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Even though he was still several yards away, he swung his arm out wildly as if to knock my dagger from my hand, which sent his bottle flying, glass and amber liquid raining down as it hit the wall and smashed. The action made him spin and lose his footing, and he was too drunk to catch himself as he crashed to the floor, his chin slamming so hard into the floorboards that I winced.
None of us moved for a few seconds. Then Bres moaned like a dying animal. He managed to get an arm under him, and as his head lifted a few inches off the floor, he spat out a torrent of blood.
Ash and I stepped back as one when we saw several small dark objects in the puddle. Teeth. And something bigger and flatter that looked soft—
“I—I think that’s part of his tongue,” Ash murmured to me, sounding horrified.
He was right. The tip of Bres’ tongue sat in the puddle of bloody saliva, and his lower face was coated when he rolled onto his back with a groan, heavy eyes dazed and unfocused. We watched in silence as he moaned again and began patting over the ground, trying to find his bottle.
In some ways, it was almost hard to look at. It was pathetic. He’d become nothing but a wretched, drunken mess.
I’d been so scared of him as a child. More often than not, Bres had been the one who’d come up with all the ways in which they’d tormented me. He’d suggest awful ideas to Balor, and would watch with relish as they were carried out, cackling with laughter as he swigged from his flask.
“King Lonan?”
Two guards appeared in the hallway, running towards us.
“We heard something smash,” one of them said, slowing when he caught sight of Bres. “Are you… alright?”
“Yes.” I knew I should give them an order to deal with Bres, but… I had no idea what to do with him.
Turning to Ash, who was watching Bres moan drunkenly on the floor with an uneasy look, I told him, “He stopped being able to hear any voices after that day you came here. But clearly, he can still hear yours. Do you remember doing anything to him?”
He blinked in shock, frowning as he focused on me. “I didn’t hurt him. I didn’t even touch him. After I shot the Carlin, she told him to kill me, but he—”
His eyes went wide as he stopped abruptly and glanced over at the guards. Golra had appeared behind them, her arms crossed and a sharp brow raised as she watched Bres with mild disgust curling her lip.
Ash stepped closer to me and lowered his voice. “She used his name, so I quickly used it too and told him to ignore her and listen to me.” His uneasy gaze slid back over to Bres on the floor. “Only to me.”
I almost laughed as it finally all made sense. Cupping Ash’s chin, I gave him a firm kiss and murmured, “Clever seelie.”
He flushed, scrubbing a hand through his curls as he looked at Bres again. “What are you going to do with him?”
I sighed, slipping my arm around his back as I turned to face Bres. “I don’t know. Perhaps just… leave him locked in his room? It looks like he’s going to drink himself to death anyway.”
Golra huffed and muttered something under her breath. Keeping my face carefully blank despite the way my mouth wanted to twitch into a smile, I asked, “Do you have something to say, Golra?”
“Well, it’s none of my business how you deal with your affairs, King Lonan.” She sniffed, smoothing down her tunic. “But seems like a waste of good food and wine to keep him here, in my opinion. If it were up to me, I’d just ship him off and let him pickle himself somewhere far, far away from the rest of us. It’s not like he can hear anyone anyway. And by the looks of it, he won’t be able to speak all that well either.”
Ash glanced at me as I mulled that over. It was actually a decent idea. I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about myself if I killed my brother when he was like this—just a miserable, helpless wretch.
Letting him live with his own self-inflicted suffering seemed like a fair alternative to death.
“Fine. Let’s do that.”
Golra looked shocked that I was actually taking her advice. Slowly, she uncrossed her arms, a tiny smile tilting her mouth as she gave me an impressed nod.
“The cliffs to the south. By the sea,” I said, referring to an empty stretch of unseelie land where the waters were too rough for the selkies. “He can spend the rest of his days there. Alone.”
“There are some old sidhes there,” one of the guards offered cautiously. “My ancestors lived in one until the cliffs started to erode and they all had to be abandoned. Should we… put him in one of those?”
“Yes, if any are still standing.”
“Do you want me to tell him?” Ash asked me quietly. “Where he’s going?”
“No need. He’ll find out when he gets there.” I glanced at him and gestured at Bres, who was now mumbling incomprehensible words, his mouth bloody. “But if there’s anything you’d like to say before he’s taken…”
Ash cleared his throat and stepped forward, looking a little nervous as we all watched. He crouched in front of Bres.
