If that’s true, what does that mean? Does it mean my father has been held prisoner by the tsar? When the tsar captured my uncle, were my uncle and father reunited in a dungeon cell? Did the tsar mean to deliver a message to me by dumping my uncle’s broken body by the border for Mylo to find? Was he threatening to do the same to my father?
“Your father is alive.”
Unless he meant…
I shake my head, unable to fathom it. Surely, if my father were the tsar, someone would have realized it was King Axel Westergaard. Surely, word would have gotten out, that not only was the ruler of Delasurvia not dead, but he had also taken on a new identity.
But if heisthe tsar, that means he faked his death and abandoned his family. That means he ambushed the previous Tsar of Dulcamar and usurped him. For what? He already ruled a kingdom. What would he have needed with Dulcamar? The questions make my head spin, and the whole idea makes no sense, so I’m convinced it can’t be true.
Mylo sits in the corner, his massive frame nearly swallowing the high-backed chair beneath him. For the first two days, he paced the chamber in restless silence, a man of action forced into stillness, but exhaustion must have settled in, and now he sits as he watches over my uncle with a sharp-eyed patience. As I step inside, the floor creaks, and his head lifts. He stands immediately, towering over me, and I have to tilt my chin up to meet his gaze.
“Has he stirred?” I whisper.
Mylo shakes his head, his broad arms crossing over his chest. “Not once.” His deep voice is edged with frustration, as if he’d expected his sheer will alone to wake Kormak from his state. “I don’t like it.”
A quiet knock pulls my focus toward the door.
Ezra steps in, his robes dampened from what I now realize is rain. He runs a hand over his salt-and-pepper hair, sending raindrops flying. His face is pale with exhaustion, and he carries a small, leather satchel under one arm. There’s something fragile in the way he moves, as if the weight of all he knows is pressing too heavily on his shoulders.
He glances at Mylo, then at me. “You’re here,” he says softly, his tone threaded with relief. “Good.”
I nod once. “Have there been any changes?”
Ezra crosses to the bedside, setting the satchel down and studying Kormak’s face with a frown that pinches the corners of his eyes. “He mumbles sometimes. Unintelligible fragments. Painful memories, maybe. His brow knots as if he’s dreaming—but the dreams don’t bring peace. His grunting and twitching have worsened. It tells me the pain isgrowing, not fading.”
I step closer, the scent of dried herbs and the sharp sting of alcohol tickling my nose. Kormak lies still, his chest rising with shallow breaths, his features drawn and sunken. My stomach clenches. He’s suffering, and I don’t know how to make it stop.
“Is there anything else we can do?” I ask. “Anything we haven’t tried?”
Ezra hesitates, and in that moment, I can see he’s been holding something back. He looks to Mylo, who gives a single, silent nod, and then Ezra steps toward me.
“There is one thing,” he says slowly. “An elixir—a highly concentrated compound that some alchemists consider too risky. Not only is it…widely unconventionalbecause of its volatility, but there are very few magisters who have access to a key ingredient.” He meets my gaze. “I must be transparent, Celeste; its effectiveness is inexact. But it’s also the only thing I know of that might draw him back.”
My heart thuds. “What does it do?”
“It jolts the nervous system,” he says. “In some cases, it can force a body caught between consciousness and unconsciousness to snap awake. But it’s not a gentle rousing, Celeste. It’s like calling lightning into a house already smoldering from fire.”
I flinch at the image. “Could it hurt him?”
“It could,” Ezra admits. “If his mind is too fragile, or if the damage done to him was… more taxing than we realize, it might worsen his state. Confuse the memory. Even burn through the parts of him that haven’t healed yet. Some texts say it’s been used in cases of poison. Others say it unmoored a patient’s mind so badly, they never came back at all.”
My breath hitches.
Regarding me, Ezra draws a breath. “But I’ve studied this version of the recipe carefully. I believe I can make it stable—if we act now. Your uncle’s heartbeat is weakening. If we’re going to try… it has to be soon.”
The silence between us thickens. Rain whispers at the windowpanes. Mylo says nothing, his jaw clenched, his gaze pinned to the man who basically raised us both.
Ezra watches me patiently.
I wrap my arms around my waist, fingers digging into the fabric of my tunic. My thoughts race, clashing and loud. I see my uncle’s smile in my mind. His steady voice. The way he always told me the truth, even when it hurt. He was always there for me, risked everything by seeking out the tsar because of me. I can’t let him fade without doing everything in my power to stop it.
But what if I make it worse?
What if this breaks him in ways I can’t fix?
Still, doing nothing would mean losing him, anyway. And I can’t bear the thought of not trying.
Fuck.
