The things we should have said
ENORA
What an awful night. By the time I’d peeled myself off the bathroom floor to wash up, my bath had lost most of its warmth, and I knocked my only remaining towel into the water as I tried to climb in.
A truly appropriate end to a day I’d wished had never happened. When I’d finally dried off enough to get dressed and crawl into bed, sleep pulled me under with brutal swiftness. My body needed it after all; I just wished someone had told Eilir that.
The sprite woke me up three damned times. First, they weren’t sure if I was breathing or not. Then, to force-feed me those bland, nutrient-dense biscuits they loved to make. The third was to check again if I was still breathing.
They were even more jumpy than usual, talking and zipping around like their little wooden ass was on fire.
I didn’t have it in me to inquire why, and when they asked if I would be okay on my own for the rest of the night, I gladly sent the sprite on their way.
Sleep came in fitful bursts after that and left me with little else to do than think about what the hell I’d gotten myself into.
All that my tense encounter with Jasper had proven was how unfit I was to carry on like everything was fine, to pretend that soul-crushing secrets could exist in the unfathomable production that was my life now, sinking their festering claws into me and both the men I’d found myself tethered to.
Maksym was right all those weeks ago when he said we needed honesty.
I just hadn’t wanted to believe him then.
Not when honesty meant grappling with things I had spent so many years laying to rest—not in any productive way.
Things I’d been able to sweep under the proverbial rug in Odessa and pretend they hadn’t left gaping wounds in me that I filled with drinks and parties and friends.
The King of Odessa, after all, did not let slights to his little girl go unanswered.
Even though I never personally told my father what truly happened, the general who raped me was assigned to a dignitary post across the Chasm a few months after the incident.
And that was after years of chancellors and merchants being shuffled into various exiles when their distaste for my father’s indiscretion became public knowledge.
But those displays of power, as well-intended as they were, did not heal wounds. Not when there was always someone else waiting to gouge into me again.
And now, my wounds were gaping wide open again.
I had to talk to Maksym first.
I wasn’t sure if I was ready to tell him everything, but I had to extend back the branch he kept trying to hold me afloat with, even just a little.
A bit of distance might be prudent too.
Not from him, or any one person directly, but from the Keep in general. I could stay in Embervale, maybe, at least until the Agōn Ferr was over, and hunt for a sliver of peace there.
Whether Maksym would actually entertain that was another thing entirely, especially once I broached my first topic with him—Jasper.
That alone had left me with an immense amount of nausea to grapple with as I tried to make myself presentable well after the sun had poured itself through my open curtains and then lost its fight to brutal rain clouds that rolled in over the horizon.
It felt oh so fitting that the sky let out a thunderous roar just as I finished pulling my boots on, and I steeled myself to seek my groom.
I stood at my door for a few moments too long, taking slow breaths in and out, before I set my hand on the handle and finally hauled it open.
Like the bursting of a dam, a wave of sound nearly knocked me clean off my feet.
A commotion of panicked voices, of hurried footsteps and scraping objects, echoed from the depths of the Keep. No one else was in the small hallway wing Maksym and I shared, but, goddess, the noise sent my heart into an irregular stutter.
I hurried to the doors of Maksym’s quarters and didn’t think before I pushed one open and slipped inside. His study was open down the hall, and I ran for it.
“Max?”
Empty.
I cursed under my breath and headed for the gilded doors I assumed led to his bedroom. I knocked three times, calling out his name a little louder with each, before I gave the handle a test.
It opened.
The curtains were thrown wide, the rumpled bed empty, and I shut the door before I could linger on the intimate details of his personal space.
Something bad had happened; I could feel it in the ever-increasing rush of my blood that flooded my ears. I ran back out into our wing and headed straight for the main corridor.
The panicked commotion built to a staggering volume the closer I got to the walkway overlooking the atrium, as did the number of dark fae bodies hustling past me, and my head spun when I finally glimpsed over the railing.
Grimmorian military and other officials packed the atrium.
Some filed in and out of the main doors of the Keep; others huddled in groups, receiving orders or exchanging hushed words. Keep workers hauled carts in and out of hallways, concerned looks painting their faces.
An icy chill pricked up my spine, and it wasn’t just from the cool draft pouring in from the open doors—the few words I could string together from the commotion did it all on their own.
Odessa had attacked Grimmoria’s wards.
I knew little of the true gravity of what that meant, but I nearly took out a half dozen dark fae as I tore back down the corridor.
Spans of dark stone blurred past me, and my chest ached furiously once I’d reached Maksym’s council quarters. None of the dozens of anxious-looking posted guards stopped me as I hurried past them, though a few hurled snide comments in my wake.
They rolled right off me as I blew through the doors at the end of the hall.
“Maksym! What the fuck is—”
Chatter fell silent.
Dozens of sets of attention slid in my direction.
Umbrites. Shifters. Sprites. Other creatures I couldn’t name, with thick horns and cloven feet, that were in the throne room the night Maksym announced our engagement. Most had uniforms of some variety—except for the sprites.
My throat worked.
The war room of Grimm’s Keep was packed to the brim.
Maps of all sizes were strewn over the massive table in the center, mixed with a spread of ledgers and strategy markers. A haze of smoke hung high in the ceiling, and plumes of it trailed from halted pipes and hands poised near mouths.
I suddenly felt very small.
“Max?” came my croak. “What’s…”
He filtered through the crowd from the far end of the room, and his worry-stricken face did not give me an ounce of the relief I hoped I’d find.
Neither did the clearly impeded pace he traveled with. Murmurs picked up as he went, and the suffocating press of all those gazes peeled away from me.
I refused to look anywhere but at the king clutching his side as he approached, Gallan quickly in tow. “We’ve had a bit of a morning, if you can’t tell,” Maksym said before I could get any of my panicked thoughts out. “Agōn Ferr has been suspended, and—”
“Your little brother is a right cunt,” Gallan spat.
Any hopes I’d had of having misheard the rumbles in the atrium died, and my hands trembled at my sides.
“It’s true then? He’s attacked?”
Maksym cast me a rueful smile that rolled into a wince as he gripped his side tighter. “I’m afraid so. Not entirely unexpected, though we didn’t think it would happen so soon. Gallan, will you get the letter while I get Enora out of here?”
“What do you mean it’s not unexpected?” I stared at Maksym as he set his other hand on my back and steered me deeper into the room. “And what happened to you?”
Maksym did not yield to my efforts to stop him.
“We received a piece of intimidation material a little while back. Over, well…” He sighed as we dodged a trio of sprites squabbling between each other.
“You. Your safe return to your people. And I refused to do any such thing, because I know there is nothing safe about returning you to that pitiful creature.”
My blood ran ice cold, and I swayed a little into Maksym.
“Careful,” he grunted.
“S-sorry, I…”
Oh, goddess.
This was what was in it for my brother all along.
He hadn’t just wanted to get rid of me to make his new life easier—he wanted to get rid of me in a way that meant he could declare war. Claim that my traveling party had been killed by the very kingdom we were en route to in the name of an alliance-driven betrothal.
But word must have gotten out somehow that I hadn’t died in that fire. That I was not only alive, but I was being kept within Grimmoria’s walls.
He could spin that in such unfathomable ways.
The tightness in my chest did not ease as Maksym guided me along. Halfway across the room, streaks of blood led to two bodies slumped against the wall, sitting in thickening pools. One was in tattered plain clothes and evidently Umbrite. The other? An Odessan soldier.
Their gray and green uniform had once been my second skin.
Maksym tried to move me past them with as much urgency as he could clearly muster, but I pulled him to a stop. The shifter man who cut me a dirty look as he sidestepped us could go fuck himself.
I locked eyes with Maksym, holding his amber gaze.
“What. Happened?” I bit out. “Do not lie to me.”
“Jasper and I dealt with a little…surprise this morning. We’d come here to talk, and…” He half shrugged. “We didn’t exactly get that far.”
My eyes flared. “Where is he?”
In all my panic, I hadn’t even realized Jasper’s face wasn’t among those packed into the war room.
“More hale than I am, and at the gate, don’t worry.
” Maksym gave me a weak tug, and I acquiesced.
“We don’t know if their forces turned some Steppers from the Wastes or what they are playing at, but some of our own are working against us.
I locked our wards against all entry as soon as I could manage, but they launched an assault at the gate anchor stone shortly after. Our weakest point, unfortunately.”
My mind simply could not process the information that Maksym was rolling out to me like it was casual conversation.