“The king.” Kade repeated flatly. He blinked, processing, and then laughed. A harsh, forced thing. “You’re joking. You have to be joking. Tell me you’re joking.” Kade’s face twisted the longer Killian stayed silent. “You’ve bound yourself totheking? After everything that family has done to us? How could you do that?”
Tension crawled its way down Killian’s spine, his muscles rolling and setting in a way they did when he was preparing for a fight. “Fyar hasn’t done anything to us.”
“He destroyed our lives!” Kade exclaimed. Rage looked so unnatural on him. It had Killian flexing his hands, resisting the instinct to reach for his knife again. “Without them—without the war—our lives would’ve been different. Everything would’ve been different.Fatherwould’ve been different.”
Killian understood where Kade was coming from. The wound caused by decades of pain wasn’t something that only time could heal.
It had been King Numar that had launched the first attack on their southern neighbor, the human kingdom Valle, under thesuspicion that they were building a hoard of weapons. Weapons they intended to turn on Netyere.
Over the century they fought, no weapons were ever found.
Countless elves had lost their lives in a pointless war as their farmlands grew arid and their rivers ran dry, the first signs of King Numar’s going mind. The king slipped further and further into madness, confused delusion that spread sickness into Netyere’s very soil. The connection that the king had with the land working against them.
The fighting came to a shaky ceasefire, a temporary retreat by both sides, when Fyar brokered an unofficial treaty with the human royals. An understanding that held long enough to see Numar’s death.
As king, Fyar pushed for lasting peace, an official end to the war.
Kade was angry, and he needed someone to blame. Killian understood that. Kade wasn’t the only one as most of Netyere had lost someone in the war.
Though, unlike Kade, most of Netyere understood the sins of the father were not the sins of the son.
“That entire bloodline is tainted,” Kade ranted. “They take and they take and they take, using everyone and anyone to get what they want. They don’t care about Netyere or its people—”
“Kade.” It was a warning. This wasn’t a topic Killian took lightly, and his patience was nearing the end of its short rope.
“—we’re all just pawns to them. To use and to throw away.”
“Stop.”
“It happened to father. It’ll happen to you too.Henever should have been allowed on the throne. He’s just like his father—”
“Enough!” Killian’s voice boomed, filling the small space. Kade flinched. “I won’t let you speak of the king that way. Tyr came back different, his injury and the war changed him. That’s not Fyar’s fault.”
“He shouldn’t have had to go to war in the first place!”
“Again, not Fyar’s fault. Fyar fought on the front lines, same as Tyr. But Fyar didn’t let it consume him. He didn’t come home and drown himself in a bottle, only to turn his anger on his so-called family. Fyar grieved and he mourned, but he moved on. How dare you speak of him like that? You sound like Pella. Talking, talking, talking about things you know nothing about. Blaming everyone but the ones really at fault.”
“I know who’s at fault.”
“Clearly you don’t. You have no idea what Fyar has done for Netyere and his people,” said Killian. “What he’s sacrificed. Fyar is not to blame for Tyr. Fyar is not to blame for Pella. Fyar is not to blame for what you’ve suffered in this house. Tyr came back different. That’s all.”
Tears were brimming in Kade’s eyes, but he was still defiant. “Is Fyar to blame for you?”
Killian’s jaw snapped shut.
Kade said, “You don’t even see it, do you? All you’ve done is trade one prison for the next. And you’rehappyfor it. He has you so wrapped around his finger that you think you’re grateful to him.”
“Iamgrateful. Fyar saved my life. He’s earned my allegiance.”
Kade bared his teeth in an ugly snarl. “So you bend your knee and kiss his feet, for what? For sograciouslyallowing you to trade your life for this false freedom.”
“What would you have had me do, Kade?”
“I don’t know!” Kade shouted, hysteric. “I don’t know! But nothing,nothingis worth this. This isn’t a life, Killi, you can't live like this. It’s like you’re already dead. Should I mourn you as well? I’d almost prefer it to you being bound to the king!”
The words were like daggers, sliding home between Killian’s ribs.
They just stared at each other.
