Chapter 37
Cal
I’d been staring up at the ceiling for hours, trying to pick out patterns that didn’t exist in the rough sandstone surface.
Petra’s naked body was curled against my side, her warmth the only thing keeping me in this bed.
My hand was tangled in the strands of her hair cascading away from her face, fanned out over the pillow.
I was once again struck by the fact that such power waited just below the surface of her skin. It was right there, and it’d been in her all along.
I’d expected her to come back from Malosym’s cell frustrated and hopeless.
She’d pushed through the doorway to find me polishing my blade and latched the door behind her.
I’d asked her what had happened, but all I received in answer was her lips against mine.
When she carefully took the blade from my lap and lowered it to the floor, I could tell something was off.
She’d torn away only to lead me to the bed, and the look in her eyes was so intense, so earnest, every question that had been brewing fell away.
Every movement she made against me tonight had seemed so intentional, every breath deep, as if she were trying to hold the moment inside her lungs. Every time our pace quickened, she seemed to pull against the reins, slowing us down.
It made me nervous.
And how shitty was it that her calmness unsettled me so much? How shitty was it that seeing her so sure of herself, seeing her taking in the moment as she should, made me anxious?
Sleep wouldn’t be coming for me tonight. My mind was too damn loud. I needed to do something .
I slipped my arm from under Petra’s head, slowly sliding from the mattress and padding across the stone floor to pull on a pair of trousers and a tunic, then strapped my half-polished blade to my hip.
With one final glance at Petra to assure she was still asleep, I finally let out the breath I’d been holding when the door to the bedchamber clicked behind me.
I was just steps from the door to our suite when I heard the sound of a blade clattering to the floor.
My eyes narrowed in the direction of Miles’ bedchamber.
Flickering light shone beneath his door.
We had to be within a few hours of the sunrise. What the hell was he still doing awake?
He probably couldn’t sleep, same as me. Maybe he was sharpening his blade. Maybe he was cleaning it. I was about to start walking down the corridor to the library when a pained hiss filtered through the door.
I didn’t bother knocking. I burst into the room, my stomach in a knot as I scanned the scene before me.
Miles shot to his feet from where he’d been kneeling on the floor, his chest heaving as he quickly reclaimed his sword from the ground and had it aimed in my direction in the span of a heartbeat.
The blade fell to his side as soon as he saw it was me.
Miles glared at me. “What the hell are you doing? ”
It was then I saw it. Blood coated his forearm, gushing from a slash across his skin just below the inside of his elbow. He caught my narrowed eyes, quickly taking a step back and making a shitty attempt at hiding the cut.
“What the hell am I doing? What the hell are you doing?” Something unsettling gripped me as I stared at him, at the wildness in his eyes, the way his chest was rising and falling too quickly.
A bowl sat on the floor, its bottom coated in a layer of crimson.
The room was silent aside from the drip, drip, drip of blood flowing from his arm. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” Miles answered, his agitation growing harder for him to conceal.
“Bullshit.” I marched forward, but he matched me stride for stride as he moved backwards, a trail of red droplets marking his path. “Show me your arm.”
“It’s nothing,” he repeated, his words harder.
We circled each other, me in pursuit and him in retreat disguised as nonchalance. “Show me your fucking arm, Miles.”
His back collided with the door. For a moment, I thought he was going to reach for the latch and try to escape my questioning. His eyes closed for a moment, as if he were convincing himself to stay here. Slowly, painfully, they opened again, and he extended his arm.
My jaw ground back and forth as I stared. The gash was too straight across his forearm, too even to be from anything other than a blade. It wasn’t a fatal wound, but the cut was deep enough that it could do with a few stitches.
“Malosym?” I asked, thinking back to when Miles had tackled him to the ground. Had he been struck and I’d missed it?
“No,” he answered simply.
“Miles,” I grunted, frustration rising at his unwillingness to give me even a single detail.
“It wasn’t Malosym.”
“Okay. Occulti? ”
“I did it myself.”
My jaw slackened as the air in the room changed. This strange feeling slithered through me, a sickening sense of helplessness that crept around my stomach and constricted, and I was paralyzed in its unrelenting grip.
Everything I wanted to say felt wrong. I wanted to question why the fuck he’d do that, but he’d obviously done it for a reason.
I wanted to tell him I’d help him, that he’d be okay, but it didn’t feel like enough.
Every word felt pointless. So I remained silent.
Maybe the quiet would give him the space he needed to find the words.
And when the silence between us grew so taut I was afraid it would snap, he finally spoke. “I found something that helps.”
There was only a split second of relief before it was washed away by a tidal wave of sheer panic. How badly had I hoped to hear him say those words? But these were not the circumstances I’d wished to hear them under. Not when he sat in his room bleeding and alone.
Miles’ hand hung awkwardly at his side in an attempt to keep the blood off his clothes.
But every drop that hit the stone floor sent tiny specks outward, dotting his boots.
“It’s…” he started, shaking his head as he looked down for a moment at his hand.
“It’s in my blood, I think. So when I bleed…
” His head tipped backward now, a heavy breath escaping through tight lips.
“It seems to help. The darkness is not as powerful for a bit.”
My nostrils flared as I did everything in my power to keep a hold of myself. “How did you figure this out?”
I was frozen in place as he loosened the ties at the collar of his shirt, his movements stiff as he pulled it away just enough to reveal the bandage wrapped haphazardly around his shoulder and chest. “Occulti fucker got me tonight before I found you and Malosym.” The bandage was twisted and uneven, evidence he’d done it himself.
That was when I noticed the pile of spare strips of cloth on the edge of the bed.
“I felt it almost instantly, the relief. I could tell the wound wasn’t too deep, so I didn’t try to staunch the bleeding at all.
And the more I bled, the better I felt.” There was something in the set of his jaw, something in the furrow of his brow that wasn’t right.
“What aren’t you telling me?” I asked cautiously.
He shook his head, his eyes back on the ground again. “I’ve told you everything you need to know.”
“What the fuck aren’t you telling me, Miles?”
He rolled his head between his shoulders, averting his gaze.
And when his eyes finally met mine, his anguish was so obvious, I felt it within my own chest, cold and razor-sharp.
He shifted from one foot to the other, as if finding a more comfortable position to bear the weight he carried. “You really want to know?”
“Tell me.”
His chin lowered with a slow nod, a dying man accepting the terms of his fate.
“I didn’t feel him coming until he was already here.
I don’t know why. But when I did, I ran out of the castle and started fighting.
It was all okay, I was…in control,” he strained, letting a deep breath leave his nose.
“Until I wasn’t. I turned my sword on a civilian Cal.
I didn’t swing,” he added quickly, as if that made it better.
“I decided the best thing I could do was get back to the castle and lock myself away, but I was caught in the shoulder by an Occulti on the way back. And that was when I noticed I felt better the more I bled. But if I hadn’t been wounded tonight…
I’m not sure I would’ve been able to capture Malosym. ”
I heard the words. They entered my brain. But they didn’t land. They didn’t stick. They simply rattled around, never making contact and their meaning never resonating with me. “What does that mean?” I finally asked, my voice too calm, too quiet.
He didn’t answer. Instead he simply continued to stare back at me, the muscles in his jaw feathering.
“What does that mean, Miles?” I demanded again, and this time the words broke from me louder. My breaths quickened, a cold sweat prickling against the back of my neck. “What do you mean you wouldn’t have been able to capture Malosym?”
His mouth fell open to respond but quickly snapped closed again. An insurmountable amount of pain shone from his dark eyes as he finally mustered up the strength to speak. “I wouldn’t have done it.”
And there it was. The truth.
It all came crashing into me. What this meant. That Miles was losing his battle. Malosym’s grip around Miles was tightening. That Petra was in even more danger than I thought.
I swallowed as hard as I could, doing everything to keep my voice even. “It’s time, isn’t it?”
He raised his bloodied arm, a cautious hope suddenly pulling up at his features. “No, I don’t think it is yet. Now that I found out this works, I can just–”
“So is that your plan?” I cut in, my voice far too harsh, far too loud. “Bleed yourself out until all the evil is gone?”
“Will you let me finish my fucking sentence?” he demanded. “This isn’t my fucking fault, Cal.”
My hands tore through my hair as I stared at him, my heart rate spiking as blood continued to roll down his arm and land on the floor. I managed to gain an ounce of control over myself before I spoke again. “I need to tell Petra.”
“ No. ” He shook his head violently, his features hardening again. “No, just…just give me more time.”
“More time to what? Lie? Bleed? Succumb to Malosym’s will?”
“More time to apologize!” he shouted back, eyes wild. His voice echoed off the stone walls, and I hoped to every fucking Saint it wouldn’t wake Petra. But then his words sunk in.
I narrowed my eyes on him. “Apologize?”
“To Cielle.”
The name hung heavy in the air, leaving behind a palpable weight as the echo quieted. “Have you spoken to her since you’ve seen her? ”
“No,” he answered, staring at the floor.
“I’ve been avoiding her. If I see her in the corridor, I turn the other way.
I don’t… I don’t trust myself. Petra has her own powers, and she has you in case things…
go wrong. But Cielle…” His jaw ground back and forth as he looked toward the closed terrace doors at the back of the room, the garden just visible through the panes inlaid in the wood.
A deep, shuddering breath entered my lungs as I studied him, watching the way his eyes locked on one spot outside the doors. “What?”
“She’s been out there each night since the ball,” he started. “Brings a book, sits on the bench, and reads. And I spend every spare moment I have just fucking sitting here during that time like some sort of madman, watching her and ducking out of the way anytime she turns in my direction.”
I wasn’t sure what to say in response. “I’m sorry,” was all I could manage.
“You’re my brother,” he started, the words short and rounded. “I love you, and you know that, just like you know I’m glad we found each other again. But I really fucking wish I’d followed Cielle instead of my own delusional idea of duty.”
Miles’ pain ripped through me as if it were my own. Denial was not in short supply, and I walked toward my brother, clapping a hand on his shoulder. “We can find some other way, Miles.”
“It’s not going to go away,” he said, his brows arched over dark, tired eyes.
I thought maybe for a second that blue light was gone, but it was still there, unnoticeable to the average person unless they were looking for it.
“You’re right. Bleeding isn’t the answer.
I knew the truth from the first moment I realized what was happening.
After I was struck earlier tonight, I felt hopeful for the first time, like maybe this was the solution.
But just in the few hours since then, the feeling is already back.
I can feel it growing again. I can keep it at bay long enough to say goodbye, but then I need you to keep your promise. ”
The truth loomed over us, growing larger with each passing minute, impossible to ignore.
I made that promise to him thinking I’d never have to keep it.
My word felt like a gift I’d given to him at the time, one that cost me nothing but the incessant guilt of withholding the truth from Petra.
I never thought the hammer would actually come down.
So I nodded. I swallowed back my hurt and my own stubbornness, and I said, “Okay.”
A steady breath left Miles’ nose. “Is Malosym still in the dungeon?”
“Yeah. Petra didn’t talk much when she came to bed.” The only words that had left her mouth were my name and a string of curses as she writhed against me. I had no idea how her interrogation of Malosym had gone.
Miles nodded. “You can tell her the truth after I’m gone.” And as painful as it was keeping anything from Petra, as hard as it railed against every fiber of my being, this was one truth I hoped I never had to tell her, because I didn’t want Miles to go anywhere.