Chapter 25
Cal
I wanted to lunge for him. I wanted to rip his fucking throat out. I wanted to push my sword through his chest and smile when his ribs snapped. I managed to leash that anger, but it was thrashing against its chains, and those chains wouldn’t hold much longer.
I stared down at Tyrak, the man who had tirelessly trained me to be a member of the Royal Guard. The man who had been a constant in my life alongside Castemont. The man who’d mourned Tobyas alongside me.
“Stay where you are,” I ordered, my sword poised and ready.
Tyrak just nodded, the corners of his mouth turned up in a ghost of a sorrowful smile.
He raised his palms from where he sat on the bench, though the movement was slow and heavy.
He looked different now. Haggard. Worn. Defeated.
Like good sleep had evaded him for years and he’d resigned himself to the fact it would be that way forever.
But his eyes… There was a storm behind their dark depths, angry and raging.
His gaze flickered behind me, to where Petra stood. My stance widened, doing everything I could to block his view of her as I pushed my sword closer to his throat. Miles did the same, following my lead. I fucking dared Tyrak to so much as look at her.
“I’m not here to hurt you,” he said cautiously.
“You could’ve stopped this,” I snarled. “I trusted you. You knew what was happening the whole fucking time.” Tyrak’s face fell in shame, and it pissed me off so fucking much it took everything in me not to swipe my sword across his neck.
Petra placed a hand against my shoulder as she stepped out from behind me. I had to remind myself the power in her veins could melt all of our swords down to molten steel. She really didn’t need my protection.
“You,” she started, her voice hard, “told me I could trust Castemont. I asked you if I should give him and my mother my blessing for their marriage, and you said yes.”
His dark eyes stared up at her from where he still sat. “I had no choice in the matter.”
I heard Petra take a steadying breath beside me. “He had your blood too?”
Tyrak didn’t answer, his mouth clamping shut.
His gaze seemed to move then, away from my eyes, lower, to the point of my sword which was still pointed at him.
When he finally spoke, each word was strained, as if it took every ounce of energy he had to say them.
His eyes moved back to mine, his stare pinning me in place. “Who gave you that sword?”
Miles stepped forward. “Why the fuck does that matter?”
Oh, it fucking mattered. He and Petra had no idea just how much it mattered.
They didn’t know he wasn’t asking simply because he wanted to know.
No, he was pushing me forward, toward the conclusion I’d come to the moment my eyes landed on the marble sculpture of Noros, Saint of Pain.
The statue’s face may have been generic, but there was nothing generic about the rubies in the hilt of his blade.
They didn’t know that it was the man sitting before us that gave me this sword the day I was sworn in as a Royal Guard.
Tyrak’s eyes bored into mine, the storm behind them growing more turbulent.
His nostrils flared. My hand began to shake, not with the weight of the sword, but with the weight of what this sword was.
What this meant. It dropped to my side, hanging from my hand.
I was too afraid to look, too afraid of the combination of dread, betrayal, and confusion that pounded through me.
“Who gave you that sword?” Tyrak repeated, desperation breaking through his tone now. The lines in his face grew deeper as pain continued to twist his features.
“You did.”
Petra went still beside me. Miles’ blade was still raised to Tyrak’s throat, but it faltered just the slightest bit. Tyrak opened his mouth to speak again, but only a choked sound left his mouth.
“Who is he?” Miles asked, and I realized then that Miles wouldn’t remember him. The last time he saw Tyrak was when he was Tobyas.
“Tell them, Cal,” Tyrak whispered, the words mangled.
“Noros,” I murmured, swallowing hard when he nodded. “Saint of Pain.”
◆ ◆ ◆
I stared at the back of Tyrak’s head the entire walk back to Araqina’s castle.
His deep black hair had reflected the first light of what would surely be another blistering day in the city.
But the heat of Araqina had nothing on the rage and unanswered questions that boiled my blood as we walked.
We kept him in front of us in case he tried to make a run for it.
He hadn’t tried, though. He’d come willingly, walking through the city and up the castle steps.
The guards hadn’t wanted to let Tyrak through, but one mention of the drivas, and they swung the doors open for us.
Now, Petra stood at the head of the table in our suite, her fingers steepled on the polished wood. I stood to her left, arms crossed, staring down at where Tyrak sat silent and waiting at the opposite end.
I lost count of the times Petra opened her mouth to speak and slammed it shut again.
I knew within her mind, she was combing back through her life, looking for signs, looking for clues that would’ve pointed to Tyrak being the Saint of Pain.
She was trying to figure out what to ask first. I was doing the same thing.
How? How had it been Tyrak the whole time?
I wouldn’t be surprised if my molars were ground to dust. The fury that coursed through me made it hard to breathe. The destruction Tyrak had aided in, the…pain. His title fit him. He was the Saint of Pain.
“If you’ll allow me to explain,” Tyrak started, breaking the tense silence.
I shot him a scathing look, but not any more cutting than Petra’s. She was fuming. When she moved her hands from the tabletop to stand straight again, ten tiny charred spots remained where her fingertips had been.
“I am no longer Noros,” he continued, his expression and tone both cautious.
“I am human, through and through, and have been since I set foot in the Human Realm and found myself inhabiting the body of a boy of no more than sixteen years. I will live and die in this human body. I may no longer hold Noros’ power, but I will do everything within the power I do have to help you.
I want to answer any questions you have. ”
Petra looked to me, her face hard and stern, but her autumn eyes had begun to swim. With a subtle dip of her chin, she let me have him .
“You led him to her,” I started, my words measured. It was through some fucking miracle I managed to keep my rage contained to two clenched fists.
Tyrak’s eyes were hollow, shaded beneath with deep purple smudges. “It was a calculated risk.”
I slammed my fist down on the table, in disbelief that he could even think of calling something like that a calculated risk . “You all but hand-fed her to him!” I roared. “You may as well have–”
“He was going to find her whether I was there or not,” Tyrak cut in, his face hardening in a way I hadn’t seen before.
A different shadow darkened his face now, something otherworldly that caused me to pause.
“I…” he started, a deep breath heaving in and out of his chest. “I asked Rhedros to send me here to the Human Realm so I could watch over her. Malosym was going to stop at nothing to find her, whether she was here or in the Saints’ Realm.
So yes, it was a calculated risk bringing her here with me.
” His attention turned to Petra. “I thought if I could watch over you, if I could protect you…”
Petra was quiet beside me, her face unreadable. I was looking for any sign of how she was feeling, how she might want me to proceed, but I found no clue. My gaze moved back to the man in front of us. “You said you had no choice, but he didn’t have your blood.”
“He had something far more valuable,” he murmured. His eyes were still on me, but I could tell that whatever he was seeing was far, far away from here. “No, he has something far more valuable. He has Katia.”
Petra’s eyes narrowed for a moment. The tears had evaporated, replaced by a familiar rage. She was disconcertingly silent.
And for being not only a large, imposing man, but a fucking Saint , Tyrak’s voice was small when he spoke. “I’m bound to his will out of fear he will end her life. ”
Petra blinked, her brow furrowing as she leaned in. “Can he do that? Can he kill her? She’s a Saint.”
“We…don’t know,” he breathed, the words mangled and tortured.
“In the beginning, when the New World was established, rules were set forth. Saints cannot kill humans. Humans, however, can kill Saints. The rule was made as an attempt to balance power. But Malosym is neither human nor Saint, and he is not bound to the rules of this New World. We simply do not know what he is capable of. And I have no intentions of finding out.” He shifted in his seat, swallowing hard.
“Knowing he has her and there’s nothing I can do about it is the greatest burden I’ve ever carried.
I’ve had no choice but to do as he says. ”
Preserving the life of the Keeper of the Benevolent Saints was a valid enough reason. If the very heart at the core of the Saints were to stop beating, what would happen? But it didn’t quash my anger toward him.
“I tried to do work within the bounds of my fear,” he continued when the silence had gone on too long, his eyes on Petra. “I had a dagger forged for you. I left it for you the morning of Initiation.”
“ You left the dagger?” she gasped.
“I was hoping the inscription would be a clue as to your lineage. THE MERCY OF KATIA and THE FURY OF RHEDROS was vague enough that it didn't violate the terms of the curse.”
One hand pushed through her hair. “When Malosym dropped the dagger back in Eserene, the inscription was gone.”
“He’s nothing if not theatrical.”
My nostrils flared as I stared down at Tyrak. “Why are you in Araqina?” I questioned.