Chapter 30
Reeve and Eryx were the last to enter the intimate dining area, where breakfast was already prepared and spread.
Eryx stalked behind Reeve, his long blonde hair unstyled, and his face held a cold expression that didn’t match Reeve’s.
Mely and Drystan were already seated with Maeve, having offered her polite “good mornings.”
Eryx offered no such pleasantry. She was acutely aware that his body turned from hers purposely at the breakfast table.
Reeve’s head tilted to the side as he took his seat. “Where’s your siphon?”
The smooth crystal marble rolled beneath her fingers, where it sat hidden in her lap.
Reeve tapped a single tattooed finger on the breakfast table twice. “Out,” he said, a gentle command that she obeyed without question.
Her hand moved to the tabletop, rolling the lifeless crystal ball beneath her fingers across the smooth wood.
“What’s this about, Reeve?” asked Mely as she poured herself a glass of juice with twitchy fingers.
Maeve resisted the instinctive urge to ask her if she was alright, because it seemed the girl’s nauseated and sickly demeanor was currently her natural state.
“We are going to Heims,” said Reeve, and then he looked at Mely. “Well, not you. You’ll stay here.”
“As if I want to go to that ice planet,” she replied, her voice playful despite the fact that her hand moved to her stomach and she exhaled sharply.
“Who is ‘we’ then?” asked Eryx.
Maeve didn’t miss the sharpness in his tone.
“The remaining four of us,” answered Reeve.
“The wolves’ rebellion on Heims is your angle?” asked Drystan with a smile, as though the thought excited him.
“The rebellion grows stronger,” said Reeve with a nod. “But Hiems is just the first step. One that must be made in complete secret.”
“So that’s why I’ll be staying here,” said Mely in a statement, not a question.
“Our favorite spy,” said Drystan.
Mely toasted him with her glass of juice and smiled.
Spy. The word made something swell up in Maeve. It made her feel vulnerable, wondering how often Mely’s unique abilities had aided Reeve in checking on Maeve’s own well-being. Then she nearly laughed audibly. Reeve didn’t need Mely.
He could sense her every emotion, every move, every drop of blood that flowed through her.
Before Reeve could continue expanding upon his plans, however, Eryx spoke again, his voice cutting through the comfortable atmosphere, turning it tense.
“I’m not going anywhere with her,” said Eryx.
Maeve watched him carefully, despite his determination to not look at her. Reeve remained still as he spoke of Maeve. Then he nodded, not in approval, but in acceptance.
“You made it twenty-six seconds,” said Reeve. “Twenty-six seconds when I just told you, two minutes ago, to hold your tongue at this table.”
“Yeah,” said Eryx, his nostrils flaring, “and I should have told you to fuck off one minute ago. Since when am I, your second in command, ordered not to speak my mind?”
Reeve remained casually leaning in his chair, not touching his breakfast. No one touched their breakfast.
“Since your resentment made you forget to speak with consideration,” said Reeve smoothly.
Eryx laughed lowly, the sound threatening, like the noise a desperate and cornered man would make. His hostility, Maeve knew, she deserved. But his anger towards Reeve surprised her.
“Consideration,” repeated Eryx, sounding the word out slowly. “You expect me to offer such a grace to one who has never considered anyone but herself?”
So faint she almost missed it, the crystal ball at her fingertips sparkled.
“Yes.”
Maeve’s brows pulled together. That was the best defense of her Reeve could offer? She swiftly realized waiting on someone else to speak for her had never been a problem before. So why now was her voice buried beneath shame?
Electric energy coiled up her arm, a teasing temptation. She rolled the crystal beneath two fingers, as it thrummed with one single thought: Damn that shame and damn Eryx too.
“You have no idea the things I’ve done to protect the ones I love,” she said carefully, still rolling the crystal between her fingers.
Eryx’s head angled to the side, still not looking at her, as though her very voice ate at his skin. “And I bet she’ll continue to do such things where her Prince is concerned.”
Her fingers stilled, but the Magic crawling up her arm did not.
“King,” said Maeve, hating the ferocity with which she corrected him.
Hating that she corrected him at all, that she felt the need to defend the title Mal ordained himself, while under said title he had done such horrible and dishonorable things. But what she would not feel guilty for, however, was the truth of Eryx’s words. She affirmed them with her next breath.
“And yes,” she said, resuming her slow roll of the crystal, “I have every intention of saving Mal.”
Eryx raised his hands, sneering, his eyes still drilling into Reeve, in a sign of “see I told you so,” but Reeve didn’t react, of course, already knowing Maeve’s desire to redeem Mal.
It drove her mad that Eryx still would not address her, despite sitting not three feet from her. So she fixed her stare on him and said, “You’re allowed to talk to me. Reeve’s here,” she added, gesturing to where their Lord sat.
Eryx’s eyes nearly popped out of his head as he fumed at Reeve, who merely raised his eyebrows, daring Eryx to continue down this path. Eryx shook his head, his spiteful expression darkening.
“Have you told her yet, Reeve?” he asked. “Have you told her why Mely is literally green with the effects of death?”
“Stop,” warned Reeve, his voice so low with command, Maeve stopped breathing for a moment.
Then her mind raced up to speed. More secrets. The electric Magic surged back, flooding towards her hand. More fucking secrets. “What haven’t you told me?” she pressed.
The crystal siphon glowed, small tendrils of electricity cracking across the table. Reeve’s attention was fixed on it.
“Oh, she doesn’t know,” said Eryx, satisfaction of knowing something Maeve didn’t dripping from his tone.
“Eryx,” muttered Reeve, his eyes closing.
But Eryx didn’t, couldn’t, heed Reeve’s warnings. He appeared set on crushing Maeve with any blow possible. “Mely here has quite the strange disposition, as you know,” began Eryx.
“Eryx, you are being cruel,” muttered Mely, but it was washed out by Reeve’s annoyed growl.
“Gods fucking damnit, Eryx,” said Reeve, with a laugh that was hardly filled with joy. “Do not make me silence you.”
“Why am I the only one looking at this clearly?” bellowed Eryx, pointing directly at Maeve. His hand jerked back towards his empty glass, the glass he hadn’t even bothered to fill for breakfast. “Gods be damned,” snarled Eryx as the glass made contact with the wall, shattering under his rage.
Maeve jumped in her seat and gripped the crystal tightly in all five fingers, electric energy swirling hotly against her palm, pulsing against the smooth siphon.
Her reflexes were so infuriatingly dull now.
Reeve didn’t move from his relaxed position in his seat, but his eyes slid to Maeve quicker than a blink.
“You believe you are the one thinking critically?” responded Reeve. “You think inflicting more pain onto Maeve will save our people?”
“More pain?” spat Eryx. “She has—”
“She has endured,” said Reeve, his voice musical and quiet, like a small praise slipping from his lips. “She will continue to endure, which is more than you are currently offering.”
Eryx leaned forward against the table. “When you told me you were going to trade the Senshi for her, Reeve, I thought you had more planned than this. You actually see potential for redemption when you look at her? As she sits here and openly claims that her goal is to save the sadistic ruler we all knew should have never stepped foot in that cursed land across that fucking lake.”
Her palm was on fire. She was too flustered, too spread bare to let it go. Her fist only tightened around the crystal siphon.
Reeve’s answer cut through her. “Redemption isn’t relevant when we are talking about the fall of civilization.” His eyes moved to her. “Open your palm.”
She twisted her fist and opened her palm to the ceiling. The blazing crystal ball glowed with bright blue Magic, tiny bolts of lightning scattering across the inside like a stormy sky. She lifted her eyes to Reeve. His head tilted in acknowledgment of her small accomplishment.
Praise in his eyes was a dangerous thing. Her fingers clamped back down on the crystal, hiding it from view.
“So I am to trust her?” asked Eryx, paying no attention to them, his voice still climbing in anger, in perfect opposition to Reeve’s resigned behavior. “I am to trust that she will choose—”
“You are to trust me,” said Reeve plainly with a sigh as he looked away from Maeve.
Eryx braced his fists on the table. “Why do you still cling to this notion that she is yours to save? It will cost us everything.”
Reeve’s eyes narrowed in understanding. “You think Shadow and her new Dread King won’t come here if we stay out of it? It was on a whim I cast that spell years ago. I had no idea if it would last ten minutes or ten centuries. We are lucky it lasted the time it did.”
“Then do it again and let it last until death is at our door,” Eryx fired back.
“It is here, Eryx,” said Reeve, impressively calm still despite his Second in Command’s heavy breathing. “Look at Mely,” continued Reeve. “She is beside herself. She cannot sleep. She cannot eat. It lurks around us.”
“This girl will not protect us from that lurking death!” argued Eryx.
“Stop talking about me as though I am not here,” said Maeve, continuing to pour all her electric energy into the crystal, despite how badly it wanted freedom.
Reeve’s eyes closed. When they opened, they remained on Eryx, who now looked to Drystan, his eyes begging him to speak up. But the small-framed and young-looking man did not. His eyes met Eryx’s, but all he offered him was an encouraging expression.
Eryx rolled his eyes and looked back at Reeve. “She was not the one prophesied to end Shadow,” Eryx reminded him.
“No,” agreed Reeve. “But I believe she’s the only one who can save the one who was.”
Eryx continued to shake his head, and another expletive slipped from his lips as his fists slammed down on the table, shaking the glassware and untouched plates of food.
It hit Maeve then. The root of his anger. She remembered the times Eryx joined Reeve at Castle Morana. She remembered who occupied his attention, his gaze. . . his hands. Cold guilt surfaced in her stomach. Images she’d spent weeks trying to forget flashed before her eyes.
Her control buckled, and bright blue lightning danced across her knuckles. “You were in love with Zimsy,” she blurted out, barely above a whisper.
With a flash of swirling mist, in a single blink, Maeve’s point of view shifted.
She looked down the long table now from Reeve’s seat, and Reeve sat in hers.
Eryx stood, his sword in his grip. The long blade pointed perfectly where Maeve’s face had been only moments ago.
Now, it lingered a fraction from Reeve’s chest, with Reeve’s hand gripping the blade in effortless strength.
Blood seeped out against his hand, coating the shining silver blade with slick and shimmering crimson. The blade that would have pierced her skull.
She loosed a hefty breath, and her neck rolled involuntarily as lightning charged down her arm. It spiked into the small crystal siphon in her fist, shattering it completely and sending a few sharp lines of electric Magic out across the table.
But none looked her way. Mely and Drystan’s eyes were locked on the feuding friends, just as Maeve’s were.
The silent tension was oppressive as the two men stared at one another. Reeve wore an expression Maeve hadn’t seen, or hadn’t cared to notice if she had, on his handsome features before. He looked wounded and disappointed all at the same time.
“Sit down, Eryx,” commanded Reeve, lowering his bloodied hand.
Eryx’s eyes moved down the table towards Maeve, his sword following his gaze.
“The moment you falter, it will be me who ensures your eyes close and never open again.” With a wildly controlled motion, he shoved his sword back in its sheath and returned his attention to Reeve.
“She may have you fooled because of some useless bond that runs between you, but you know deep down you should have snapped her neck the moment that Enslavement Curse shifted into your hands.”
The thought, the reality that he could have, was a sickening one.
Eryx turned from the table and left the hall.
Reeve didn’t call after him. He watched him silently, and once he was finally gone, he looked across the table at Drystan.
“We leave in one week,” he said.
Drystan nodded.
“Keep him away from the palace tomorrow night,” said Reeve.
Tomorrow night. Maeve’s stomach tightened. She would see Mal tomorrow night. She reached forward over the table and opened her fist. The shattered bits of crystal clinked to the table. One by one, falling loose from her palm.
“That’s all,” said Reeve, his voice quiet as he leaned back.
Mely and Drystan stood with empty bellies and left. Maeve didn’t move. No, she stayed silent until just she and Reeve remained, picking out small bits of sharp and shattered crystal from her palm.
He did not look at her.
“What aren’t you telling me about Mely?”
Reeve’s head hung, but he did not hesitate to answer. “She is experiencing more trauma from death than she ever has. A single death at that. Because it is a great force that is dying. Slowly, day by day.”
If she could have taken back asking, she would have. Reeve’s truths were, it seemed, nothing more than added burdens.
Mal was dying.
Maeve’s voice shook when she found the courage to speak. “She swore. She swore in Magic she wouldn’t kill him.”
Reeve’s words may as well have been Eryx’s long sword straight through her skull. “There are worse fates than death.”
Heat flooded Maeve’s body. Her eyes burned, becoming wet.
But she would not let tears fall. Not in front of this man who already had so much to hold over her.
She turned and left him, fighting off tears until she reached Maxius.
She leaned over the cool crystals encasing him, placed her forehead against her forearm, and let herself mourn.
Even if she managed to save Mal, would such an act be a mercy or a punishment?