My pacing halts. “You aren’t going to get yourself killed,” I tell him.Commandit of him.
But he shakes his head as he stands, rounding the table and placing a hand on my shoulder. “I need you to promise me something.”
“As soon as you agree, you won’t get yourself killed.”
He smiles, but it’s clearly an attempt to pacify me. It has the opposite effect. “Promise me that, no matter what happens to me, you will stand by Rhea as your queen.”
My eyes bounce back and forth between his as too many rebuttals fire off in my head. “Nox—”
“Please, Bahira. I have never asked you for anything, but I’m calling in all the favorite brother points I’ve accumulated.”
“You’re my only brother,” I whisper, something desperate clawing at my chest. When his eyes stay pleading, I groan and give in. “I promise.”
Relief visibly relaxes him, his hand squeezing my shoulder before he releases it. “Thank you. I know this is likely the worst and mostironictime to ask this question, but how areyou?”
A short laugh bursts from me, and even though uncertainty and anger still hum beneath my skin, I shake them off in favor of simply having a conversation with my brother. “Fine enough. I didn’t expect coming home from the Shifter Kingdom would mean enteringchaos, but I suppose I’ve never been one to thrive in monotony.”
“And your time on the shifter island,” he says, tilting his head. “Did you find what you were looking for?”
“I—” I knit my brows as the memories of a deep voice and golden-brown eyes play in my head, the reminder that I had found so much more than I went looking for leaving me feeling hollow. “I did, and I didn’t,” I answer, making Nox grin. The urge to tell him overwhelms me. Perhaps it’s because I know I can trust him, or simply that, in the havoc since I’ve been home, this is the first time I’ve felt safe enough to let my guard down. Either way, when I begin to recount my time there, Nox listens intently, and although I keep the same intimate details to myself like I did with the council, I tell him everything else. The rebels and Kai and our goodbye. At some point, I find tears tracing down my cheeks and wipe them away with quick hands, embarrassed thatI’m feeling so deeply. Embarrassed that there is so muchtofeel regarding Kai and the island he rules.
“Gods, Bahira,” he finally says after taking it all in, cradling his head in his hand. “I feel like a shit brother now.”
I chuckle, but it’s short-lived when a guard knocks on the door. “Your Highnesses, Councilman Kallin has requested Prince Nox’s presence in his office,” he says through the wood. Nox drags a hand down his face and moves to step towards the door, only to falter as he sways.
“Are you alright?” I ask, rushing to help steady him.
“Don’t worry, I’m fine. Just a little off after…everything.”Right. We hadn’t even talked yet about what happened while he was gone and how he was caught—or his magic, though it sounds like that still isn’t back to normal. And, gods, I still haven’t told him about Siyala, and her connection to Rhea. I don’t know when the right time might be to share those details, but now certainly doesn’t feel like it.
We walk together to the door, my hand gripping his wrist as I stop him before he reaches for the handle. “Be careful, Nox. I really do not want to be an only child.”
He manages to laugh before sending me a wink. “At least you’ll always have Cass.”
Chapter Fifty-Six: Nox
Istareattheback of the guard’s head as he leads me to Kallin’s office, the handful of his companions following behind me drawing the gazes of the palace workers as we pass. I don’t blame them for the fear their expressions carry. Ihadharmed three of their own, and no matter my intent, no matter whether I was acting in my right mind or not, I was forever changed in their eyes now. I doubted that would change even if they learned the truth of everything.
For days, I had been dragged back towards the Mage Kingdom against my will, drugged beyond clear or conscious thought for more than an hour or so at night. Only then, when the man who attacked me would stop to rest, would he let enough of the herb he gave me fade so that I could hear him speak. Just enough that I could comprehend what he was saying before he would pour more onto a cloth and force it to my nose and mouth, its bitter taste blanketing my tongue and throat until there was only a hazy darkness. I became lost in the shadows Inormally commanded, and I was powerless to stop any of it from happening.
I slept through most of the days, which was a blessing of sorts. If I couldn’t fight back, then I was grateful for the opportunity to dream of all the ways I might shred this man—one who admitted to seeing Rhea with King Dolian—apart piece by piece. My rage was an inferno confined to the limitations of my magic and body, both of which had failed me. In getting Rhea back. In fulfilling the promise I had made to her to never let anyone take her from me. Even though it pained me to accept the truth, during those long days when I was nothing more than a sack of flesh being pulled through the forest, I came to realize that Cass and Bahira and my parents had been right. I should have waited to leave until I was stronger.
But between those barely lucid moments, I began to plot. I knew that coming back here would bring a new set of rules from the council. That it would likely usher in the removal of my father from the throne. My actions had affected everyonebutthe person I needed to get to most, and I wanted to care. Deep down, I know a small part of me does, yet it doesn’t change the fact that, the moment I am strong enough, I will leave again. I will further toss my kingdom into chaos.
In the meantime, there is work to be done.
If I cannot leave to get Rhea, then I will makedamnsure that I spend every waking second searching for those who hurt her. Finding out who plotted against us and ensuring that the next breath they take is their last. And I have to start with the guard who found me in the woods. The one who kept me bound and weakened, drugged except for the late hours when he would rummage through my pack and pull out Rhea’s diary. When he would then read her intimate thoughts and feelings. He had taunted me with them, reading entries from when Rhea was upset with me after I had threatened Daje. When she hadadmitted she felt her magic morph into something ugly at the thought of me being with someone else. When she had written about her fears of becoming queen and feeling unworthy of the role.
As he read, the guard had laughed, and I realized that there was a depth to rage I had previously not met. I didn’t recognize him, and even now, his physical details are fuzzy. But his voice…Thatis burned into my mind with a permanence I want to hate but am secretly thankful for. I will find him—force Kallin to tell me who he is—and then I will make him tell me every single thing he knows about King Dolian. About those in my own fucking kingdom that are working for the monster. Once I have wrung every detail I need from him, I will kill him slowly. Methodically. In a manner befitting the way he had hurt Rhea.
My temples throb with every step, matching their cadence as I roll my shoulders back, only to clench my jaw from the pain that radiates deep in those muscles. My magic sputters within me, nothing but a tendril of shadow hardly enough to feel, let alone manipulate. But, gods, how I have tried to muster more. To pull at that fragment until I thought I might tear myself apart. The only thing that answered was pain, one so bad that I begged Galen for something to ease it within me. Even now, I can feel it taunting me like a call on the wind, a warning that it’s coming to consume me once more.
I have become a stranger to my own body.
“Councilman Kallin, Prince Nox is here to see you.” The announcement by the guard in front pulls me from my spiral, and I remind myself what information I need from Daje’s father. Kallin lets me in, allowing me to step past him and into the office I have always loathed.
“Your Highness,” he says in greeting from where he sits behind a dark brown wooden desk. His hands are stacked andresting beneath his chin, his dark eyes calculating as he stares intently at me.
He isn’t alone. Galen stands off to the side, nearly in the corner of the room. “It is good to see you up and moving about.”
