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A strange gasp made his shoulders bob as though he’d only now remembered to breathe, and a tremble settled on his lips. “What did you just say?”
My breath caught on a rib over the glisten in his eyes, the color that faded from his face. “I… I said that—”
His hand collared my throat before he spun me around and slammed me against the partition. “What did you just say!?”
My mouth fell open, but not a single sound made it past the suffocating clasp of his fury. Blackness darkened the edges of my vision. Hinges creaked. Something shifted to my right.
“What are you doing?” Sebian stepped up beside us, quickly gripping Malyr’s wrist. “Let go of her.”
A single tear snaked down Malyr’s face, clinging to his jaws where it trembled at his roar. “You killed my brother!”
My blood froze over.
His… brother?
“Shit…” Sebian wrapped one arm around Malyr’s neck, pulling him back while his other hand tried to pry his fingers from my throat. “Let her go, Malyr. You’re not thinking clearly. Killing her isn’t going to bring Harlen back, and it won’t restore your family. Come on now, let her go.” When Malyr’s fingers slowly released me, Sebian looked at me and jutted his chin toward the door. “Get out and wait for me there! Now!”
I hurried outside, sucking air through my aching throat and down into my stuttering lungs. I’d killed his brother. And if I didn’t make it out of here now…? I knew Malyr’d shatter me into so many pieces, there would be no putting me back together.
ChapterTwenty
Galantia
Present day, Deepmarsh Castle, Malyr’s personal library
Lemongrass.
That was the note I had detected on Malyr the day of the feast, light and sweet, like a spring breeze on a warm afternoon. The one that seemed to contradict his scent of winter morning, wafting around a small library just as much in conflict with my expectations.
Clutching the fabric of my dress, I looked about a room cast in warm hues of red where the morning sun filtered in through a maple tree that stood outside the massive window. I wasn’t sure how I’d pictured Malyr’s personal space to look like. Strewn with skulls, torture instruments, and glass jars containing the tears of his enemies, perhaps.
Certainly not appointed with a large oaken desk that stood between window and hearth, with a threadbare quilt hanging loosely over its chair, as though the prince sometimes suffered mundane discomforts, like cold drafts on windy nights. Potted lemongrass stood in one corner, some tops cropped short, with a knife lying right beside it. Stacks of books rested here and there between a flickering black candle and a wax seal.
Behind it all, a set of gilded doors led to Malyr’s private rooms, easily recognized by the violent clashing of pottery and wood beyond it, the animalistic sounds that shook me to the bone. He was raging, hurting like he’d hurt me.
Something I’d expected to give me a sense of recompense before I would leave this place for good. Instead, a strange heaviness loomed over my heart. The thought of having cost Malyr his escape had been a comforting one. But that I had actually killed his brother?
A boy who’d never wronged me?
It felt terrible.
“What’s the deal with his brother, hmm?” Beside me, Sebian rubbed a palm over his red-rimmed eyes, his lips strangely gray, his cheeks dusted in patchy black stubble. “Explain it to me, because my head is throbbing and nothing makes any fucking sense right now.”
“When I was a child, there was that young Raven who’d escaped the dungeons,” I said. “All this time, I thought it was Malyr, but as it turns out, it was…”
“Harlen.”
“Harlen.” I allowed that name to linger on my tongue for a second, allowing me to taste the bitterness of what I’d done. “The guards tried to catch him. I didn’t think and just… pushed at a basket of apples. They rolled across the ground. He stepped on one, stumbled, and hit his head on a rock. There was a lot of blood coming from his head. I killed him.”
“An apple.” Sebian frowned at a row of bookshelves, mouth agape, then slowly turned his head just enough to give me a strange side-glance. “What a vicious killer you are, indeed. Do yourself a favor, sweetheart, and just stay quiet. I hear them coming.”
Time seemed to drag to a standstill until the side door finally opened.
“Please come inside.” Captain Asker entered, his spine as stiff as his unmoving features, merely offering me a dip of his head before he positioned himself near the desk. “Prince Malyr will be with us shortly.”
Captain Theolif followed, the dark stubble on his usually sheared head matching the one on his face, examining me from head to toe as though to make certain I still possessed both. Next came one of our chapel priests I recognized from mass for reasons I couldn’t fathom, who clutched his green robes tighter than I clutched my dress. And then… nothing.
Nobody else aside from the six Tidestone soldiers, who quickly carried in three heavy trunks. They lowered them to the floor, the coins insideclankingin lieu of Mother’s frantic yelp upon our reunion, Father’s questions of my well-being, or whatever other noises loving parents usually made.
