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“What? But I need to talk to him.”
Brandon grabbed my shoulders and turned me to face him. He shook me hard.
“Lex, stop this. You have to listen to us. Rory is gone. We told you. The queen had him executed for black magic. The priests tried to bind his magic, and he attacked them. He attacked some of the guards too. They claimed he left them no choice. There were a lot of injuries.”
“No, I…” I finally let myself hear the words he was saying—really hear them and understand. Rory was gone. That fucking bitch had him arrested and then she’d killed him when he’d tried to defend himself.
I sank back down on the side of the bed, my hands locked behind my head and rocking back and forth. I wanted to smash something, hit someone, but what was the use? Nothing would bring him back to me.
“How?Was it…fire? Did they burn him?” I finally asked, not really wanting to hear the answer, but I had to know. The priests burned those who were corrupted with black magic—while they were still alive, with flames licking around their feet and moving up their bodies as they screamed…gods, it was cruel. Insupportable. My mind touched on that image briefly and then skittered away, unable to bear it. Asher quickly came to my rescue.
“No,stop. He wasn’t burned. When I was finally able to force my way inside the palace, I demanded to see the queen, and I reminded her that Rory was the omega of a royal prince. Her own husband’s younger brother. And I told her he was carrying your child. I think that frightened the bitch enough that she agreed to a different method. She told the priests to drug him, so it would be morehumane. They did and he-he fell asleep. Once he stopped breathing, they agreed to let me be the one who carried out the coup degrâce.”
The coup degrâce was traditional in Morovia, and it was the final blow given to prisoners by the guards to make sure they were dead. It was usually done with a pike or a sword.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Asher said. “I didn’t put a mark on him; you have to know that. I just pretended to do it to make it and let the blade fall down by his side to make it look good for the guards, because I didn’t want them desecrating his body that way.”
“You actually saw his body then?”
“Yes, Lex. I’m so sorry, but he was no longer breathing. I checked him.” Asher got up to start pacing back and forth.
“I told them all that you’d be coming for him as soon as you returned, and there would be hell to pay. I told the queen she’d interfered with her husband’s plans for Igella, and he’d be furious with her. Then I sent a strongly worded message to your brother, though it didn’t have quite the same tone as I used with his queen, him being the king and all.”
“Where’s Rory?” I heard myself ask and my voice sounded as dead as Rory was.
“They’ve put him in one of the royal tombs. By virtue of his birth and his status as your omega.”
“I have to go get him.”
“You’re in no fit shape to go now, Lex. At least wait until morning.”
“I got to my feet, reeling a little, but allowing Wyatt to steady me. “No, I have to go now. I have to actually see…Ineedto see him. To touch him. It won’t be real to me until I do.” I looked into Brandon’s eyes. “Do you understand? Then I need to put his body in a safe place where they can’t find him.”
After a moment, he nodded. “I do. I need to see him too, I think, before any of this will seem real.”
“We’ll all go,” Wyatt said. “Lex, I know you need some time alone with him, and we’ll give you that. But we need to go with you. We all loved him. Not like you did, but through our bond, and because he was yours.” He dropped his head, blinking hard to keep tears away. “We loved him for himself too. He was so sweet and…” He broke off, choking up, but I knew what he was going to say, so I nodded, still feeling like none of this was real, and I’d wake up soon and Rory would be still beside me. I stood up again and my legs almost went out from under me. Asher put a hand on my shoulder.
“Stay here another hour or so, Lex. It’s still a long time before morning. Let some of the laudanum work its way out of your system, and then we’ll go.”
Unhappy about the delay, but knowing he was right, I lay back down and closed my eyes for just a minute—and fell into a deep sleep. And I dreamed.
In my dream, I was walking down the long row of gray and dusty tombs. The tombs of my royal ancestors. I saw a figure way at the end and felt drawn toward it. When I got close, I saw that it was a beautiful woman—a woman who, from a distance, seemed oddly familiar. She turned to look at me and I saw that it was Queen Vesper.
In the way of dreams, I wasn’t even surprised at this and asked her if she’d come to see Rory. She smiled at me and shook her head. “Rory is sleeping.” I shook my head with tears filling my eyes, and I told her I wished that were true.
“But he’s dead,” I told her.
She took my hand in hers. “No. He’s in a deep sleep that looks like death, but it’s only sleep for now. His magic saved him as best it could. I can’t take away what’s happened, but Rory can wake up, though it needs to be soon. And only with the help of one who truly loves him.” She lifted an eyebrow at me. “Do you happen to know anyone like that, sir? Doyou, by any chance, really love him? Did you ever love him?”
I woke myself up moaning, with an ache in my chest that I thought might kill me. I sat up, still feeling groggy, though not as much as before. I was alone in my room, though I actually looked around for Vesper, for it had to have been Vesper, before I came fully awake, expecting to see her there. I got up and found my boots, determined to go to the tombs to find Rory. I dreaded the idea of seeing him, his beautiful face cold and gray, and all alone there in that place, but Ineededto see him to make this real. I didn’t think I could do it otherwise.
Vesper had asked me if I ever really loved him. I hoped he always knew the answer to that, but I knew the truth was that he hadn’t. Because of my own selfish need to protect myself, I never told him exactly how much he meant to me, and I was paying for it now. I had loved him from the first moment I saw him, and it was killing me that I’d never told him.
When I went downstairs, my cousins were there, waiting for me to wake up, and they were still determined to accompany me on this dreadful journey. Without another word, we went out to the barn and saddled our horses to ride into the city. I glanced over at Sunshine in his stall and had to look away again, because I’d made a fool of myself already in front of my cousins, and I couldn’t seem to stop the treacherous tears that kept sliding down my face.
We rode out in the middle of a dark night. A cold wind was blowing from the north and clouds covered the sky. It seemed fitting that the stars weren’t shining this night. It was a terrible journey, when everywhere I looked, I saw things that reminded me of the last time I had come this way when Rory had been with me.
When we finally arrived at the palace on the outskirts of Thalia, the first golden streaks of dawn were just coming up over the horizon, though it was still early enough that probably only a few servants were about. We rode boldly up to the front doors of the Cathedral of Saint Thaduceus, patron saint of the city. We tied our horses and went up to the massive double doors. Surprisingly—or maybe not so surprisingly since this was a church—they opened easily to us. I knew the royal tombs were on the eastern side of the nave. My mother and father were buried there too, along with many of my ancestors. I stood looking over the rows and rows of sarcophagi, the above ground carved coffins, in this sea of dead royalty. I realized I had no idea where to even start looking.
