“He’s not here,” my liege fretted. “Why didn’t he come?”
Poet balked. One glance at me, and I clarified, “The alchemist.”
I did not blame the jester for his confusion. Nicu’s ambiguous behavior had been intensifying since Lyrik’s departure to Winter. Withdrawn, the Royal Son had morphed into the opposite of himself. He evaded his parents’ inquiries, when their offspring had never kept his grief to himself before. Certainly not from them.
I sensed the family’s distress. A quiet and unapproachable Nicu was a wholly foreign one, taking the jester, princess, and queen by storm.
My liege’s expression crumbled, his tenor thinning to a wisp. “I thought he would come.”
The sight crushed me. Although we had informed him of Lyrik’s transfer to Winter with Jeryn and Flare, the lad clung to a belief that the rogue would change his mind and turn up later.
Worry clouded Eliot’s face. Out of respect for Nicu’s privacy, he cleared his throat. “I have some new ballads to work on,” he consoled, then nodded to us and disappeared through the nearest door.
“Winter,” Nicu mumbled, gazing at the horizon fringed in wheat stalks. “Is that far?”
Poet’s eyebrows dipped. While he strove to interpret this heartrending side of his son, I said quietly, “Yes, Nicu. It’s far.”
“He didn’t tell me,” my friend whispered. “He didn’t say goodbye.”
The jester stalked forward, one index finger tipping up Nicu’s chin. “This upsets you.”
He searched Nicu’s distraught features until realization struck like a thunderbolt. At that moment, the jester’s visage went slack. “Wicked hell,” he breathed. “Nicu...”
“He really chose?” Nicu implored, the question wobbling on his tongue. “He chose to leave me?”
In the midst of Poet’s shock, I stepped forward. “Lyrik embarked with reluctance and a heavy heart,” I reported gently. “For what it’s worth, he does care for you.”
Sunrise painted Nicu’s profile in mellow orange tints. “But not enough.”
Glancing at Poet, Nicu’s eyes watered, and sob burst from his lungs. “Papa,” he pleaded, the word rupturing from his chest.
Anguish consumed the jester’s expression. He opened his arms, mouthing“Come here,”and Nicu crushed himself to his father.
Loathing to witness this scene, I ducked my head as the jester embraced his crying, heartbroken son. Gut-wrenching cries wracked the young man’s frame. The sound thrust a hot poker through my gut, like a fractured silver bell that would never toll the same way again.
A lump budded in my throat as I thought of Raven. But more than my brother, I simply mourned for Nicu, who had become another sibling to me.
After a while, Poet’s features darkened over Nicu’s shoulder. Twisting, he spoke into my liege’s ear until the young man’s tears dried, the speech reinforcing his posture.
Easing back, Poet mustered a comforting grin. “Feel like upstaging your father?”
Nicu wavered, his eyes red-rimmed. “I don’t have my blade.”
“Off you go, then. You know where to find it.”
As my liege vanished inside to retrieve his weapon, Poet’s smile dropped like a guillotine. While staring at the door, he seethed in a deadly register, “What the fuck happened out there?”
“He didn’t touch him,” I counseled while also scanning the threshold. “Not that I know of. But something meaningful occurred between them.”
Be that as it may, this reassurance failed to erase the mayhem crowding Poet’s face. With fatal calm, he murmured, “If that little shit ever comes near my son again, I’ll put him in the fucking ground.”
Even his rage over Aspen’s betrayal hadn’t compared to this venom. Nor had I beheld Poet this murderous since Vex plunged a knife into Briar during the courtyard battle, thenwhen she was banished from Autumn, and next when Poet attempted to burn Rhys alive for orchestrating the princess’s exile.
Nonetheless, I hedged. I might have reminded Poet that his son lived because of Lyrik’s sacrifice. However, in the jester’s current state, a debate would be ill-timed.
Later, perhaps.
Much later.
