Page 4 of Beyond Those Gilded Walls

“I—” I shook my head, unable to get the words to form.

Rhyon bit down on his lip, worrying it between his teeth as he stared at me. “Will we be next?”

“There is no way to know—” My voice cracked again, the words scratching against my throat. Clearing my throat, I continued, “I did all I could to save her.”

“You should have done more. You should have taken that food to the couple like you were supposed to. You lived, why not her?” he cried, the tears welling in his eyes and spilling over his cheeks as his lip quivered with anger and sorrow. “I wish you had died instead of her.”

The room fell away, black dancing around the edges of my vision. All I could focus on was Rhyon’s eyes. I saw Emyl’s lips moving, but the only sound was the echoing of Rhyon’s words.I wish you had died instead of her.

In his mind, he was stating a fact, something he knew to be true, as if he were telling me my hair was black. It was worse than I’d ever feared, that my youngest brother, the child I had cared for since he was only moments old, now wished me dead.

Oh, how I wished the same. I would have rather endured a thousand days at the hands of the plague than be in this room right now.

Emyl tucked Rhyon into his chest, cooing and rocking him as if he were an infant and not an eight-year-old boy.

“I am sorry, Rhy.” I did not dare reach my hand out towards him, trying instead to reach him with my words. Mother would never forgive me if I let him continue to believe this. “That is not?—”

“Do not call me that.” His voice was hard as ice as he stood and pulled out of Emyl’s arms to glare at me. And with that final stab to my heart, Rhyon turned and stomped to his room. The slamming of the door made me flinch.

The anger that had been building in me since Mother’s first cough was quenched by the sorrow in my brother’s voice as he’d uttered those words.

Normally, I was quick to defend myself to others, quick to snap, but with my brothers, both of them, I was as confrontational as our front doormat. He was right, after all. I had failed to ensure our mother survived, had failed them both because of it, and I, too, wished I had died instead. I could hardly be angry at Rhyon for speaking my own thoughts aloud.

“Why did you let him do that?” Emyl’s voice pulled my gaze up from the pattern of the wood I’d been absentmindedly tracing. “Mother wouldn’t have let him.”

“He would not have done it if she were here.” I shrugged, desperately clinging to the other words that wanted to fall out, the words of anger and spite. Those were not the ones that needed to be spoken now. “He needs the outlet. A target for his anger. I was the same at his age, and it took me long after his birth to learn to hide it. If that is what he needs, to process his feelings about Mother’s death, then I am happy to be that for him. I am happy to be anything he needs. Anythingyouneed.”

Emyl held my gaze but said nothing.

“You are my brothers. There is nothing I would not do to protect you both. Mother knew that. I can only hope you know that too.” I dropped my eyes back to the table.

Silence passed between us for a moment, to the point that it grew uncomfortable. I raised my head just as the chair screeched across the floors as Emyl stood. The look on his face was one I hadn’t seen before. He hesitated for a moment, rocking slightly on his feet. “I’m going out. I’ll be back later.”

That had me on my feet, too. “You shouldn’t leave, Emyl. Where are you going?”

Emyl froze where he’d been pulling on his coat, his gaze icy. “Believe it or not, Odyssa, Mother dying does not mean you are to take her place. Where I go and what I do is none of your concern. I need a moment to myself, if you don’t mind.”

And for the second time in as many moments, my brother closed a door on me. Emyl hadn’t slammed it like Rhyon had, but it still brought stinging tears to my eyes regardless. Not even a full day since my mother’s last request, and I was already failing at it. Failing her. Whether the tears were those of sorrow or rage, I did not know. Perhaps they were both, a balancing act as it were, with one eye pouring hatred and the other pouring grief.

I wanted to scream at the sky, to rage and yank the portraits of us off the walls and hurl them into the street after Emyl. To shout and yell and convince them that they were both wrong. But it would do no good. And my anger always retreated into this twisted state of subservience with my brothers, subdued until the moment they were out of my sight.

The taste of smoke and ash filled my mouth and a flickering mist hovered in the corner of the entryway.

Wiping at my eyes, I turned back to the kitchen before it could solidify into a Soulshade. I did not have the time nor the inclination to deal with another tortured soul begging for my attention. Not when I had my own soul to attend to.

I needed a distraction, something to keep me from sitting in front of Rhyon’s door and begging him to listen to me. Suddenly, I could understand why the king had hurled himself from the towers when his wife had passed from the plague. If we had a tower, I might have done the same.

I’d known we would all mourn differently, and in some way, I’d expected the anger. But I’d not expected them both to abandon me. Perhaps I should have.

Rifling through the cold chest and the pantry, I began pulling out ingredients for a quick soup. At the very least, I could ensure they both had food when they reappeared.

Food set aside for them both, I curled up on the bench in front of the kitchen windows, looking out into the dimming evening sky. Purples and oranges shot across the clouds, dimmed by the blood-red mist that hung over the rooftops, both of them mixing to frame the spires of Castle Auretras.

Tracing my fingers across the spiderweb cracks in the glass, I let my temple rest on the wood frame. The tip of my finger caught on a protruding sliver of glass, blood welling in the small cut left behind.

ChapterThree

Peace eluded me, my mind only showing me flashes of the fever dreams I’d had while I was sick. Memories of thrashing limbs, pained moans, and a cold darkness I could not escape. No matter how I contorted my body atop the seat by the window, I could not get comfortable. I couldn’t bring myself go to my bedroom.

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