Chapter 20
He’d been out for five days.
It was too much time. He’d missed so much, and he hated his illness all over again, wished it were a living being so he could drive his Veilblade into its chest.
Alaris came to his rooms and treated him...sent her magic easing against him, pushing away the darkness that lingered over his soul. “Not yet, Dear Boy,” she told him, when she saw the question in his eyes, one that was unspoken between them, time and again:
Will I die today?
Servants came with steaming soup and hot tea and honey to ease the coughing in his lungs. It did nothing, but the thought was nice.
He couldn’t taste his meals.
He could hardly get out of his bed, alone, with his dignity intact. He needed help to use the restroom, needed help to change his damned pants. He was carried to the royal bathing chambers, where they left him in the steam for hours, claiming it would open his lungs.
Help him breathe.
But all he wanted was to see her.
It was an effort to keep himself from sending for Ezer, and having someone bring her to his chambers, where she could lay beside him, run her hand through his hair, place her head on his chest...
Because that version of them?
It did not yet exist.
This empty room, these four cold walls...this was all he had right now.
And he did not yet belong to her.
She doesn’t know you, Kinlear reminded himself. You’re a stranger, a prince she can hardly trust. She quite literally wants to feed you to the raphon.
Ezer did not share his Veilborne visions.
She did not yet know, how delicately she carried his heart.
Still...
If the future was to come true, and it must, then he had to speak to her, had to stay connected to her, so he called her own servant to his quarters. Izill, who he’d stationed at Ezer’s side because he knew Ezer would love her for her strength...however chatty her words.
He didn’t realize how terrible he looked until Izill entered his room and paled when she saw him.
“Is it that bad?” Kinlear blurted.
Izill wasn’t one to lie, the same as Arawn. So, she simply nodded, and said, “I’ve...certainly seen worse.”
“In the body collector carts?” Kinlear asked, as he took another sip from his vial with trembling hands.
She nodded, her eyes sad. “Unfortunately...yes.”
She knew the truth of his condition. She wasn’t one to be fed the silly lie that most others in the Citadel had believed for years: that Kinlear was born with a simple condition of the lungs, not fatal, of course, for the gods would never do that to one of their royal Sacred.
They believed he had far too many scholarly duties to attend to, that he was either buried beneath his studies, preparing for life as Arawn’s own hand.
..or that he often left to visit Touvre.
..when he was here in his tower all along, lost in a runic sleep.
He trusted Izill, for she’d never given up his secret.
Others assumed, or speculated, or formulated outlandish rumors. Some even said he was a darksoul in hiding, sipping from his vial to keep the shadows at bay.
It added to his mystery, he knew. But if he were being honest?
He hated it.
“Well...” Kinlear wheezed. “At least I still look better than my father does.”
The servant pressed her lips together, as if she wanted to smile. But she was loyal enough to the crown that she didn’t give anything away.
“I need you to deliver something for me,” Kinlear said, as he groaned his way into sitting up. Izill moved to help adjust his pillows, to which he thanked her, and offered his best alive smile. “Some gifts I have, for Ezer.”
“A popular woman, these days,” Izill said, and blew out a breath.
Kinlear lifted a brow. “With who?”
But Izill only chuckled and waved him away. She was harder to get answers out of than Alaris, for the healer often spoke in cute little riddles.
Magus would have adored them both.
“I’ll say this. Your letters, Prince, have not appeased her,” Izill said. “Not in the slightest. In fact, I think she burned one. She may have even stomped on the ashes when the burning was done.”
He winced.
He kept her letter, however furious it was, right by his bedside. He’d read it over and over again, like a little thread to keep him hanging onto life.
The way he once had with Soraya’s.
A twinge of guilt struck him within. He shoved it away, because that was the past...and he was a better man now.
“Does she know?” Kinlear asked. “About...”
He couldn’t bring himself to say it.
“About me?”
She’d pity him, the way Soraya did. She’d look at him like he was already half-gone, and she would close off her heart to a future with him. It would end before it even started, and he didn’t think he would survive that.
She was his only hope.
Perhaps the only one he’d ever had, after the truths he’d learned from Magus.
But Izill only shrugged her small shoulders, and gave him a stern look. “I think she’s more concerned with staying alive, Kinlear, than she is at uncovering the truths about you. She’s studying the raphon all hours of the day, when she isn’t in there with it.”
Her eyes widened, as if just the thought of the beast made her terrified.
“She hates me,” Kinlear said. And when Izill didn’t answer, he choked on his cough. “She hates me? Truly?”
“She feels left behind by you,” Izill explained. “Forgotten. Say the word, and we can tell her the truth. I can promise you, she’s quite capable of handling it, she’s truly a—"
“No!” Kinlear blurted.
And then, damn himself, he was coughing again, hacking like a war bear choking on a bone. Izill got him a glass of water and sat patiently while he settled himself with another sip of his vial.
He’d emptied two already today. The tide of his illness was changing, growing deeper. Stronger.
But through it all, Ezer was his anchor.
He hadn’t forgotten her one bit.
If only she knew how much time he’d spent with her in his dreams. How close they’d been in that cave, their lips pressed together, their bodies flush, their destinies colliding. He just had to get strong enough, regain his strength, so he could see her again.
He signaled for the table beside his bed, where he’d written yet another letter.
He’d tried to be clever in one, tried to be funny in another, even tried to be downright rude in one of them.
He supposed that was the one she’d burned.
Gods, why was he such an asshole sometimes?
He’d never had a problem with women before. Not once, before her.
She hadn’t written him back in days.
So today, he’d try to appease her and send a gift.
“Take the books, just there,” Kinlear said, pointing at the overflowing shelf in the corner of the large room.
He’d read each one far too many times to count, and he sensed that Ezer would love them.
..one, about a fearsome assassin who loved her kingdom enough to die for it.
Another, about a prince who would do anything to tear his own kingdom apart.
Izill brought him the books, and the ribbon he’d requested from the royal seamstress earlier. With shaking hands, he tied a silk ribbon around the books himself. Black, to match Ezer’s raphon. To match the darksoul blade she’d carry later, from his dreams.
“Tell her I sent them,” he begged.
Izill just sighed down at him. “Someday...I’d like to have a pair of princes chasing after me.”
She blessed him, took the books and the letter, and left the room.
It wasn’t until later that he caught her final words. A pair of princes.
Which meant...
Kinlear’s entire body went numb.
It meant, just like with Soraya...Arawn was after her heart, too.