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“If you had killed Kaelum as you should have, this would not have happened,” Crux yelled after me, then lower, nastier, muttered, “a complete failure. Not even a better warrior than that half-wit prince.”
I marched on, ignoring him. Not defeating Kaelum, the first warrior in a generation to find a mage of his own, was no shame. I was not embarrassed that I had not defeated him, no matter what Crux said. It was like not being able to defeat a wall by bashing my head against it. No kind of contest at all, and nothing to be ashamed of. Well, other than agreeing to even try something so unwise to begin with, but I had not known before the fight.
Kaelum had not known before the fight, or he would have started with his mage, and not allowed himself to be injured as he had.
The look of shock on his face when his mate had activated the forcefield had been so strong, I could have felt it myself if I’d tried.
But that led me back to the heart of the problem. I had never wanted to kill my brother to begin with, and as much as it had lost me, I couldn’t bring myself to be sorry I had failed. Perhaps Kaelum hated me as much as the rest of them. It would not change the fact that I was happy he yet lived.
My mother had taken Beau, Crux had said.
Perhaps once, I would have wondered if she had enjoyed taking something that brought me comfort, but I had grown up since then. First, in realizing that Beau was not a thing, to be given and taken. And second, when I realized that I was nothing to her. She did not revel in taking my joy, because she did not acknowledge my existence unless forced to. Likely, she didn’t even realize that I—that I loved Beau.
I loved Beau.
And even now at the palace, they were probably introducing him to one warrior after another, trying to turn his head and convince him to mate one of them.
Just like that, I was leaping from the balustrade, sprinting toward the cliff face, the palace, and Beau.
It had been a decade since I’d scaled the cliff, some childish lark to prove myself a proper warrior through physical prowess, but on this day, it was as though I climbed the rock face constantly. My hands found holds, feet following in kind, as I rushed upward.
In no time at all, I was lifting myself over the stone railing of one of the lower balconies, glancing one way and then the other to be certain that no one’s eyes were upon me, and resting on the cool stone floor.
Before I had a moment to gather my wits, someone moved inside the room whose balcony I had invaded. I whipped to my feet, ready to fight, but the figure that came out calmed my nerves with his serene, beautiful smile. The human, Kenosi.
“Have you come to see Beau? He seemed sad when the queen brought him this afternoon.” He turned and glanced behind him, then back to me. “I was surprised you were not with him, but then they told us of the fight. I hoped you were seeing a medic.”
I glanced down at the still-open claw wounds on my chest. I’d cleaned them at a stream, washed the venom out, but I was no medic. I hadn’t covered them or treated them. Zintar venom wasn’t often deadly, but after that much exposure, I wouldn’t be in fighting form for weeks.
But I’d never been to a medic in my life. Crux had always been of the opinion that a warrior too weak to heal on his own was a warrior too weak to be bothered with feeding and housing.
I shrugged. “They are shallow.”
“They do not look shallow,” he answered reprovingly, lips pursed. For the second time in my life, someone was concerned for my health—not simply because it was inconvenient for me to be unwell, but... well, truth told, I did not know why he was concerned for me. I had done little to help the humans in their weeks held prisoner by my father.
So I shrugged and did not meet his eye as I answered, “I have healed from worse.”
At that, he nodded. “I imagine you have.” And that was all he had to say on the matter. He turned and motioned me to follow him. “Come in. We will see your injuries dressed, at least.”
I had no idea why we would “dress” my injuries, but I chose not to question. He had seen me, and was not shouting for the guards to take me away. It was better than I had any right to expect.
“Is everyone well?” I asked as I followed him, trying to ask after Beau without saying his name and making my weakness even more obvious.
The quirk of his lips as he shoved me into a chair told me I was not nearly so subtle as I liked to think. “Everyone is learning to live with our new lot in life. The ‘everyone’ you are speaking of, though... is sad. He kept looking behind him, as though he expected you to appear from nowhere and snatch him away. Hoping for it, perhaps.”
“He is better off here, without my interference,” I answered mechanically, because it was true, wasn’t it? Beau was better off without a failed warrior who would never lead a house of his own. A no one, who could offer him nothing.
Kenosi ruffled my hair, as though I was a precocious child and he my mother, and offered me the same indulgent smile a mother might. “That is your father speaking. You know well that Beau is best off with what Beau wants. He is a man, and he is able to decide for himself.”
“What about you lot being mages? The king will want to match him with a warrior he likes.”
Kenosi took a small, clean cloth, soaked it in water, and started dabbing at my wound, which was still sluggishly bleeding after my climb had irritated it. After a moment, he looked back up at me. “Do you think that the king will try to force him to be with someone he does not want? That your king is even worse than Crux?”
Despite my own issues with Xyren, I did not believe that. Xyren despised only me. In my entire life, I was aware of no one else who had earned the king’s hatred.
But the promise of mages might be too much for even Xyren. There were fewer than forty humans on all Thorzan. Even if every one of them bonded to a warrior, it was a paltry number. I wondered how soon he’d be sending expeditions to Earth to bring back even more humans. Or how he intended to bring them back without kidnapping, as Crux had been doing.
At least Crux had been using his mark to choose humans who wanted new lives. The only Thorzi with that mark were Crux and myself. Crux had never used his unselfishly, and I had never used it to read another person at all, only to close my own mind to his scrutiny.
