51
Aire
Whipping toward the gut-wrenching sound, I froze. Like a broken flute, the noise pierced my ears as Nicu fell to his knees. He hunched on the ground, blood smearing his clothes and face. The soft inclines of his profile trenched, an unrecognizable anguish stretching his features taut.
Terror gripped my soul. He had been stabbed. He’d been mortally wounded.
But then he screamed again, putting too much strength into the sound.
Fear dissolved into confusion. Then into realization.
A felled knight lay sprawled with a rondel dagger stuck in his chest. Adjacent to that, a harrowing scene unfolded.
My liege hunkered over a dark, motionless form. The most excruciating noises I’d ever heard cleaved from his lungs, a haunting echo that reached the canopy. With his body shaking, Nicu rocked the figure against his chest.
“No!” he shrieked. “Please, no!”
Under a blade of moonlight, the person’s unconscious face came into stark view. Lyrik’s slack features had lost its olive luster, a deadly pallor washing over the man’s stubbled jaw.
Nicu scrambled, his palm flattening over a deep gash in the rogue’s stomach that oozed pints of blood.
Hearing the cacophony, Poet spun his staff to a halt. Like a man possessed, his blazing eyes found Nicu. At the same time, Briar stalled, her wild eyes locating their son.
In unison, they broke into a run. While the pair shot toward the scene, branches twined around the remaining fighters, the crush of bone resonating.
Then suddenly, everything stooped.
Aspen stalled at my side, a gasp pushing from her lips. Crouching toward Nicu, she wrapped her arms around him from behind. Stabbing my swords into the ground, I knelt and reached for one of her hands, securing Aspen to me as if she might vanish.
Safe. Alive.
I could not rightly say the same for the alchemist who lay nestled against my liege. Nicu’s wails carved through the trees. I knew that sound well, for I had made it once, cursed by the same bereavement.
Poet and Briar faltered, relief washing over their expressions, quickly trailed by shock as they beheld their son cradling a stranger drenched in crimson.
Flare raced to the scene. Her golden eyes flashed, and she whirled toward a male outline looming twenty yards away.
“Jeryn!” she mouthed.
An easy name to read from her silent lips. Though unlike the rest of us, the King of Winter possessed the ability to hear his woman as if she spoke audibly.
Chains rattled from a set of boots. For a man who exuded patience, Jeryn’s towering frame stalked from the mist, ready to decimate anyone who dared to block his path.
His long, dark blue mane blended with the shadows, and red soaked his fur coat.
Yet the instant he spotted Flare in one piece, the man’s composure broke.
Pupils firing, he yanked the woman into a savage kiss. Uttering her own drastic noise, Flare returned the embrace. Her mouth ripped open beneath his, their lips slanting at a harsh angle, tongues swatting madly from the looks of it.
I averted my gaze until Flare broke the kiss, then snared Jeryn’s hand and dragged him across the understory. Jabbing her index finger, she pointed frantically toward the scene.
Alertness overtook Jeryn’s features. His eyebrows snapped together, and he strode forward with surgical purpose, lowering himself on one knee beside Nicu.
Gently nudging my liege aside, the king slit his eyes at the wound and pressed his fingers against Lyrik’s pulse. A critical sequence of events ensued. With glacial efficiency, Jeryn instructed, “Move back.”
Our clan retreated a few steps as the king carefully hoisted Lyrik’s dead weight into his arms. “Tell me there’s a fucking infirmary—”
“Second level.” Aspen pointed to the nearest stairway. “Northeast corner, the chamber closest to the vista point. It’s not strictly made for healing, but it’s the best option.”
Briar nodded. “I remember that post. It was vacant back when Eliot, Cadence, and I—”
“It’s an alchemy chamber now,” I explained. “Though, some of the mixtures are toxic.”
Jeryn dismissed that cautionary detail and carried the rogue’s weight toward the stairs. Only Winter could react this way with confidence. Whatever items he discovered there, the man would know how to handle them.
Nicu shot forward, but Briar cupped her son’s shoulder, dissuading him. In unison, Flare shook her head in conciliatory warning, then brushed my liege’s cheek before falling into step with her mate.
Nicu’s presence would not help. Jeryn needed to concentrate, work fast, and not be interrupted. If he required assistance beyond Flare, he would inform us.
As the pair left, quiet descended. In the wake of carnage, a suffering absence of noise blanketed the enclave like the inside of a tomb.
Corpses lay strewn across the fortress of trees.
Blood thicker than paint coated the grass, trunks, and leaves.
One bridge hung vertically from an upper level, the result of Lyrik’s explosive.
Like a macabre rendering of a historic nightmare, the remains of my former brethren cluttered various stories, platforms, crossways, as well as the ground level, marking the end of battle.
Not long ago, the sight of my peers bleeding out would have shadowed me to the end of my days. Now I could only fixate on Aspen’s dirt-streaked countenance and her lungs drafting oxygen.
She and I exchanged looks. In hindsight, the deceased knight resting nearby had been the final culprit. But he hadn’t been targeting Lyrik.
From my vantage point, I saw the alchemist take a flying leap in the same direction from which Nicu had screamed. Which meant…
Aspen’s expression matched my thoughts. That man had thrown himself in front of Nicu. The rogue took a blade to the gut for him.
My liege swayed on his feet. At the same time, his parents spun his way. The family stared, moments passing in which pandemonium claimed their features.
Rage. Love. Yearning.
Nicu’s eyes pooled, his face crumbling. “Mama.”
A strangled noise leapt from Princess Briar’s throat. The pair vaulted toward one another, colliding in a tangle of cries.
My liege’s frail voice filled the crook of her neck. “I’m sorry, Mama. I’m sorry...”
Meanwhile, Poet stood adrift. He watched through hazy pupils, as though viewing the dawn for the first time.
But when the jester and his son locked gazes, Poet’s hypnosis cleared. He walked slowly, meeting his son halfway.
In all my years of service, I rarely observed the jester at a traumatic loss for words.
Nicu’s mouth trembled. Guilt and love radiated like effervescence from him, reflecting the same combustion that torched across his father’s face.
Viewing the mayhem his absence had caused, my liege took ownership. “Papa,” he implored. “Papa, I—”
“You gave no warning,” Poet murmured with livid calm. “Nothing but a note. Then you disappeared with barely a trace.”
The princess braced herself for an argument. But then she noticed something in her husband’s inflection, an intimate sign of what lay ahead of this diatribe. Tenderness welled in her eyes, and she let the moment unravel.
“You destroyed us for weeks,” Poet rasped. “And both of your grandmothers, including Jinny when I sent her word.”
Nicu’s chin wobbled. Yet he held himself aloft. “I know.”
“You had better fucking know… As should I.”
My liege blinked. Then he saw what Briar had seen, and what became clear to Aspen and me.
Longing. Regret. Devotion.
Nicu’s face collapsed in relief. Next, an unfathomable noise tore from Poet’s throat.
In tandem, they lunged. The jester seized his son and hauled him forward, crushing the young man to his chest, while Nicu clasped his father in return.
“Forgive me,” Poet unleashed in a ragged voice. “For saying you weren’t ready. For not realizing it was time for you to find your stars. I’m so fucking sorry.”
“Papa,” Nicu choked out. “You did nothing wrong—”
“Aye, I did.” Veering back, the jester clasped his son’s face, their red-rimmed eyes gleaming like wet gems. “You’re my beating heart. You’re the blood in my veins. Your fears are my fears. Your hopes are my own. So I should have known. I should have fucking sensed it.”
Resting their heads together, Poet promised, “We’re one and always will be.”
Nicu sniffled through his remorse. Mirroring his father’s grip, he clutched Poet’s jaw. “Partners in crime.”
The jester’s throat bobbed. “But you’re destined for more. To pave your fate is all we’ve ever wanted, and I’m so fucking proud of you.”
Briar had been observing with both hands clamped over her mouth. Now the princess rushed to join their embrace, the trio forming an unbreakable circle.
Nicu understood what it felt like to be left behind. Until this mission, he’d never been the one to do the leaving. And while the lad acknowledged this mistake, so did his parents acknowledge their grown son’s time had come.
Poet murmured something into Nicu’s ear, which filtered to Briar. Between them, the words settled.
They had more to share. But it must be saved for later.
As the jester pulled back, delayed mischief unfurled across his countenance. “If it comes to pass, I’ll be honored to fight beside you once again.”
Briar tucked Nicu against her. “I agree,” she whispered.
The instant my liege shuffled backward, freeing Briar for Poet’s appraisal, the jester’s eyes burned on her.
Strung to their limits, delayed to the point of agony, the greatest pairing known to Autumn slammed into one another.
With a deep growl, the jester heaved his wife against him, their mouths colliding with the same force we witnessed between Jeryn and Flare.
Prying apart Briar’s lips, Poet launched his fingers through her hair. His tongue speared into her, the kiss blowing the princess nearly off her feet. With the same vigor, she met his kiss, their mouths clenching.