“What is the meaning of this?” My trembling voice comes out far too high.
This time, it’s Cass who answers. “We had to.” He doesn’t meet my gaze, instead staring at where his fingers flex at the edge of the bed.
“Why?”
My mother runs the back of her hand over cheeks, gathering the tears that have fallen. Nox arches his back in an unnatural way, straining against the shackles as he grunts through clenched teeth.
“Since he woke, he’s been disoriented. He did not understand that he was in the healers’ wing, and—” She hushes him gently, attempting to calm him like one would a child who’s just been injured.
“And what?” I whisper.
“He tried to kill three healers.”
Chapter Twenty-One: Bahira
MybalanceswaysasI cock my head, sure I must have misheard. “Did you just say he tried tokillthem?”
Cass nods in answer, his sullen expression further bottoming out my stomach. “I had just stepped outside to use the bathroom as the next round of healers came in to try waking him again.”
“It isn’t your fault,” my mother says, leaning forward until she draws Cass’s attention to her. “Do you understand?” But he doesn’t respond, only lays a hand over Nox’s arm. My brother jerks at the contact, those strange eyes flicking to his best friendwith zero recognition in them. “He was furious when he woke, and his eyes were just as they are now. Two healers approached him, and without warning, he attacked them. Caught off guard, they took some serious hits before the third healer and I were able to subdue him with our magic.”
“Did he hurt you?”
“No,” she says quickly, shaking her head. “It took everything I had just to hold him there until Cass returned, but he didn’t hurt anyone else.”
“I put the shackles on him.” He says it like a shameful confession, and my heart lurches as his shoulders droop.
I blow out a shaky breath, watching my brother fight against his restraints. When the council learns of this, there is no telling how they will react. I might have been able to guess three months ago, but now it is almost as if they are looking for reasons to criminalize our family.
Perhaps to remove us from the throne.
“Is his magical signature still off?” I ask.
The look that Cass and my mother exchange is brief, but I catch the uncertainty on both of their faces. “Yes,” Cass says, pinching his eyebrows together. “I can sense him in it, the usualfeelof his power, but there is something else there too. Like…” He tilts his head back and forth, as if he can shake the words he’s looking for free.
My mother offers her insight. “I, like Cassius, can sense him, but it’s almost as if it is buried beneathmore.” She reaches out to cup Nox’s face, the touch working to calm him. His muscles relax as he falls flat against the bed, his eyes fluttering shut.
The handle to the door jostles, startling the three of us, while Nox seems to have already fallen back into the deep sleep. My father’s voice calls out through the wood, prompting Cass to rush over and let him in.
“Bahi,” he says in greeting, kissing the top of my head. His affection works to ground me.
With a gentle squeeze of my shoulder, he turns and looks to Nox, sadness overtaking him. “Are they true?” he asks, looking to my mother. “The murmurs I heard on my way here?”
My eyes fall shut, a sinking feeling sending my heart crashing to the floor. To already have word spread of what Nox had done—no matter how accidental or unaware he was—is not going to bode well.
“He attacked the healers,” she confirms, her voice laced with sadness. My father says nothing as he joins my mother at her side, his arm wrapping around his shoulders. “And his magic is still nothis. At least, not fully.”
My father nods, sitting on the bed’s edge as his light purple magic glows from his palm and he extends his hand over Nox’s body. “It’s chaos,” he mumbles quietly, drawing a confused look from the rest of us. My father’s magic is stronger than most of those in our kingdom, and that makes his sensitivity to other’s magical presence higher—more attuned. As he moves his hand farther up, it stops abruptly over Nox’s chest. “Here,” he says, tilting his head to the side, his brows drawn low in concentration. “It feels…tangled.” Nox stirs, almost as if he’s sensitive to the brush of our father’s magic against him.
Tangled.But magic is supposed to be a fluid thing. It has always surrendered to the intentions of the mage it comes from, has always been molded and shaped into whatever the wielder asks.
“How do weuntangleit, then?” Cass asks. No one answers, the silence taut as if balancing on a knife’s edge. One wrong move will result in split skin and spilled blood, something our family cannot afford any more of.
Hours later, after the sun has set and the warm glow of the spelled flames lining the walls overtakes the room, Nox’s eyes open again. This time, the man looking back at us is one I recognize.
“He’s awake,” my mother rasps, exhaustion pulling at every word. We had undone the restraints as soon as he calmed earlier, but no one had wanted to leave the room as he slept. Kallin had come to the door, eagerly trying to see my brother until my father was able to coax him away. There is a silent understanding that we can only deter the council for so long before their curiosity becomes more demanding, especially as the rumor of how Nox had attacked the healers spreads. But we need time to assess Nox. To bring him up to speed on what is happening, and whathadhappened, before any of us would dare leave him to the council’s interrogation.
Cass leans forward in his chair next to me, his gaze assessing Nox.
