“Eiri?” Syrus shook him, but Eiri just couldn’t hang on anymore. He’d given everything,everythingthat he had, and it still hadn’t been enough in the end.
“Sorry,” he breathed out, and Syrus frantically whispering his name again was the last thing he heard before surrendering to the dark.
Chapter 27
Syrus
“Eiri?”
The man slumped against Syrus’ chest didn’t respond, his body completely limp. He still breathed, slow and shallow, but whatever had happened while Syrus had been unconscious had taken its toll on Eiri. He’d always been skinny, but now his face looked sunken in, like he’d lost even more weight in the last… however long Syrus had lain here. Dark circles shadowed the skin beneath his eyes, and his hair was a mess. Gashes and rips cut through his thin clothing, baring the bruises underneath.
Syrus tried to call his name again, but a fit of coughing overtook him, going on and on until his entire body ached with it. When it finally ended, the taste of blood and flowers filled his mouth, and something in his chest soundedwrong. Rather than clear his airways, the coughing somehow made it harder to breathe, and spots danced in his vision.
Poison. Eiri said he’d been poisoned. But how? When? By who?
All questions he wanted answered, but right now, all he could do was focus on trying to catch his breath and figure out where they were, because this certainly wasn’t his bedroom.If he had been poisoned, he should be in a healing ward with a physician tending him. He wasn’t particularly close to his siblings, but at the very least, he would have thought Xan and Ellis would be here, especially since Eiri was.
Something wasn’t adding up, but he couldn’t seem to get his mind to focus on anything for longer than a few seconds.
Tearing his eyes away from Eiri, Syrus looked around, trying to at least figure out where he was. That turned out to be simple enough, at least, when he saw the glass overhead. He’d never visited the old observatory; he’d never had reason to, but he recognized it easily enough.
Why would he be here, though? Why would he be hidden away in an abandoned section of the castle instead of in the healer’s ward?
A whisper of sound caught his attention, but when he tried to sit up, Syrus’ body rebelled and sent him into another coughing fit. He tried to cover it, pressing his free hand to his mouth in an attempt to smother the sound, but it was useless. He hacked and wheezed until his head spun and his lungs burned. When his hand fell back to the bed, dots of blood shimmered on his dark skin.
Shit.
Eiri didn’t move a muscle the entire time. He lay across Syrus, completely vulnerable, and Syrus had no way to protect them from whatever was coming.
The sounds had paused when he started coughing, then grew louder and more frantic the moment he stopped. Syrus couldn’t even see the rest of the room to know what was coming for him. The back of a standing shelf created a wall, blocking his view of most of the room.
“Syrus?”
For a wild moment, Syrus thought Eiri had woken, but when he looked down, his husband hadn’t moved at all, hiseyes still closed. He knew that voice, though, and for the first time since Eiri had told him what had happened, he felt a touch of hope.
“Xan?”
There was a beat of silence, then the sound of footsteps running across stone. A moment later, his cousin appeared at the foot of his bed, eyes wide. He looked nearly as bad as Eiri, his face streaked with faint remnants of the cosmetics he’d worn to the party. He hadn’t even changed out of his outfit from that night. How long ago had it been? How long had he been unconscious?
“Fuck,” Xan whispered, staring at the two of them. Eiri still hadn’t moved, not even responding to the arrival of Xan. He squeezed around to the other side of the bed, knelt down, and lightly touched Eiri’s face, sighing with relief when he saw the other man let out a weak breath. He couldn’t hide his concern when he looked at Syrus, though, and saw the blood on his hand.
“Eiri thinks someone poisoned me.” His throat closed on the words, raw from coughing, and each word brought a fresh burst of pain. “He saidstali?”
“That’s what Ellis said,” Xan nodded. He looked pale, and this close, Syrus could see a fresh bruise blooming on his cheek.
“What happened?” Already, Syrus could feel his strength dwindling, each breath harder than the one before it.
“Eiri thinks Kien poisoned you withstali. The queen had Eiri arrested, but Ellis and I broke him out.”
“Kien,” Syrus cursed, anger flooding his body. A memory flashed to the surface. The untouched lunch tray in Eiri’s room, the day of the party. Eiri said he hadn’t ordered it. They’d gotten distracted with each other and forgotten about it until Syrus retreated to the room to wait for Eiri after their fight. He’d eaten the food while he waited. Kien had come to the room,talking about ‘changing plans’. The man’s face was the last thing he’d seen before waking up here.
“When we find him, he’s dead.”
“He wasn’t trying to kill me,” Syrus interrupted. When Xan looked at him, he nodded toward Eiri. Talking hurt too much to keep going. He knew he was right, though. That tray had been to kill Eiri. Syrus had just been foolish enough to get to it first.
“You think he was trying to killEiri? Why, though?”
“We started to like each other.” In the end, it was as simple as that. He and Eiri had ruined everyone’s plans by becoming allies, then more than allies.
