Looking to Calix, his eyes round and knowing, I considered his words.“The deaths I have caused.”
Swallowing the knot in my throat, I relented to the moment, to the rainfall on my face, to the muffled cries of the woman I loved. To the absence of a soul.
The fire sizzled and died, the last of its flames quenched by the rain. Dim moonlight shone down on the scene through a patch of clouds, faintly illuminating the shadow of a man on horseback as he approached through the brush. Straining my eyes, I blinked back the blur of wetness to make out the familiar features of the apothecary. But he’d come too late.
Dismounting at the top of the slope, he fell to his knees and cradled Evera in his arms, drawing her out from underneath Ruairc’s weight. The chain of her necklace glinted, catching my attention as he clasped it in his fist. Why did he have her necklace?
For a moment, Aureus only held her. When the trembling of her body lessened, they exchanged hushed words, lost in the downpour, and then she curled her knees to her chest and turned away from Ruairc, burying her face against her brother’s chest. Aureus’s eyes rose to mine and held.
For a long moment, I sat, watching, feeling entirely helpless. Finally, Evera sniffled and drew back from her brother’s embrace. She turned back to me without meeting my eyes and used her dagger to free me from the rope.
When the last thread finally snapped, the tightness of my bindings slacked, and I drew Evera into my arms. Her cinnamon curls lay flat to her head, darkened to an almost umber tone by the rain. Her body shook.
There were no words to be said. Her heart was broken, and it was my doing. I’d let Ruairc get involved. Yet, if I had not … if he had not been there to take the bolt in Evera’s stead …
Swallowing the knot in my throat, I cradled her head, drawing her into my lap, her face turned away from the cobbler’sstill form. I rocked and pressed a kiss to her brow; her skin was chilled against my lips.
At the bottom of the slope, Aureus moved through the shadows, releasing the remaining two horses from their ties. Their flustered nickering and disgruntled snorts accompanied clicking and the wet slap of the apothecary’s hand on their flanks as he sent them off. They would return to their stables. All horses returned home. He moved to the tree Nox had rested beside and knelt to pick up something off the ground.
Calix, free of his bindings, went to stand before Ruairc, and when he cast his eyes to me, I knew his thoughts walked the same path as mine.The deaths we’d caused.
“We need to go,” Aureus said to Evera as he scaled the hill again. A new resolve set his features and firmed his jaw. “You lied to me, Evera. Had I not found your damned necklace and thought to come after you to return it, knowing you would camp for the night—” He shook his head. “This is your fault as much as it is his.” Aureus turned his cool blue gaze on me and tossed an ivory letter, its seal broken, to the grass.
“I’m not going back to Elrune,” Evera snapped, setting her brother with an expression that perfectly mirrored his own. In my arms, her body quivered.
The two argued, and while part of me thought to intervene, to tell her brother to back down, I’d made that mistake once before in their shop. Evera could stand her own ground, and now, especially, I felt she needed to. Especially since , in truth, I sided with her brother on this. As much as I wanted her at my side, I’d put enough people at risk.
“Neirin.” Calix held the letter out to me.
The boy exchanged a glance with Aureus. The apothecary had read the letter before rejoining us atop the hill. Aureus’s cheeks turned red, and he turned sharply from me, from the letter, shoving his hands in his pockets. Actions that spoke a bitof shame; he’d pried where he should not have. With trembling fingers, I unfolded the paper and read.
Neirin,
For as long as I can remember, I have looked up to you. I have seen your courage and your skills in battle. When I first received your note, I will admit I considered your words for some time. It was only when the huntsman, Nox, pestered me for a response that I sat down to write this note.
Mother is unwell. She has shared with me her affliction and her reasons for keeping it from me. She has shared, too, your affections for her, and likewise. While matters of the heart are new to me, I am learning about them. In all ways, I am learning. How to be a King, how to be a man, how to make difficult decisions. There is a great weight to it, but I know that, in time , this, too, will lighten and ease.
Mother takes some fault in Father’s fate. Guilt riddles her for imploring you to stay when Father planned to send you away, for begging with you not to leave her, both for your blood and for your affections.
While I cannot forgive her, or you, for what transpired, she is my mother, and I do not wish for her to suffer any longer.
I have held off the guard, even after word of Cyan’s death. I believe that your intentions with him, at least, were honest. Mother has argued this as well.
You will remain at the country estate, where you will provide what Mother needs from you. What this is, I do not wish to know the details of. I seek only to keep her alive. And to help her stave off this sickness of her mind so that I can turn my focus back to what lies ahead, to the kingdom.
Best regards,
King Harlan
Tossingthe letter to the ground between Aureus and I, I snarled. “This is full of lies.”
Aureus’s jaw firmed.
“Your mentor spoke of the laws of the old lore, so I presume you know them as well.” I held up my arm, revealing the marks of my bond. “I’ve lain with no one else, had affections for no one else, certainly not the Queen.”
“Stop, both of you. Just stop,” Evera said, her voice almost a cry, bold but broken. Pushing from my arms, she wiped her face, a futile attempt as she stood with her back to us. She knelt back beside Ruairc, running her fingers through his hair. “Aureus, take him back to Elrune. Write to his family in the western lands.”
Her voice sounded cold, empty as she dropped a kiss at the cobbler’s cheek, then stood again, taking Calix’s hand in hers. Together, they paced a short distance off, then Evera stopped. Calix looked up at her, their figures barely more than shadows. Cries broke from her again, and she fell to her knees. The boy wrapped his arms around her shoulders and turned his gaze to me. Even unable to make out his features amid the rain and shadows, I could feel the physical force of his sorrow. I suspected more for Evera than for the cobbler.
