CHAPTER NINE
RAVINA'S FEELINGS ARE ALL OVER the place, and as much as I want to go comfort her, she has Jesper being an overbearing nut right now, and I have a castle to lock down. No one in or out anymore. I’m not even sure here is safe for her any longer. We may need to go somewhere else, but where?
The doors burst open and Ravina, Jesper and Nero come barging in with urgent expressions on their faces.
“I need the necklace and your father,” she states firmly.
“Pardon me? Do you want to go back a few steps and explain this thought process? You were just on the ground, weakened by it. And what does my father have to do with anything?” I rise up from behind my desk and move toward her, placing my hands on each of her shoulders.
Did she hit her head when she fell? Do I need to take her back to the healers?
She waves me off. “I think I can fix Talyn, but I want to try it on your father first. My mother confirmed what we think is in that necklace.” She then goes on to explain everything her mother has told her, and I feel my own rage bubble with hers.
Surely if my mother knew that much of the Queen’s plans she would have told us sooner, but this?
I prepare myself for a fight. “No.”
She places her hands on her hips and juts her chin out at me. “I can do it and you, Jesper and Kill will be there. What if your mom is right and Lord Craven did corrupt his mind?”
“And what if he didn’t, and he’s a bastard like the rest of them?” I shoot back.
She shrugs. “Then your mother gets the confirmation she needs to sentence him, and you get your wish. But if she’s right, if I’m right?
Then you don’t need to lose a parent,” she pleads.
“And then if it works, I know I can fix Talyn, and I don’t need to get his hopes up for nothing.
” Her big sapphire eyes seem to get wider as the moment goes on.
I know she’s right, but can I live with myself for hating my father all this time if he really was just being mind-controlled? If I could have been finding a way to help him all of this time? Yet if I was right, it would break my mothers heart all over again.
A pressure on my arm pulls me from my thoughts and the female I love is staring at me with confident yet worried eyes. “I’ll be here for you every step of the way. You’re not alone anymore.”
“She’s right. You have us. I mean, you’ve always had us, but now we are here, brother, and we aren’t going anywhere,” Jesper adds, stepping up beside her, pinning her between us.
Her love and Jesper’s both reach through the bond, soothing me. “Okay,” I whisper. “But we won’t tell my mother until we are sure if it works or not. I’ll send for the tonic to wake him from the healing coma my mother placed him in.”
She squeezes my arm once and nods with a small reassuring smile on her face.
“I’ll meet you in my parents’ wing. Mother set up a room there for him.
” She dips her head again and I pull the shadows around me just as Killian bursts into my office with his ever-present scowl even more pronounced than usual.
My Little Dream is going to have her hands full trying to explain this plan to him.
I step out of the shadows and the healer’s head snaps up in alert before relaxing. “My Lord, is everything okay?”
“I need the tonic to awaken my father; do not alert my mother.”
Her eyes widen as she nods and rushes towards her station to begin mixing herbs and tinctures together. It’s not long before she turns and hands me a small vial filled with a soft green liquid. The weight of it feels heavy as I place it into the pocket of my tunic.
“Tilt Lord Zorn’s head back and plug his nose before slowly pouring the entire contents of that vial into his mouth.
That way you can be sure he consumes all of it,” she instructs.
“He will be weak when he awakens. His muscles haven’t been used in a very long time, and I would suggest having me or one of our other healers on staff visit him as soon as possible.
” She eyes me like she has a million questions, but I know she won’t ask.
“Thank you. I’ll send word when you’re needed.”
She curtseys and moves back towards her station where she starts tidying up.
At my bidding, the familiar caress of the shadows embraces me to move me toward my next location. Picturing my fathers room in my head before it appears before me and I step out.
Nothing has changed since I’ve been here last. My father still lies silent and seeming miniscule in the massive bed.
The dark wooden pillars and white gauzy canopy make him barely visible, cloaked from the rest of the realm.
Hidden, yet still here. The contents of the vial grow heavy in my pocket with each passing moment.
The door creaks open and Ravina’s head pops in.
She quickly glances around before she lands on me.
“Are you ready?” she asks, letting a bit of her own nerves slip through the bond.
Nero ruffles his feathers as she gets closer to me, and I can feel her exhaustion build through the bond.
Killian and Jesper follow in behind her and stand like guardians near the door.
This cursed stone fills my other pocket, and I want nothing more than to chuck it into the ocean and be done with it.
But knowing our luck, some sentient sea beast would deliver it straight into Craven’s greedy hands.
Instead of answering her, I begin talking.
I’m not sure why, but once my mouth opens, the words won’t stop spewing out.
“I’ve hated him for years. Since the day everything happened and we found out he was a part of your family’s downfall.
But if it didn’t happen, I would have never had to step up and help with ruling Vathia; I wouldn’t have had the ties to help Tal, Kill and Jesper.
Managing the rebels would have been even harder without this position.
I resent him because I had to be there to help pick up the pieces of my mother’s broken heart while nursing my own, along with the loss of you, on top of having to keep secrets from my friends who have become my family—that the male who raised me to be kind and respectful turned into a massive betraying bastard.
Twenty-two years of hatred building and building, and now there’s a chance that it wasn’t even his fault.
And if it’s not true, then I’ll be the one to break my mother’s heart the second time, by putting his rotting corpse in the ground. ”
She doesn’t say anything, none of them do; they just listen as I bare my emotions and feelings surrounding the male laying comatose in the bed, his pale hair now long past his shoulders.
He looks the same, yet aged. Tonics have kept his nutrients up so he hasn’t lost weight. He’s simply frozen in time.
At last, my thoughts return to the present. “So, to answer your question, no, I’m not ready. But sometimes being in charge means making the hard choice, and if this can help Talyn, or bring my mother back to her mate… then my feelings on this shouldn’t matter.”
“Your feelings will always matter to me,” Rav states firmly. “If you need a minute—”
Killian growls. “I don’t like this. We shouldn’t be fucking with that stone. It hurts her!”
“It drains me,” she corrects. “And it doesn’t drain me nearly as much as the piece Craven has; this is a much smaller portion of it. Plus you all are here. I’ll be okay; we need to do this.”
Kill growls again but doesn’t say anything, and I know this is hurting him the most. He never liked seeing her hurt. None of us do, but Killian is extreme when it comes to her protection.
She smiles at me. “Whenever you’re ready. I mean what I said. Your feelings matter to me. So if you need some time—”
“No time.” I take a breath, grabbing her hands and kissing her knuckles. “Thank you,” I whisper, so just she can hear it.
Following the instructions of the healer, I empty the contents of the vial into my father’s mouth. Rav stands beside me while Jesper and Killian wait on the other side of the bed. He’s weak, so he shouldn’t be too much trouble when he awakens, but… just in case.
“Did she mention how long this will take?” Jesper inquires as he cocks his head to the side, staring my father down like he’s ready to pounce any second.
“No, but I’m assuming it won’t be—”
The body on the bed groans and the room becomes so silent you could hear a pin drop. My father’s eyelids slowly lift to reveal familiar green irises. They harden as soon as they land on me.
“Who are you? What’s going on?”
“Father. I would say it’s nice to see you awake, but that’s still to be determined.”
Nero’s voice reaches through Rav’s bond. “If he’s an asshole after this, can I have his eyeballs? I haven’t got green yet.”
“Nero,” Rav hisses. “Not the time.”
My father’s gaze flits around the room as he pieces everything together, and when they land on Ravina, my back stiffens. His words are weak but full of venom. “You bitch. You should be dead, or even better, being bled like a stuck pig for slaughter of our one true ruler!”
Everything happens so fast. Jesper is on top of him with knives poised at his throat, and Rav is using air to stop Killian from getting involved. “Remember why we are here!” she shouts. “Jesper, enough. Aemon, give me the necklace. Kill, I’m going to let you go, so don’t kill Lord Zorn.”
I reach into my pocket and pull out the chain as Rav slices into the meaty palm of her hand. My father tries again to sit up, but thankfully he’s far too weak to do much damage.
A presence I haven’t felt since that first battle at the front line encampment takes over the room, and Ravina moves.
She grabs the necklace out of my hand, her eyes glowing ethereally as she presses the stone against the center of my fathers forehead.
There’s nothing but a calm knowing coming from Ravina, and it worries me because it feels like her, yet doesn’t.
The exact same thing happened before we discovered that shadowflame can defeat the wraiths.