time, sending shivers down my spine.
For a heartbeat, I imagined another prince there.
One whose touch would surely sear me on contact.
I was left breathless by the contrast and by the dawning realization that I already thought of Emrys in that way.
On my arm’s descent back to earth, the gown’s embroidery scraped my wrists with a reminder: You don’t belong here.
When Nisien met my gaze, his smile held a sort of softness I’d never seen directed at me by a man. “You carry more grace than most women I have met, Lady Isca.”
Had my gift not been reading him furiously, I wouldn’t have believed him. Yet, he was sincere. I couldn’t find my voice to reply before he straightened and stepped back.
“Sleep well,” he said. “You’ll need your strength if you’re going to fix my brother and me. Gods know we both need all the help we can get.”
Then he was gone, and I was left with the glow of candlelight and my swirling thoughts. I stood, and by the time my feet reached the door I’d entered through, Catrin was there waiting for me. She ushered me back to my room, helped me undress, and let my hair down for bed.
The fur robe she gave me to wear over my dressing gown felt wonderfully soft and warm. “It’ll be such a comfort in your apartment,” she said, noting the persistent coolness of the nights and mornings.
I was still a stranger in this world, so I accepted her word for it.
Not even five minutes after I’d settled under the furs, just as I was drifting off to sleep, a prickling sensation flooded across my skin like a wave carrying a million jagged pieces of ice during a snowstorm.
It wasn’t like the magic Nisien had used to create a shield in front of me, and it wasn’t like my own magic. It was unmistakably the wild sort that had surged out of Emrys when he’d shattered the door upon my arrival.
Having lived mainly among mundane humans for my entire life, feeling magic like this was still strange to me.
Leaving the warmth of my bed, I secured my robe, mindful of my long hair, and debated grabbing the candle placed next to my bed left there for just this purpose.
Deciding against bringing extra attention to myself by carrying a light, I cautiously opened my door to see what was going on.
The hall was half-lit and silent, the few still-flickering torches casting long shadows on the floors between the rooms. The direction the magic was coming from was unmistakable—just down the hall where Catrin had said the prince’s apartments were.
I crept on bare, silent feet out into the hallway to see if I could hear or feel anything else.
The back of my neck prickled as if I were being watched. Maybe this was a test. Or maybe I was overthinking everything. I shook my head, suddenly feeling silly. Hadn’t Nisien just told me that Emrys had trouble escaping his violent episodes? Maybe he needed my help.
When I reached the door from where the magic was emanating, I tried to listen in. Pressing my ear to the wood, I heard nothing. Feeling silly all over again, I turned to head back to my room when a small noise stopped me.
The sound was perilously close to a stifled sob. Gods above and below, it had to be Emrys in there. Maybe he was stuck in a dream like Nisien had hinted at.
My caution and good sense battled with my conscience.
In the end, my conscience won. My caution remained, however.
I placed my hand on the door, the smooth wood cool against my skin. With the way Nisien had talked about him, Emrys couldn’t be that terrible, right?
I wasn’t even sure it would work. I’d never sent magic through the wood of a door, never used it to calm someone I couldn’t see. Still, I reached for the spark inside me, the one that soothed crying babes and angry drunks alike, and let it pour out through my fingers in a slow, invisible wave.
A morning of riding and a full day settling into my new home had already worn me out, so it didn’t take much more to exhaust me. I continued for another thirty seconds before the exertion of using so much magic made my knees wobble.
My fingers had already curled around the edge of my robe to retreat when the quiet click of a latch shifting stopped me cold.
Time slowed as the door behind me creaked open inch by inch.
I froze.
I’d been caught.