Chapter 27
He screamed.
But he couldn’t wake up.
He screamed, but there was nothing, nothing at all, that could keep him from watching the same dream play out, time and time again.
Something was wrong in the waking world.
Was he dying?
Was this to be his end?
“Please,” he begged, as it all replayed again. The fall, the kiss, the flight, the knife. “Please, set me free from this.”
It wasn’t until he saw a burning, golden light...
A flickering flame in the night, lighting up the sky, as if all of it had caught fire. Those flames shoved past every vision as he fell, burned them to ashes until there was nothing left but darkness.
Until he was no longer falling, but...
But lying on something cold and hard, a familiar pain burning against his hand.
Magic.
He inhaled as it washed through him, warmth in the cold, a light in the darkness.
As he finally, blessedly, woke up.
He woke in a cave, covered by his brother’s heavy white cloak.
And...Six. Her enormous dark wing was wrapped around him, her hot breath in his face. His body ached, but at least he was warm, and—
His head.
Oh, gods, his head ached so bad it felt like it had been separated from his shoulders. Like he’d crashed not against the snow but against a tree and somehow, against all odds...
He’d lived.
He looked down to find a healing rune on his hand. It wasn’t as finely inscribed as he would have done. Magus would have scoffed at it. But at least it served its purpose, and the glow from the corner of his eye revealed that perhaps there was one on his head, too.
He was on a rocky, cold floor. A cave, his breath forming before him in clouds, even though there was a fire off to the side. He could hear it crackling, along with...
The sound of heavy breathing.
Ezer.
Oh, gods, Ezer.
Was she the one who’d inscribed the rune on his hand?
The crash came back to him in a flash. He’d never forget her yelp of terror that had matched his own as they’d hit the snow, and then everything went dark.
Kinlear groaned as he sat up, head wobbling. He had to get to her, had to see if she was okay. Did Ezer bring him to this cave? He tried to shove Six’s wing off him, but his arms felt like wet noodles, and the damned raphon wouldn’t budge.
He shoved again, pushing against her wing, but she held him in place.
He groaned, as Six growled in warning.
But...
It wasn’t for him.
It was for Ezer, Kinlear realized, as he finally broke away from the shadow of Six’s wing and found a nightmare playing out before him.
Ezer.
His Ezer...was sitting on Arawn’s lap. Not just sitting, she was straddling him, her hands wrapped around his neck as a soft moan of pleasure left her lips, and Kinlear felt like he’d been stabbed in the chest.
That sound...
It was supposed to be for him.
But it was Arawn who devoured her now, as he groaned against her, too. Their mouths moved in time as his hands dug into the small of her back, pulling her closer against his—
No.
Kinlear closed his eyes, breathing deep despite the pain in his lungs.
She was Kinlear’s to love, Kinlear’s to hold, Kinlear’s to kiss in a cave just like this.
“Well,” he said, the word soaring away before he could reel it back in. “This is certainly an interesting sight.”
Ezer and Arawn broke apart, still flushed with lust and wanting...
And Kinlear swore something woke within him. He could feel its fury, its wrath...and a set of long, sharp claws that gouged into the fringes of his mind, and a voice whispered, “Hello, Little Prince.”
He swore, deep inside his soul...
The monster had been reincarnated.
He saw only darkness.
It wanted him to hurt her, wanted him to make her pay for what she’d just done in front of him.
So, he broke her with the truth.
And he forced Arawn to tell her about her Uncle.
The bastard who’d murdered Six’s siblings...the Ervos she’d pined over, speaking about with sad and loving, loyal eyes...
He was still alive. He was inside the cells beneath the Citadel.
And Arawn had known, the entire time.
Kinlear had known, too, of course, for there wasn’t a thing that went on inside the Citadel he hadn’t uncovered. But he didn’t tell her that fact. He was plenty accustomed to a life of lying, even when it sent him straight towards penance.
His.
She. Was. His.
He would sooner kill Arawn Laroux than watch her do that with him again. And he could see it all play out in his mind. He could see the way he’d take a blade, how he would...
No.
No, that was his darkness thinking. That was his jealousy, and he swore it was his monster, deep inside, somehow placing its claws against his waking mind. He could sense that it was there...alive, after all this time. After he’d defeated it.
He would not be controlled.
He would not let it affect him like this.
So, Kinlear held his tongue. He was silent as the sun rose, and he followed Ezer out into the snow.
He remained so, as she climbed onto Six’s back, anger turning her features as cold as the forest around them.
Kinlear wrapped his arms around her middle, and held her as if he were holding the pieces of her together.
You’re awful, he told himself. You’re a liar. A manipulator.
A monster.
And somewhere deeper in his mind, he swore it hissed at him, and whispered, yes.
They left Arawn in the woods, alone.
It was the very same way Kinlear imagined Soraya had been when Arawn soared away and left the wolves to feed upon her.
He prayed the same would happen again...that his brother would never return home. That Kinlear would get to rise in his place, despite how forbidden it was.
Stranger things had happened, in his days.
Even stranger, in his nights.
When Six landed in the Eagle’s Nest, Izill was there to greet them. It was a flurry, a frenzy of shouts and servants rushing forward when they saw the state of their prince.
His vial was empty. His body...nearing the end of its strength.
“Wait!” Ezer called out, as the servants took him away from her.
She rushed towards him, and the sight of her face, so worried for him, ignited hope in him. She would still be on his side. She would still fly with him across the Expanse.
He would never tell her the secret of Ervos. He would carry it with him to the grave, and endure the pain, and take the guilt, because at least he’d still have her in the end.
At least it would all be worth it.
He felt it in his very bones...and then she sealed it when she pressed a soft kiss against his cheek.
He burned.
Oh, gods, he burned beneath the press of her lips, even though they’d just been on Arawn’s.
Surely, she’d just experienced a fling with him. A lapse in judgement. Kinlear would move past it, forget about it, forgive her for it, because in the end...
She would give her heart to him.
“Thank you,” Ezer whispered against him. He wanted to hold her there forever, and for one moment...he almost did tell her the truth. But then she pulled away, leaving him cold once more, and the moment passed. He could feel it, falling through his fingertips.
“For what?” Kinlear asked.
He knew he looked weak, with the blood dried to his dark curls and the shadows that had surely gathered beneath his eyes. But she did not shy away from him.
“For being someone who is not afraid to break me,” she said.
He smiled sadly. “You are not easily broken, Raphonminder. And as luck should have it...neither am I. I’ll send order to let you pass into the prison. But what you will find there...”
Her Uncle’s mind was shattered.
And he had been a part of seeing to it.
“I can handle it,” she said.
He smiled weakly, seconds from passing out. “I know.”
The servants carried him away.
And as consciousness left him, he realized...she might not be broken.
But Kinlear?
He could be.
Oh, gods, he could be, for he swore he felt his own heart crack a little when he looked her in the eyes...and lied.
He didn’t deserve her. Not one godsdamned bit.