When Nisien’s knee lightly brushed mine under the table, I didn’t pull away immediately. As our lively conversation subsided, and his knee touched mine again, the sheer intimacy of our dinner suddenly overwhelmed me. Nervously, I asked, “Why doesn’t Prince Emrys join you?”
That shifted the atmosphere.
Nisien set down his fork slowly and leaned back in his chair. Only after Catrin softly cleared her throat did I realize his small hand motion had been a signal to the servants. Across the room, Catrin sent me a final nod and quietly slipped through the side door without a sound. I nodded back, grateful, and watched her drift away, careful not to let the nervous flutter in my chest show.
Under normal circumstances, being alone with a man like this would be considered improper. But Nisien was a king in all but name. He was above propriety, and I was—officially, at least—a diplomat. This was a business meeting, even if it didn’t feel like one.
“Emrys used to join,” Nisien said after a moment. “He used to love listening to the traveling bards. Those were some of the family’s best moments. He wasn’t always…like he is now.”
His gaze fixed on the candle’s flame that illuminated the space between us. “If you are to help us, I believe you must know the truth of my brother’s condition. Or are you too tired, Lady Isca? Shall we delay this tale for another evening?”
I didn’t need any more encouragement than that to keep my eyes open for a little while longer. “No, please, I would benefit from the understanding.”
“Very well,” he said as he pushed his plate away to make room for his elbows on the table. His posture felt too familiar, like I was meeting with an old friend instead of a prince. “Emrys’s problems started when we weresixteen. There are ruins on our family’s land, older than anything the Assembly keeps records of. We weren’t supposed to go, but you know how teenage boys are.”
I could picture them: twins, one golden, one shadowed, creeping through ivy-draped stone, mud on their shoes, mischief echoing between mossy pillars.
“Emrys found a ring,” Nisien said. “It was buried under a broken marble slab. Though it was black as pitch, the ring was etched with minuscule runes that seemed to burn with an inner light. We knew immediately that it was powerful, incredibly ancient magic.”
A cold prickling, like tiny spiders crawling, ran down my arms.
“I told him not to touch it. I felt…something. A wrongness in it. But Emrys, ever the curious one, always sought to understand. He picked it up.”
“What happened?”
“It burned him.” Nisien’s voice dropped. “It knocked him off his feet. He threw it away to stop the pain.”
“Did it harm him?”
“Yes.” Nisien let out a long sigh. “But not in the way one might imagine. His skin was unmarked, but his mind was affected. His dreams started that very night. Sometimes, he’d scream in his sleep, though he tried to hide it. Then his power began to surge randomly with a force not seen since Avanfell’s first emperor, or so they say.
“As a child, Emrys was quiet and reflective, kind, just, and fair—qualities I can only hope to emulate. He is still all those things, and in many ways, he would be a better ruler than myself.”
“Prince Emrys…” I swallowed. “Sounds admirable.”
“He is, Lady Isca.” Nisien’s fingers traced the rim of his goblet. “My brother has always been magically gifted, but whatever happened that day amplified his strength and took away his ability to control himself. Some call it a curse, others a condition. He calls it a monster or beast. But when his control slips, the castle trembles. No mage on the isles or the continentcan match his abilities, and the Mage Assembly cannot figure out how to relieve him of his burden.”
A sick weight settled in my gut. “And the ring?”
“Gone,” Nisien said. “My father had search parties sent out that scoured the area for weeks, but they never found it. It was like it had vanished into the earth. But I harbor a different secret fear that I would not have shared widely. Can I trust in your discretion?”
The way he looked at me, so earnestly, made answering in the affirmative easy.
“I fear that Emrys never actually threw the ring, though he tried. I fear that it became a part of him.”
I stared down at my plate, the scraps of food on it suddenly unappealing.
“Whatever it was, it didn’t leave him,” Nisien added. “It’s like there’s a beast in his skin. Some days, he locks himself away because he fears killing again—he cannot find a way to tame it. Daily he struggles with controlling his tongue, as it pushes him to lash out with words as well.”
“I have seen him kill,” I rasped, the words catching in my suddenly parched throat. “Back in Caervorn.”
“I am sorry for that, lady,” Nisien said, meaning it. Then, he leaned forward, pointing one resolute finger in the air. “Understand this. He kills only when it is justified or during war—as far as I know, at least. As a ruler, we sometimes have no choice but to pass down final judgments. Still, it plagues him.”
Memory hung heavy in the ensuing silence. I thought of Emrys’s eyes in the market. They’d held the haunted look of a man bracing for grief. Now, after everything Nisien had told me, his overwhelming sorrow made sense. His grief could’ve been for the lives he’d ended or the life he’d lost—or both.
I felt Nisien’s grief too, but it was a quiet thing. Beneath it, I sensed something else: guilt.
Was his guilt about his brother, or was there another reason? It was impossible to say for sure. Both men carried around the sort of guilt thathollows a person out from the inside, that slowly destroys their spirit. I sensed there was much more to uncover about them both, and my exploration had barely begun.
