23. Chapter 23
Owain
I was moving faster than I meant to down the corridor and couldn’t quite make myself slow down. The quiet of the castle, broken only by the echo of my foul mood, set my nerves on edge.
Larethia was the warmest part of Avanfell, sheltered by the mountains and the buffering straits, but winter had begun to take root, so the corridors were dim and cold at this time of day.
Shadows chased me down the family wing—some cast by the torches, others scraping along the floors and walls with the schtick of steel scraping stone.
I told myself I was walking quickly because of what my aunt had told me. Urgency was the right response.
I actively pushed away thoughts of the time that had passed between her barging into my room and now. Refused to think about how I’d been down the hall all along, wallowing uselessly in self-pity, as Berian’s situation grew more dire.
The heavy smell of medicinal balms—camphor, mint, and cloves—hit me before I reached the threshold. Even with the persistent chill, a bead of sweat trickled down my back as I faltered before steadying myself in front of my brother’s chamber doors.
The two guards flanking either side were in full armor. That was only worn inside the castle during wartime or when the succession might be tested.
…And I didn’t know.
The guards nodded at my approach.
My stomach climbed up my throat as both bowed to me while opening the doors—a gesture reserved for the reigning monarch.
No… Berian can’t be…
For one suspended moment, I couldn’t make myself look.
Then a blast of air hit me, heavy with hearth smoke and far too warm to be healthy.
Before the blazing fireplace sat Berian, wrapped in furs, appearing lost in thought as he stared at the flames.
The relief at seeing him alive was only rivaled by the shock at how diminished he appeared.
He failed to turn his head or greet me—a courtesy he extended even when angry or heavily inebriated.
Before I could stop it, a part of me felt a glimmer of satisfaction seeing him so small and weak. The way he always tried to make me feel.
One of his white-robed healers was crouched next to him, holding something up to him that buzzed with magic. My stomach only got worse, instantly transforming into a yawning pit, churning with anxiety from the strange sensation it set off.
The healer—Thibault, I saw now—straightened almost immediately. When he looked up, the expression on his face flickered with a hint of something like guilt before hardening into a grim mask of worry.
Evidence he was growing used to failing Berian too?
Perhaps the device increased his healing capabilities somehow. As far as I knew, Thibault could coax bodies to heal at an accelerated rate, though he couldn’t bring people back from the brink of death like Lunette could.
No. I couldn’t think of her now. Couldn’t think about her arms wrapping around me, about how holding and kissing her had been the only time I could remember feeling untarnished joy. Couldn’t fall back into grieving for something that could never be.
Not when my brother needed me.
As I approached, it almost seemed as if Thibault was avoiding getting close, sliding around the far side of the breakfast table between me and Berian.
Strange behavior, but not unheard of. I offered the same as him—little more than a curt nod in acknowledgment.
With stiff shoulders and whatever enchanted object he’d been using to heal him secreted back into the folds of his robe, he left through the door I’d entered.
Berian employed several mages, handpicked by the Assembly, for various roles inside the keep. Thibault had the most access to the royal body—which meant the Assembly did too. I hated it but the white-clad healer was easily forgotten when I had a bigger problem slumped in front of me.
Only when I crouched, one knee on the fire-warmed stones, did Berian acknowledge me.
“Owain,” he said, voice little more than a whisper. His dark-brown hair was disheveled, clumping to his forehead from the sweat beading on his brow.
It was the first time in ages he’d called me by my given name. And just like that, I felt horrible for all the nasty thoughts I’d had about him lately. Yes, he was hard on me. He could be cruel and manipulative. But he was still my brother.
I’d lost more than I would’ve thought possible when I’d left Lunette behind—her easy laughter, the sanctuary I’d found in her arms, that radiant, almost holy kindness—yet even as I sat in the wreckage, I knew what true contentment felt like.
Berian had a marriage he resented, no real friends, no children—only a crown to keep him company.
“Brother.” I wrapped my hands around one of his, hoping for some sort of connection.
He didn’t flex a muscle in return. For a long moment, the only sounds were Berian’s ragged breathing and the low, rolling crackle of the fire. I worried he’d drifted off to sleep.
Then his fingers tightened weakly in mine.
“Theresa is ill. Will remain in Freuxcourt,” he rasped. The words were barely intelligible, like stone dragged over stone.
Gods above and below. The queen was also ailing? More than a day’s ride apart, and both heads of state were sick? I’d be looking into his healers more closely.
No wonder Reina had slapped me out of bed. My mind raced, conjuring a list of the tasks I’d need to juggle, from ruling as regent to commanding the military—a burden my absence had forced Camrick to bear alone.
I was ordering the pieces, calculating how I’d smooth everything over with the court when Berian added, “Can’t get someone else—” He was slumped in his chair now, eyes half-lidded, his face sagging with exhaustion, but there was still venom in him. “—tired of you embarrassing me.”
The words didn’t land like a slap as they would’ve had he been healthy. They settled instead with dull finality, like a judgment being entered into the official record. I’d half-hoped his illness might soften our relationship or simply strip away the performance of it.
Yet now I understood that there was no performance. This was simply Berian, distilled. Behind me, the fire popped, throwing sparks up the chimney, bright and indifferent to the quiet devastation unfolding before it.
An apology formed by reflex. “Sorry, I—”
“It’s my crown, my throne,” he interrupted. “Don’t get big ideas.”
He hadn’t brought up the possibility of me usurping him for years. I’d thought he was pleased with our arrangement, with my control over the military and his command of the court and the public’s admiration. I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.
A response would’ve been wasted breath because Berian’s eyes fluttered, already slipping shut. His fingers twitched once then fell slack.
The sour tang of relief slipped in alongside the shame roiling in my gut. Relief that he wouldn’t see my face when the hurt finally broke through the mask. Shame that I’d felt it at all.
Perhaps it had been nothing more than the pain speaking. Or…perhaps his cruelty had simply become a reflex, so ingrained he couldn’t resist cutting even while half-senseless. Regardless of his intentions, its impact remained the same.
He either didn’t care or couldn’t see me as human anymore.
I let go of his hand and stood. My joints ached from lingering injury, from disuse, from the constant, grinding tension I’d carried since my parents died.
I’d visited Berian in his study multiple times per week for decades, but I hadn’t been in his bedroom in years. As I looked around, I noticed there were no knickknacks adorning the walls, no perches for a furry companion. The only warmth came from the overheated hearth.
It wasn’t lost on me that I could describe my own rooms the same way.
As I turned to leave, a swath of beige caught my eye.
Berian’s veska cloak lay slung over the back of a nearby chair, the dense pattern of pelts gleaming faintly in the firelight.
The clasp—a heavy thing of magically worked gold bearing the royal sigil—rested against the cushion, abandoned in haste.
I didn’t realize I’d reached to grab it until the cold of the clasp settled in my palm. I knew, in the part of my mind still functioning like a rational person, that I should put it back. It smelled faintly of medicine and all the hallmarks of a comfortable life.
And it was an abomination.
Berian won’t miss it, I decided viciously, thinking of the furry little demon who half-loved, half-hated me.
Berian had a dozen other cloaks. He had rooms full of luxuries, servants falling over themselves to meet his every need, a crown that bent the world to his will even now, as his body failed him.
And I had—
I didn’t dare finish the thought.
I tore the cloak from the chair and strode from the room without another glance back, boots clanking sharply against stone. I’d consider it payment for every cutting remark, public humiliation, casual cruelty dressed up as brotherly concern.
The guards stiffened as I passed, their gazes flicking briefly to the fur draped over my arm then away again.
They wouldn’t dare stop me when shadows stalked my every step down the hallway. Not when the cloak was already smoking from the rare display of evocation magic streaming out of my hands as I held it.
I stomped down the corridor, threw open my apartment door and tossed the flaming cloak into the hearth.
Then I added my own flames to it in a torrent of rage kept in too long. The darkest part of me needed to watch it burn. By the time the gold clasp started to melt, my hands were shaking and my room was filled with smoke.
So fucking worth it.
I slept with the smell of burned veska fur in my nostrils that night. Which was to say: I lay down, closed my eyes, and endured.
Every night since I’d left Lunette behind, my mind had returned to her in my dreams with a persistence bordering on cruelty. And every night, I woke with my hands clenching the sheets, shadows writhing along the walls, my soul feeling as if it had been flayed open.
This night was no different.