Chapter 39 Jai
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
JAI
The return to consciousness is a hike through a heavy storm, a slog through pounding rain, a rain so thick the air feels like the bottom of the sea.
I’m swimming back to consciousness and my wings are fins.
My body is a serpent.
This is a territory close to death.
And then I realize I’m not alone inside my head.
Phaethon…
He is the serpent, the dragon, and he has smothered me for… how fucking long? Godsdammit. How long has he occupied my body and mind?
I’m lying on my stomach on a hard bed, and when I try to sit up, agony slices through my back.
Shit.
Memory comes in bits and pieces.
Rae.
The king.
The lashing.
And then Phaethon taking over and talking to both of them.
More pieces filter in, but as ever with Phaethon steering, I can’t get the whole picture. Only shards from a broken mirror.
“Back with us?” a male voice asks and I jerk, then curse as more pain rips through my back.
The familiarity of the voice slowly registers and I try again the getting-up thing, in degrees. One elbow on the bed. Then the other. Some choice swearwords. Hey, I’m getting there.
Trying to keep my back straight, I groan and hiss until I manage to sit.
“Fuck…” Black spots swim in my eyes. “The fuck.”
“You look like utter shit,” Arkin says.
I glare at him. “Fuck off.”
“Eloquent. And reassuring. Jai is back.”
Yeah. And Arkin is here, but not Rae. Dammit.
I shift on the bed and bite the inside of my cheek not to moan. Right in this instant, I wish I weren’t present for this pain.
“Here.” He offers me a cup and winks. “The healers said to drink it all up, and look.” In his other hand he has a pitcher. “There’s lots more where that came from.”
“What is this?” I frown down at the cup.
“Poison. Adder venom. Nightshade nectar. What do you think? Something to take the edge off the pain. And you have to drink it, Jai, or you won’t be able to move. Trust me.”
Grudgingly, I accept the cup and sniff it. It stinks. A good sign, I suppose, so I down it and clamp my mouth shut so it won’t come back up. “This is fucking terrible.”
“All good medicine is,” he says sagely.
Yeah, we can agree on that.
“How is my back?” I make myself ask.
“Shredded,” he says.
“I figured as much.”
“Healing fine, though,” he hurries on to add. “Much more quickly than the healers expected. More quickly than any human has ever healed, though of course…”
“Of course I’m not really human.”
“Yeah. There’s that.”
He’s quiet as I move, inch by painful inch, to sit on the edge of the bed. I move my arms and hiss as agony sears my back. “Will I be able to draw my swords?”
His jaw clenches. He shakes his head. “Not anytime soon.”
“Terrific.”
“Then again, it all depends on how fast you heal.”
I sigh.
“Look,” he says. “I know it’s not me you wanted to see by your side.”
“Ark—”
“She was here. Do you remember that?”
“Vaguely.”
“She argued with Phaethon. Demanded he let you surface. She wanted to talk to you.”
“How the hell do you know? Were you here all this time?”
“No.” His mouth twists. “I came to visit you and overheard a few things. Once the king got in, I had to stay out until he left.”
That made sense. More sense than everything else kicking around inside my head. The fragments of recent memories seem louder than ever, because… something is… different. I can’t pinpoint it.
It’s as if… I can hear myself think. My thoughts unfold unhindered, stretching out as far as they need to go, like ribbons, parchments. It’s… silent inside my head.
No howling.
No incomprehensible words echoing.
Phaethon? I cautiously send out the thought.
“Miss me?” his dry voice comes instantly, jolting me.
What in the hells? You’re quiet.
“Oh, now you want me to howl in your ear?”
Well, to be honest, with the pain in my back, going completely around the bend might distract me but… No. I’m good. Stay quiet.
“Don’t tell me what to do, human.”
I almost grin at the indignant tone and…
“Jai, are you listening to me?” Arkin shouts. “Jai!”
Great. “I have to talk to Rae,” I say.
“She seems to agree with you on that. Jai, listen…” He shifts on his feet. “About the fight we had.”
“About that night in the sacred garden?”
“He told her that you aren’t to be trusted.
That you don’t want to help the humans.” He lifts a hand when I start protesting that she doesn’t trust the king.
“That’s why we were there. To eavesdrop.
To spy. Tru wanted to listen to what the king had to say.
I… I switched my shift to accompany him.
Look, I know we failed Lady Rae, but believe me, if he had forced her into anything, we would have intervened. ”
Damn the king. He has always used me, but he never whipped me within an inch of my life before. And Arkin doesn’t know how he used my memories to trap her.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were there to keep tabs on the king?” I ask softly.
“Because the opportunity arose suddenly and I didn’t think we had to report on our every move. As we agreed. I mean, if you still don’t think we’re traitors.”
I sigh. “I don’t think you are traitors, Ark.”
He grunts back. “Good to know. But I still think you’re a fool in love.”
I bow my head. “I am. I won’t deny it. It’s her, Ark.”
“Her?”
“The woman I once loved.”
“That woman is dead, Jai.”
I have no reply to that, except… I was wrong. “She’s finnfolk,” I whisper.
He gives me a long look. “I see. Does Tru know this?”
“That she is my mate or that she’s finnfolk?”
“Either.”
“No idea,” I say. “You tell me.”
“I don’t know, Jai.” He sighs. “It’s been a mess of a week.”
I nod. “We haven’t sat together to strategize in forever. A new plan is needed. Calling the rebel troops to the shore was probably a mistake. I thought I was becoming stronger, controlling Phaethon and be free to kill the king, but it didn’t work out that way.”
Phaethon lets out a low laugh inside my mind.
“Maybe it’s time to attack the sacred palace in force,” Arkin says. “I know our magic isn’t strong enough against his, especially since he’s now borrowed your powers, too, but—”
“We aren’t going to kill him,” I say.
“What? But that’s the plan, that’s why—”
“He has bound himself to her. Killing him will kill her and I won’t allow that.”
“You won’t allow it? I am sorry, Jai, I understand she’s your mate, and she’s a great girl, but we have been planning this for years. This is our chance, here, where he has fewer guards and thinks he’s untouchable. We end it, here, now.”
“I said no.”
“This is bigger than you! Bigger than your bond.”
“Nothing,” I say quietly, “is bigger than our fucking bond.”
“But—”
“This discussion is over, Ark. We aren’t killing the king.”
“The hell it is. Tru was right.”
“About what?”
“You’ve lost your head with her. This has been our war since we met you.
Trying to find a way to get to the king, take him down.
Even when you went crazy and then got so addicted to his bite, we still stood by you, still tried to find a way.
We planned this, Jai. Planned to distract him so you could get to him during the trials, but you went and volunteered!
Everything was set for success, you dived into the trials, dived after her, and to the hells with everyone else. ”
I drag my fingers through my hair. Pull at it. “I just… can’t fucking lose her again.”
“You’d condemn this world for her?”
“It’s not that simple, Ark,” I breathe. He doesn’t know what losing her had felt like.
“Yes, it is. Would you, Jai?”
“Fuck. I would.”
“You are a fucking asshole.” His hands have curled into fists, and the fury in his eyes burns deep. “Why would you think your love counts more than anybody else’s? Who do you think you are?”
“Nobody important,” I whisper. “But I won’t risk her.”
“Why, who is she? A lost queen? A goddess?”
“She is my woman, and that makes her a queen and a goddess to me.”
Face white, cheekbones flushed, Arkin looks about to murder me. Instead, with another muttered curse, he spins on his heel and heads out.
Finally alone, I close my eyes. What am I doing? I don’t even know. I only know what I told him. She is my world. If I risk her, then what the fuck do I care about anything else?
I never said I was a good man.
A servant whose face I don’t recall comes later to my room to bring me fresh clothes and to inform me that I’m to attend dinner with the king and Rae.
“Attend?” I mutter, staring at her. “Tonight… isn’t the formal dinner. Are you saying they are having dinner alone?”
“I wouldn’t know, my lord.” She curtsies hastily, her face paling. “I was only told to bring you the clothes at His Majesty’s command.”
“And are you going to help me dress? Help me to the royal apartments?” I bark, the pain limiting my patience and the thought of Rae alone with the king fraying my self-restraint. The shadows unfurl around me, crashing like waves against the walls. “Carry me, if you must?”
She cringes away with a gasp, and I press a hand to my eyes.
Fuck. What am I doing?
“Send me a manservant to help,” I say more quietly, calling the shadows back to myself. They obey with some reluctance, slithering back to me like pet snakes. “I will of course do as His Majesty bids.”
“My lord.” Another hurried curtsy and she flees.
Dammit, Jai. Get it together. This isn’t the time to fall apart. You have found your mate. She’s here. You have to be smart about it.
But how? What the hell should I do?
If only I had a way to take his mark off her, free her from that bond, freeing us to kill the king…
I told Arkin the truth. I can’t kill the king and risk her life. Wishing I didn’t care for her is useless. I’ve been bound to her, body and soul, since I met her. Fated mate or not, she means too much to me to let go.
I didn’t let go for a hundred years. How should I do it now? She’s a part of me.
A dark fog fills my thoughts that has nothing to do with my resident evil. In fact, speaking of whom…
Phaethon, I send the thought cautiously, unable to believe I’m asking this. Are you… all right?
“Awfully kind of you to ask,” comes his snide reply inside my head. “As if you care.”
I wait for more, but he’s silent. This is… foreboding. What’s going on, Phaethon? Why the quiet?
“You mean why I’m not howling and cursing you? Banging around inside your skull, trying to elbow my way out?”
Yeah. That.
“The girl… Rae. She asked me to talk to you.”
She did, did she? And you just… obeyed her wishes. Just like that. I raise a sardonic brow that he can’t see because he’s inside my fucking head. Which brings me back to my question. What the fuck happened? I tried to talk to you a million times in the past.
“You exaggerate.”
And you refused. In fact, you ignored me. Tried willfully to drive me mad. Are you contesting it?
“I am not.”
Then?
“What she said… was logical.”
Was it, now?
“You’re being sarcastic.”
Gods give me strength. Why would he do as she asked, when he refused to speak to me for all this time?
Then it hits me. You like her. You like Rae.
A pause. “She’s not bad.”
You like her? Really?
“Why are you so surprised?” Now he sounds cranky. “You love her. Why wouldn’t I like her?”
Yes, but you…
“… I’m a cantankerous old bastard?”
To my shock, a laugh escapes me. Yeah!
“It looks like cantankerous old bastards can also fall for a person.”
I rub a hand over my eyes. You fell for Rae?
“Can we change this topic?”
I shake my head, a grin still tugging at my lips. “Incredible. Fucking incredible.”
“Shut up.”
I suppress more laughter. Fine. I have to get ready for this accursed dinner the king has planned, anyway.
“You do that.” Another pause. “I am remembering things. Do you remember them, also?”
What things? Be more precise.
“Do you remember who killed her?”
I freeze, the laughter dying in my throat. The king. The king said something before he had me lashed but my mind recoiled from it, and now…
He sends images flashing through my mind and I groan. “Fuck… He did it, didn’t he? He killed her.”
“We have to remember,” he says. “Remember more. Remember it all. Otherwise we are at a disadvantage.”
More memories pelt me. They cut bloody grooves in my mind. “The hells, Phaethon.”
“I know. Not pleasant, is it?” He waits for me to gather my fucking wits, then says, “Who are you?”
What the fuck do you mean? You know who I am, you’ve been with me for—
“Are you King Marsyas?”