“It’s always politics in the end.” Xan sighed heavily, then shook himself. “Ellis and Marsen have gone to look for the antidote. I thought it would be a good idea to come up here and protect you both.” He got to his feet, digging through his spell components while Syrus tried to wrestle the facts together in his head. Why was Marsen, his mother’s spymaster, helping them? The man’s loyalty to Vaetreas was the stuff of legends. None of this made any sense.
It took barely a minute for Xan to chalk wards around the tiny nook, using crystals to anchor his magic at every corner. He took a few extra seconds at the makeshift doorway formed by the side of the shelf and the far wall, setting some kind of trap that Syrus couldn’t begin to understand. He paused once, staring at something in the far corner of the room, then resumed his work. Once the ward was set, he resumed his spot on the floor beside Eiri.
In just that short amount of time, the edges of Syrus’ vision blurred, and every time he blinked, it got a little harder to open his eyes.
“Stay with me, Syrus, alright?” Xan murmured. Gone was the efficient taskmaster of a few minutesago, leaving his cousin, his best friend, kneeling beside him with fear in his eyes.
One hand still rested on Eiri’s back, but Syrus reached out to Xan with the other, pausing just before touching him when he saw the bloodstains on his skin. Xan saw the spatter, but grasped Syrus’ hand anyway.
Syrus had learned his lesson about trying to speak, so he inclined his head toward Eiri again, trying to convey his questions without making a sound.
“I don’t know what’s wrong,” he said apologetically. His attention flicked to the corner of the room again, then back to Syrus, brows furrowing. “Is Eiri… Ellis said something, but it was all a rush. It would make sense, though.” He said the last part almost to himself, his gaze darting to Eiri. “Is he a mage?”
Of all the things his cousin could have asked, this one surprised Syrus the most. He immediately shook his head, because that was impossible, but then he paused.
Was it really that impossible?
Syrus closed his eyes for a moment, putting himself in Eiri’s shoes. If he were a mage being sent into enemy territory, with almost no allies and no chance to flee, he’d be a fool to reveal he had magic if no one knew. Syrus could admit to himself that if he’d thought Eiri was a mage on the day he’d arrived in Lodie, he’d have had the man escorted off the ship in tourmaline manacles to lock down his power. His mother would have found some way to keep tourmaline on Eiri at all times from that moment forward, ensuring that he couldn’t access his magic, and likely would have kept at least two mages on him at all times, just in case.
The smartest thing Eiri could have done, if hewasa mage, would have been to keep it secret, and one thing Syrus knew for sure about his husband was that he knew how to protect himself.
Syrus looked over at Xan and shrugged, wincing when even that tiny movement sent an ache through his body.
“Everything would make more sense if he’s secretly a mage, even him being passed out like this,” Xan murmured, eyes going unfocused as he did the same as Syrus, putting together all the pieces in his mind.
Syrus squeezed his hand to bring him back, trying not to notice how difficult even that little movement was. Why would him being a mage explain why Eiri had collapsed? He tried to ask, but his throat was too raw to let any sound escape.
His cousin’s eyes focused, and he winced. “Sorry. I was thinking that if Eiri is a mage, he looks like he’s in magical burnout. It’s probably been about two days since he slept. I doubt he got any rest in prison.”
Of course his mother wouldn’t have hesitated to arrest Eiri for a murder that hadn’t happened. At least, not yet. How long did he have before the poison killed him? It didn’t feel like long, not with how hard it was getting to breathe. Did he really think his own mother would let him die just to keep him from causing trouble?
The answer came almost too easily.
Yes. She would. As much as Delia Vardor was his mother, she’d always been Queen Delia of Vaetreas first. He knew his family had been trying to gain access to the mineral wealth of Canjir for generations without success. Now that the queen had secured it, she wouldn’t let anything disrupt her plans to strip Canjir bare, not even her own children.
“Syrus? Syrus, open your eyes.”
Xan’s urgent plea cut through his thoughts and Syrus realized he’d drifted again. Dark spots danced in front of his eyes when he forced them open, and he groaned at the ache in his chest. A dull pressure settled there, as if someone were sitting directly on him. He couldn’t seem to draw a full breathanymore, no matter how hard he tried, and for the first time since he woke up, genuine fear suffused him. Too much had happened when he first opened his eyes, too many questions, and he hadn’t had time to grapple with the fact that he really had been poisoned. There was a good chance he was going to die today, leaving Eiri to face his mother’s wrath alone.
He couldn’t hide that fear when he forced his eyes open and he looked down at Eiri. The younger man still lay across his chest, sprawled at an awkward angle with half his body still on the hard stone floor. He tried to pull him further onto the bed, but his limbs refused to cooperate any longer. All he managed to do was tug at Eiri’s shirt.
“I’ve got him,” Xan whispered. His touch was gentle when he moved Eiri, settling him on the bed beside Syrus. There really wasn’t enough room on the tiny mattress for both of them, but they managed it. Eiri had already been lying on Syrus’ chest, so Xan left him there and simply lifted him the rest of the way, his legs draped over Syrus’.
Syrus had begun to hope that someday he would share a bed with Eiri, but not like this. His hopes of having some sort of normal life with his raider husband had disappeared the moment he realized his own mother wanted them dead. If they survived this, she would find a way to punish them for it. No one thwarted Queen Delia. They would likely be forced to flee to escape her, and what kind of life was that? Cut off from both Vaetreas and Canjir, never allowed to see their loved ones again… that wasn’t what he wanted for them.
“It’s going to be alright, Syrus. We’ll figure this out. I just need you to keep fighting. Please.”
Xan’s desperate words tugged at his heart, and Syrus wanted to fight. He needed to. When he reached deep, though, there was nothing there. The poison ravaged his body even now. He couldn’t seem to focus his eyes and his head spun.Every joint ached and his body burned as though he had a fever, but a shard of ice had taken up residence in his chest, the cold spreading a little further with each weak breath.
Syrus still tried to hold on. He needed to stay here. Ellis still needed him. Xan would kick his ass if he died. And most importantly, if he stopped fighting, it would be Eiri who paid the price. After all these years of fighting, a decade of wanting to see him in chains, now the idea of Eiri C’Dari laid low nearly broke him.
“Ellis will find what we need, and we’ll be able to heal you. He’s smarter than he has any right to be for a kid his age.”
Sometimes Syrus forgot just how truly young Ellis was. He’d been a surprise, born ten years after Syrus’ youngest sister, when the queen was already past forty years old. The pregnancy had been a hard one, and after Ellis was born, he’d mostly been raised by nursemaids and tutors. He’d always been a serious child, and he showed every sign of carrying that into full maturity, but right now, he was just twenty years old and risking his mother’s wrath by helping them.
“He’s a good kid,” he rasped, just for Xan’s sake. Most of his waning attention stayed focused on the man curled up against his side. Beneath his hand, Eiri’s back rose and fell in slow, even breaths. Syrus knew absolutely nothing about magical burnout, or even if that’s really what was happening to Eiri, but feeling the steady movement did more to reassure him than anything his cousin could say.
No matter what happened to him, Eiri would live. He could trust Ellis and Xan to protect him and get him out of Vaetreas if anything happened to him. On his own, it would probably be safe for Eiri to return to Canjir, so long as he didn’t draw attention to himself.
