Chapter 44 #2
I shook my head, denying it.
“I need this view now that I have seen it. I need to be here.”
Some of the shadows lifted from her features as she glanced my way, her voice soft. “Why?”
I drew down a breath and exhaled slowly. “Because it calms me and gives me courage and strength, and I feel that if I just keep looking at it then the words might come more easily.”
Surprise swept through me when she sat on the ledge next to me, so close I could feel her faint warmth, and drew her knees up to her chest, hugging them.
“Just so you know, I’m mad at you, and I’m only sitting here because you’re blocking the breeze. You’re nothing more than a windbreak to me.” She rested her chin on her knees, her eyes darting over the panorama.
She never changed. Humour in the face of fear. Goddess, I loved that little trait of hers.
“If you find it easier, you can pretend I’m not here,” she muttered at the castle far below us.
I denied that too. “I am afraid I cannot do that, because I need you to know. I need to share this… these things I have not shared with anyone else… with you.”
Her lips wriggled as she contemplated that and then shrugged. “Fine. I can accept that. It’s beautiful up here. So quiet. So calm. Are you bleeding badly?”
I almost smiled at her abrupt change of subject that revealed her worry for me—worry I was sure had been plaguing her from the moment she had stabbed me. I touched my side and withdrew my hand, showing it to her. Barely a drop of blood coated my fingers.
Some of the tension left her shoulders upon seeing it.
“I’m not going to apologise,” she muttered.
“I would not want you to. I deserved this.” I sighed and dragged my gaze from her to the sprawling countryside. “I ask only that you listen to me and know every word that leaves these lips, it is truth.”
She nodded again but her lips flattened in a way that said she wanted to launch another attack at me over that word. Truth. Thankfully, she held it in.
I thought about what to tell her, considering it as I watched dark specks moving along pale roads in the far distance, travellers making their way between villages or towns, heading to or away from Falkyr.
No matter how hard I fought it, my gaze drifted to Belkarthen.
And all the pain, all the anger and fear that place had ingrained in me rose to the surface within me, a toxic maelstrom that only seemed to grow stronger with time rather than fading away.
Perhaps because all the love, all the joy and happiness I had felt in that place had been so powerful, and having it torn from me had left a hole inside me, a hollow hate-filled abyss that had driven me to do many things that had hurt others.
And myself.
“When we lost our parents—” I choked on those words, when I had been so sure I could say them without my throat closing and my heart howling in rage and injustice.
Saphira’s hand came to rest softly on my arm, that touch enough to anchor me to this moment with her, keeping me in it rather than slipping away to the past, to that dreadful night and the days that had followed it.
I cleared my throat.
“Our uncle closed in on a throne I was too young to hold, but old enough to know that holding it was vital if I was to protect my people—my sister—and grow powerful enough to have my revenge upon the Summer Court.” I picked at the stones between my legs, needing to do something with my hands, some small action to distract myself from what I was doing, so I could continue to do it without faltering.
“I still remember his face as he watched me console my sister the morning of my parents’ funeral rites.
His cold, calculating eyes. His hollow words of condolence.
He had known I was weak, my power not yet fully manifested, too young to oppose him if he sought to take what he had desired for centuries—the crown of the Shadow Court.
I had known then that I needed a powerful ally if I was to keep my throne. ”
Saphira’s thumb gently grazed my arm, stroking my tunic, distracting me and giving me something to focus on, and a sliver of hope that my words were reaching her, that when I was done she would understand why I had done what I had.
“When the high king travelled to Belkarthen to grieve with us and offer the condolences of Ereborne and the other courts, bringing his young daughter with him, I had known with a sickening sort of clarity what I needed to do for my people.”
Her stroking stopped and my gaze flicked to her hand, the need to feel that steady, soothing rhythm again near overpowering me to the point I almost barked an order at her to keep going, to keep me grounded so I could do this.
So I could speak of my past for the first time in such a long time.
“Saphira,” I murmured as I lifted my gaze to her face and found her glaring at my court.
“It’s not fair,” she whispered.
“What is not fair?”
“Life. Fate.” She continued to scowl at the Shadow Court even as tears lined her lashes. “Being made to do something because it’s the only way to protect the ones you love from more pain. Sacrificing yourself because it’s the only way to keep your people safe.”
She was not only speaking of me now.
She shrugged. “Maybe there was a time I didn’t feel it was a sacrifice…
or maybe there wasn’t. It all blurred at some point.
But as more and more of my freedom was taken from me, as more and more of my future was decided for me…
it began to feel like one… and I forgot how to be happy.
I forgot how to be… me. I was so wrapped up in doing what others expected, in taking care of their needs, that I lost sight of myself. ”
Her words struck a chord in me, one that ran deep, buried long ago, when I had been a boy and I had lost everything.
When I lost myself.
“What did you do?” she whispered.
“What I had to in order to keep Vyr safe. She was all I had left, together with my new throne, and so I did what I had to do, so I would not lose her. I pushed aside my grief and my rage, and I befriended Vaeleryn, ensuring we were seen together by her father. Every day I made sure he witnessed our budding friendship and how his daughter smiled at me, how she took care of me, devoting her time while she was in my court to being with me. It was not long before she was the one seeking me out and was speaking of me to her father.”
I exhaled as I found myself back there, in the body and mind of that desperate little boy.
“I spent every night gripping a blade while I slept, waking at the slightest noise with my heart in my throat and visions of my uncle or some faceless shadow slitting my throat as they had my mother’s and father’s…
and then Vyr’s throat.” My breath leaked from me on a shuddering sigh and it shook as I pulled another down into my tight lungs, battling the memories of those days and how terrified I had been.
Too terrified to grieve properly. “Every morning, I plotted the next steps I needed to take to gain an alliance with the high king… I carved pieces of my soul away in the process. Vyr noticed it. I swear, she noticed everything from the day she was born. She did not want me to do it. She believed we could find another way. I knew we could not. It was this path… or it was death.”
Saphira’s fingers gently stroked my side, her concern seeping into me through that tender touch. I placed my hand over the wound, brushing her fingers in the process, and my jaw flexed as she tangled hers with mine, gripping them softly.
“Soon enough the high king was speaking to me of—speaking of future marriage and a union between our bloodlines, and my plan had worked. I was glad… not happy. I was glad, even when it left me cold. The thought that I would never have my mate—my true mate—and the sacrifice I had made to keep my people and my sister safe did not hit me until the morning after I had agreed to the high king’s terms.”
I glanced at Saphira.
But perhaps there was love in this world as strong as that between mates.
The same love I had witnessed in my parents.
“I would like to say my life was easy from that point.” I shifted my gaze back to the court spread below me as I shook my head. “But I have said I will not lie.”
“What happened?” She brushed her thumb over our tangled fingers.
“His support ensured I retained control of my court, but even with his backing, my childhood and first steps into adulthood were treacherous and difficult. You are very much aware that the highborn of this court can be vicious, easily twisted against someone. That blade became a permanent fixture under my pillow. It is still there. You slept on it once.” I glanced at her again, hoping to see her smile, but I found her glaring at Falkyr, bleeding darkness as she was swept up in her own memories.
I should have done a better job of protecting her.
I should never have left her alone when I had seen how others had been watching her.
I was far too familiar with the sort of looks she had received and I should have known better.
I should have seen what would happen. It would never happen again.
“My uncle had support in many of the houses. He made sure their view of me was as low as his own… that how I had courted the attention of the high king to gain his backing was compared to how they believed my mother had courted the attention of my father. Sneers, threats, and even violence was aimed at me from the moment of my coronation, followed by more than one quiet attempt to take my life during the following decades as I grew into a man.”
Mostly females who had been sent to my bed to murder me, and who I murdered instead. I kept that to myself, unwilling to give her any ammunition to use against me when she appeared so calm now and was listening to me.
“I was constantly made to feel unworthy of my throne until I grew strong enough in my own right to fight my own battles.”