34. Chapter 34
Chapter thirty-four
“What is he doing here?” Kaed’s snarl echoed through the rotunda as he took in the sight of Eryk, me by his side. He struggled, fighting the two guards who walked him to the dais.
Kaed was cuffed again, and I felt a knot twist in my stomach at the sight.
But seeing him forced to his knees by the guards, the cords of his muscles straining against the weight, the effort it was taking him to fight the crippling powers of the faebane, I nearly snapped.
In order to compose my emotions, I forced myself to look away from Kaed.
Rionna had taken up her seat in her alcove again.
Denora and Gavrin were still here, and they followed Kaed into the rotunda. All the while, Denora’s hand rested on her sword at her side.
“I am here on your behalf, Prince Kaedian.” Eryk’s voice dripped with something mirthless and yet twisted into humour.
Kaed’s eyes gloomed as he pulled at his restraints. “Not him,” he gritted through bared teeth.
“Kaed!” I said, going to take a step, but Eryk held me back.
“It’s alright, Lady Imogen. I can imagine this is an unexpected inconvenience for Kaedian,” Eryk offered in a placating tone.
But it seemed to set fire to Kaed’s eyes.
For a moment I thought he might react to Eryk’s derision.
Rage, shatter the restraints that held him.
Something. But the way he forced himself to stand with deliberate slowness, his eyes downcast until he rose to his full height, his gaze latching to where Eryk’s hand rested on me.
That was more terrifying than any violent outburst. Eryk’s fingers twitched where they touched me as Kaed took a step off the dais.
Stationed guards moved in unison as Kaed moved.
He paused, one foot off the dais, a guard’s hand hovering at his shoulder.
A snarl rumbled like a storm gathering in Kaed’s chest, and the guard took an unsteady step back, their hand dropping like they’d been burned.
The tidal wave of tension in the room swelled, beckoning a crash.
Varris stood in the upper level. Eryk’s eyes tracked the movement as his body went rigid beside me. Whether Varris was readying himself to protest or enjoy whatever was about to unfold, I wasn’t sure. But there was a cold sweat across his brow.
“Don’t be foolish, Kaedian,” Eryk began, “This is your only option. I’m your only option.”
Morgana’s voice floated down from the upper level.
“If this room cannot contain its impulses and act with civility, we will end this session. Being called at this hour is already outrageous. However, given the person we hold in custody, we have made an exception. So we will proceed. With decorum.” Her eyes fell on each one of us.
The entire council seemed to hold its breath, even Varris.
It was nothing to them if Kaed was put back in the Cage. It was nothing to Eryk.
Without speaking a word, I looked at Kaed. It felt as though we had an entire conversation without saying a word.
But the only word that mattered, I mouthed to him. Please.
I waited with bated breath as he watched me.
The scar across his face looked like a fissure above a magma chamber with the fury he was barely containing. But he breathed in once and filled his chest.
My heart thrummed for a beat. Two. Three.
When he breathed out, finally, he took his place back on the dais.
Gavrin let out a small breath of his own, and his shoulders fell back down. Denora didn’t move an inch, her hand still on her sword.
There was a shuffle in the room as people released the tension they had been carrying. The fear in their eyes was plain as day and dark as night as they looked at Kaed.
Even bound, they feared him.
“Eryk Selldayne.” Morgana’s cool voice filled the rotunda “You have come here, freely, not bound by Prince Kaedian Viorelmar or the Crown. He has broken the sanctions levied upon him. Do you speak for this male who has broken our decrees? Your voice and his actions will become one if you speak for him. Should his actions break our decrees again, you will be punished for his insurrections. And the prisoner will be remanded here indefinitely.”
I sucked in a breath.
But Eryk didn’t flinch. In fact, he seemed languid, like he’d just stretched and was basking in the release.
How could he be so calm? They were essentially caging him too. The gauntlet of Kaed’s infractions would fall to Eryk.
“Speak now,” Councillor Rionna Darrion said. Her shoulders were broad and her voice even.
Eryk paused, and for a moment, I thought he might renege on his bargain with me.
But then the entire council seemed to calm even before he spoke. There had been a brook of tension flowing in the room that now seemed to ebb away.
“I do. I speak for this male.” Eryk locked eyes with Kaed. The sneer in his voice was not missed by anyone in the room. And then his eyes roved over me. “I take on all of his burdens.” His lashes dipped as he popped the last word off his tongue.
My eyes fluttered, and I tried to refocus them elsewhere. But when they landed on Kaed, I thought the fury beneath the surface might finally erupt.
But no one commented, and I couldn’t have cared less about it because the next words were like a clear water bell ringing.
“Very well. All may go. Prince Kaedian may leave these chambers, but not this city. Talks will resume when daylight, not starlight, graces the skies.” Morgana stood to leave.
“Be warned, Prince,” Varris spat just as the manacles were released. “Break our laws again. Any we set forth, and you will wish your brother would come here and put you out of your misery.”
Councillor Merdia grunted in his support of Councillor Varris.
The room went cold, and a crackle of darkness encroached on the white walls until it felt like the night had broken through the glass dome above.
Kaed’s eyes glowed like blue wyvern fire when he looked up at Varris, and the man stumbled backwards under the intensity of the stare.
I looked up to Eryk, who seemed a little too smug for someone who had just bound his fate to a male he hated.
But I quickly forgot about that when Kaed walked freely from the dais, shoulders straight and shadows retreating to his fingertips.
His eyes never left Eryk’s even as I stepped from Eryk’s side to Kaed’s.
The prince I’d chose to free was the embodiment of the storm I knew was coming.
Denora and Gavrin walked close by the entire way back to the Alabaster Palace. At one point, I thought Gavrin might offer to take some of Kaed’s weight, but he valued his life so thought better of it.
I walked in silence beside Kaed.
His entire aura had shifted so that he felt cloaked in shadow. It wrapped around him. Not like a blanket. Not like a comfort, but the hide of a battering ram. I couldn’t tell if he was angry. Relieved. In pain.
There was only a sense of darkness.
His jaw was set in a hard, chiselled line.
I chewed on my lip.
He noticed the gesture. His eyes, still alive with something, but now blue embers, not roaring flames.
Had I done the right thing? He didn’t seem pleased to be free, at least not at Eryk’s hand. And this was all my doing.
Besides the obvious show of power of his throwing me over his shoulder to bring me back, I had begun to feel less and less like I had been forced to be here these past few days. Something had shifted since releasing him from the Cage the first time.
But right now … now I felt like what a subject under the ire of a ruler must feel like. I wasn’t breaking any rules, but I had stepped over a line.
But no part of me would cower at his feet, beg for royal forgiveness. He wasn’t my prince.
I had just helped him for the second time.
Part of me tried to rationalise that I had acted in self-interest. The more I helped him, the more he would help me. But I knew, deep down, somewhere I didn’t even recognise, that I couldn’t see him suffer like that. Not for me. Not for anyone.
If I’d been stronger or more cunning, I’d have left him there. I’d have left today before he even found me. Even if it meant I wouldn’t have answers about my family. At least I wouldn’t have embroiled myself further in whatever this mess with Kaed and his family, the Crown, was.
I’d already be far away; the walls of Viverna and all the demons within faded like memories in sand. Gone with the next tide.
But I had stayed, and now I was matching his stride. It was slower than I’d seen him move, and I had no doubt that the manacles, the Cage and the restraint he’d had on himself had taken a toll.
I looked back at Denora, who was watching Kaed like she expected him to collapse.
To me, he looked like he wanted to break something with his bare hands.
Gavrin wore an uneasy mask again, like he didn’t know what to do if he couldn’t punch something.
And I knew he was picturing Eryk. Or maybe Councillor Varris.
“Leave us,” Kaed said, without turning to Denora or Gavrin as he opened the door to the estate house.
I looked back at Denora again. I thought she might insist on coming inside, but then she nodded at Kaed.
Gavrin gave a tight grimace as he looked at Kaed.
“Go, Gav.” Kaed’s words were heavy with exhaustion, but they held a tendril of command still.
Denora and Gavrin left with a backwards glance.
I didn’t want them to leave either, for my sake.
His expression was unreadable, but my body felt like it was preparing to run. But instead, I stepped inside.
Into the foyer. Into blackness.
And then Kaed collapsed.