Chapter 46
Eryx took a step towards where Abraxas kneeled with bloodstained clothes. Drystan wouldn’t fire unless ordered.
But Eryx. Maeve wasn’t certain Eryx answered to Reeve fully. She anticipated his rash movements as he made to step towards Abraxas. Maeve moved to place herself between Eryx and Abraxas as Reeve’s Magic flared, a silent command, and Eryx halted.
Maeve walked steadily to her cousin and kneeled in front of him. Water splashed at her feet, soaking her robe and pants and freezing her bare feet.
The blood was fresh and still dripping down his chin. She didn’t hesitate to take his face in her hands. Blood squished between her fingers. Hot tears flowed down his cheeks.
“Brax,” cried Maeve.
As her cousin inhaled sharply, his mouth parted enough for Maeve to see the bloody, mangled mess of his mutilated tongue. Abraxas had cut out his silver tongue, escaped, and somehow managed to make it to her. He straightened, revealing the second Magical signature she detected.
Lyrux was tucked securely in his arms, covered by his billowing black cloak.
The child was barely breathing.
Reeve was at her side a moment later, kneeling. Abraxas offered his only son to the High Lord of Aterna without hesitation. Her cousin collapsed into her arms. Reeve placed a hand on her shoulder, and the four of them were before several healers in their next breaths.
Juliet Rosethorn was dead.
Abraxas spoke little on it. Maeve didn’t push him.
Lyrux lay sprawled against Abraxas, wrapped beneath both of his father’s arms. The child, who now wore a small necklace filled with Reeve’s Magic to help him heal, was afflicted with the same dark and deadly disease that began killing Magicals who occupied the Dread Lands three hundred years ago.
Their presence there, as it now was for Magicals living in the Dread Lands, was a poison to themselves.
Refugees were taken into Aterna each day.
The Barrier Reeve placed on the now frozen-solid Black Deep was a war zone.
Citizens braved the Dreaded Dead that lingered beneath the ice, in the Greywood and the Dark Peaks, all for a chance to escape the toxic air forming over The Beryl City and the world Mal tried so hard to rebuild.
Abraxas’ voice was soft with his healed and regenerated tongue, as he held Lyrux close and spoke without Magical restraint.
She’d never seen her cousin so worn down, so utterly exhausted.
His vibrant and sparkling eyes were dulled.
Dimmer than felt appropriate for her vivacious cousin. Even his bright hair appeared wilted.
Like he, too, was having the life sucked from him.
Magic was dying beneath Shadow’s reign once more.
“I remained at his side for as long as it was safe for Lyrux,” he said, his eyes not on Maeve where they sat in two oversized chairs by the fire in her chamber. “I stayed by him as long as I could. . . I never wanted to leave him.”
“I know,” she replied softly.
Painful silence lingered between them. Silence had never been uncomfortable between Maeve and Abraxas. Now, after so long apart, Maeve had to force herself to ask him about his time at Mal’s side these past few months. It had been weeks since she’d seen him, when he looked so broken.
“How is he?” she asked carefully. “When I saw him last. . . he was struggling.”
Abraxas’ eyes remained distant. “The decline in the past few weeks has been dramatic. Accelerated.” His words were worse than a poisoned-tipped dagger penetrating her flesh and muscle. “He’s dying.”
Maeve looked away from him, her gaze shooting to her hands in her lap.
“And I stood by and watched as he was abused. Assaulted. As his body and mind were taken without his consent. Knowing if he had control of himself, if his own mental and bodily autonomy remained his, then she’d have been killed twenty times over.”
Maeve’s shoulders crumbled, and her hands covered her face as her chest tightened.
“I’m sorry, Maeve,” said Abraxas, his own voice short of breaking. “I shouldn’t have—”
Maeve stifled a sob and wiped the monsoon of tears pouring from her bottom lashes. “It’s not your fault, Brax. It’s all my fault.”
“It’s her fault, Maeve. No one’s but hers.”
When she continued to hide her face with her hands, Abraxas called her name softly. She looked up at her cousin, his own silent tears falling.
“No one is responsible for the evil she has committed. No one but her.”
Maeve wiped her eyes roughly. “I have to get him out of there.”
Abraxas fell silent. When he didn’t immediately encourage her, Maeve locked eyes with him once more. His expression was apprehensive, hesitant even.
“You don’t think I can?” she asked.
A swelling breath rose through him, and his hold on Lyrux tightened. “I just. . .don’t want to lose you, too.”
“Mal is not lost,” she fired. “I can feel him in my very veins, Abraxas. I feel him in the ring on my finger. He is still fighting her possession. He has not given up. And so we cannot give up.”
He nodded, his eyes on the Dread Ring, then on the darkened veins that dipped down her fingers.
“He lives within you,” he muttered.
“If I don’t do this, Brax. We lose him forever. And it doesn’t end with him. Our children. . .”
She couldn’t bear to finish the thought. Abraxas looked like he didn’t want her to. His lips pressed down on Lyrux’s head of silky blonde hair.
“I’ll help you in any way I can.” The conviction in his voice was finally reminiscent of her Brax. “I want nothing more than to bring Shadow down.”
Maeve didn’t know what propelled her to Reeve’s wing of the palace when she left her cousin to rest, only that she was desperate to see his eyes reassure her she wasn’t going to break completely.
She didn’t care if it was stupid and shallow to seek comfort from him when she was crying over the loss of another man.
And to lose him in such a devastating way.
Even if it was for no other reason, no other purpose than for the sake of Mal’s dignity—she would restore his honor.
The hallways and turns through the Celestian palace seemed longer than possible.
The large arched doors to his wing barely inched closer as her heartbeat kicked faster and faster.
Painting after painting blurred by. None of their vivid colors and purposeful brush strokes mattered to her when all else was lost.
But the way Reeve looked at her every day.
The sword and the armor. Zimsy. Maxius. He loved that boy.
She’d find him next to the crystals encasing him, reading to him or telling him stories.
She couldn’t get the image of his Dragon form stalking towards her out of her mind, that power.
His kiss. His hands on her hips. He was otherworldly, and she was far from deserving such grace and protection.
The soft but strong way he spoke to her. His lighthearted humor and arrogance. His warm skin. . .
That is what kept her feet moving.
The double doors flew open before she was even upon them. Reeve stood waiting for her, his face calm, but with anguish glistening across his eyes.
Maeve didn’t care that Eryx and Drystan stood behind him. She didn’t care that she was interrupting their meeting. She didn’t care that Eryx didn’t trust her or Abraxas.
She didn’t care what any of them thought.
She ran towards Reeve, faster now, propelling herself off the floor and into his outstretched arms. She threw her arms around him and buried her head into the crook of his neck and wept.
The sound slammed off the corridor walls, ringing out her sobs.
He pulled her tight against himself, his fingers dancing up and down her spine, until they found her hair. But not even such a familiar gesture could halt Maeve’s sobs.
I have to talk to Mal, Reeve. I have to get him, I have to go get him—
His reply came quickly, his voice soothing. I know.
I know you’ll say it’s too dangerous, and I shouldn’t go—
No, he replied. I only ask that you let me help you.
Maeve lifted her head to look at his face. He reached out and wiped the tear streaking down her flushed cheeks.
I am probably signing my death certificate, she said.
Then put my name beside yours, he replied. It seems I am overdue.
He shifted his hold on her, one strong arm sliding beneath her thighs as her chin rested against his shoulder. He walked them away from Eryx and Drystan, down the stairs and across the palace. They were silent until they reached the tall cathedral-like hall where Maxius lay.
Reeve set her down, and she wiped the residuals of tears from her hot cheeks. His attention was on Maxius with an expression that bordered on sorrow.
“It’s likely you could convince me of nearly anything, Maeve, Shadow Magic aside, and I would reason that I didn’t have a choice,” he began, his voice calm.
“But with Maxius, I don’t even need to be coerced.
Deceived. I would do anything for him, and I would proudly acknowledge that I chose it.
Whatever the cost. Whatever the downfall. ”
Reeve sighed, and as the thread of Magic between them grew heavy, she could feel that his incoming words weighed down on him like chains.
“I haven’t been honest with you,” he said, his eyes still on Maxius. “When I know that’s all you’ve wanted from me this whole time, was my honesty at last.”
“That wasn’t your fault,” she said, pushing down on the adrenaline wanting to surge and spike through her, feeling the incoming of something massive. “Magic held your tongue.”
Reeve sighed and turned towards her. “I have one last confession to make. One final truth. Because without it, you will not rescue Mal.”
Her stomach twisted at the torn conviction on his face. She shifted back, suddenly feeling out of place so close to him. No, no, no, he was going to say something that changed everything—
“You are my Inheritor.”
The heat in Maeve’s cheeks drained. She was certain she misheard him. Fear, cold and paralyzing, dripped down her spine at the insinuation, at the implications of his words.
She had misheard him. Surely.