Chapter 6
GRAESON
"My mother is dead." Graeson retreated a step and stumbled over the fallen chair.
Kalisandre knew this. Why would she mess with him? Why—
She grabbed his hands, her touch sending warmth into his body. But no matter how tightly she squeezed, his large hands were limp in hers. He shook his head, unable and unwilling to hear the truth.
"No, she’s not."
Sweat coated Graeson’s skin, and his breathing became labored. His chest rose and fell at such a rapid pace that his knees threatened to buckle. He vaguely felt his body make contact with a chair as someone pushed him down onto it. Words were said, but he couldn’t hear past the ringing in his ears.
Kalisandre’s lips moved. Was she talking to him? She looked at someone in the room. A small vein popped in her forehead as she spewed a demand.
A flash of movement.
The sound of boots pounding on the ground.
Hands were on him, grabbing him, touching his shoulder and arm, coaxing him. Yet Graeson remained frozen. The only thing grounding him, the only thing he could focus on were the two sea-blue eyes staring back at him.
His mother was alive?
His mother was alive.
"How? Where?" The questions were no more than rough grunts.
"She’ll tell you everything she knows," Kalisandre whispered, squeezing his hands.
"She?" Graeson asked, confused.
"Myra."
A rattling of metal rang in the halls, and Graeson nearly tumbled over as he hurried to stand, the sudden movement making him dizzy.
A hand landed on his back. Although he did not turn to confirm who it was, he welcomed Kalisandre’s touch, intrinsically knowing it belonged to her.
Guards led the handmaiden and the two men who had accompanied her to Tetria into the council room.
"You saw my mother?" Graeson demanded, the words tumbling out of his mouth.
Myra flinched, her soft hazel eyes widening. There wasn’t time for niceties, though. He needed answers, and he needed them now.
"I-I didn’t know she was your mother. Not at first," Myra said, voice shaking.
"I only realized the connection when we were escaping.
I had only seen your mother once before that—when we had first returned from Frenzia.
The king was outraged that Kallie had escaped, and he blamed your mother, believing she had lied to him.
" She swept her gaze across the room, taking note of the queen and the council hanging on every word.
Her throat dipped. "Apparently, she had been providing Domitius with glimpses of the future to guide him in his pursuits. "
Outrage propelled Graeson. His weight pressed against the table that separated him from the handmaiden, his palms burning into the surface. "Do you mean to suggest that my mother has been working for Domitius?"
Kalisandre wrapped her hand around his arm, beckoning him to calm down, to hear the handmaiden out. "If Lysanthia was a prisoner, I’m not sure she had a choice, Graeson."
He looked at Kalisandre then, and his expression softened marginally.
"She probably did what she had to do to survive," she said gently.
Her words settled in his mind. His mother had not died when he was a mere child. She was a prisoner—had been a prisoner for nearly two decades.
"Domitius has a way of getting what he wants—several of us here know that fact all too well," the king of Frenzia said, his nostrils flaring.
A low rumble came from the god inside Graeson. Rian may have been the man who was previously engaged to Kalisandre, but Graeson had no energy to fight him or yell at him. In truth, he pitied the worn king. Chains adorned his wrists, and fatigue soaked his expression and body.
"While Lysanthia may have been providing glimpses of the future for King Domitius, she was definitely not on his side," Myra said, calling Graeson’s attention back to her. "When I first saw her, she wasn’t afraid to show how delighted she was that the wedding had gone up in flames. It was admirable. The way she wasn’t afraid to speak out against him.
Despite being chained, she did not fear him. Not in the slightest."
Terin squeezed Graeson’s left shoulder. "My mother always said Lysanthia was a fighter."
At the prince’s remark, a glimmer of pride prickled in Graeson’s chest, but it was short-lived. The darkness returned in an instant. "Yet you still left her," he spat, narrowing his gaze at the handmaiden.
Myra wrapped her arms around her torso and swallowed her excuse.
He scoffed in disgust.
The man beside Myra—Laurince, Graeson recalled—stepped forward, the chains around his ankles clanging. "Do not blame her. I was the one who told Myra we had to leave. We only had a small window of time to get out."
Graeson slammed his fist against the table, the tea cups rattling across the surface. "You left her with him!" His knuckles bit into the grain of the wood, and he could have sworn he heard the wood splinter from the pressure.
"I tried to convince her to come," Myra explained, her voice wobbling. "Sh-she refused."
"You should have forced her then!" Graeson shouted, his fury reddening the corners of his vision.
"She was chained to a fucking wall!" Laurince shouted.
The Tetrian warriors inched closer, but the captain pressed on, a vein protruding beneath the red scar on his neck
"We had no key, no way of getting her out. We barely made it out alive as it was. How do you expect us to have freed her?"
"You should have tried! You should have broken the chains—anything! If she was one of your parents, you would have done anything to free them."
Laurince scoffed. "She told us to leave her!"
Like a frayed rope hanging on its last thread, Graeson snapped. He stormed forward, grabbing the captain by his collar and yanking him—
He froze, time coming to a stop as something foreign slithered over his skin.