Page 5 of Between Despair and Hope

“He wouldn’t want you to leave her. He did what he did specifically to protect you. Elora is his heir, and—”

“Do you think Shivani will legitimize her without Rain? She hasn’t even woken up yet, Dewalt. It’s me. You and I both know it has to be me. I have to go.”

My friend shook his head, and his braid slipped over his shoulder. “Emma, we will figure something out. You both are such self-sacrificing fucks. Gods, this is the twin flame thing, isn’t it? You’re both doomed to the same sort of stupidity.” He shook his head. “I’m not letting you do this, even if I have to throw you in the dungeon myself.” He must have been speaking louder than I realized, because Shivani’s voice rose over the din.

“While I hope the dungeon won’t be necessary, the duke is right, Emmeline. You’re not going. We will attempt to negotiate, let them know we have Prince Cyran. Based on what you told me of Dryul’s death, they likely assumed Cyran was also dead. Let us correct their notion and see what comes from it.”

I bristled. The one time she seemed to be considerate of me, she was still against me. I palmed the shell, rubbing my thumb across the grooves, frustration coursing through my veins. Declan demanded my presence in Folterra by the full moon, a little over three weeks away. I wouldn’t let him kill Rain, but I supposed it wouldn’t hurt to attempt negotiations.

“I will go if you can’t come up with a better solution, but I’m only going to give you a week to find it.”

To my shock, Shivani nodded. I tilted my chin down in respect and did my best not to run from the room—hoping to keep my rising nausea at bay. I felt Dewalt following behind me, and for the first time in three weeks, I decided I would listen to him. There was a certain little princeling I desired to speak to.

Chapter 3

Cyran

“Thankyou,truly.Iappreciate it.” I held the cloth to my ear and pulled it away to find more blood. The wound kept opening up in my sleep, and it was quite a nuisance. The long-haired bastard had ripped out my earring weeks ago, and it still hadn’t healed. It was one of the first things he did when he brought me to the dungeon in Astana. The captain, Dewalt was his name, placed me in a cell and told me it had special meaning to the queen. After he put me in the obsidian chains, I may have mouthed off to him, and he definitely ripped my earring straight out in response. To be fair, I probably deserved it. I had killed Elora, and I deserved every bad thing which had happened to me since.

But now, I knew that wasn’t exactly true, was it? I’d killed her, but she wasn’t dead—or so I’d heard. The guard who brought me a cloth for my ear was rather talkative if I was kind to him. His name was Oak, and he towered over me—an apt name. I thought he was lonely, and as fate would have it, so was I. So what if a polite word or two got him talking? Was it manipulative? Maybe. Did that stop me? Not at all.

Emmeline had brought Elora back to life. Or something like it, at least. When he told me, I had to send him away. I wouldn’t let him witness my vulnerability. I’d never felt so relieved in all my life. A weight had lifted from me, and I didn’t even care that I was still in the bloody dungeon. If my worst inconvenience was my earlobe wanting to open and bleed, I didn’t care. I hadn’t killed her. If I was stuck here for the rest of my life, at least I knew her light hadn’t gone out because of me. But Oak knew nothing else.

Why hadn’t she come to me? To yell at me? To call me an imbecile? To tell me how she loathed me?

As always, I asked Oak, “Still no sight of the queen’s daughter?”

And as always, he said, “No, Cyran.”

Though my first thought upon finding out she was alive was relief, fear chased it. Did that mean I failed? I saw my father die, but still. Was all of it for nothing? Declan still lived. I saw Emmeline gain control of the shadows. Had I done what I was supposed to? Had it worked?

I had to hope what I did was worth it because the toll on my mind was heavy. I shouldn’t have cared as much as I did. Obviously, I didn’t want to kill Elora. She had been my friend, so of course I was relieved when I found out I hadn’t been successful. But why did I care about the girl so much? She was funny and wild, kind and undeniably beautiful, but why did I continue asking about her every day? Why did I dream about her? I had enjoyed her company during the month she was in my care, and I’d felt a bit lost when Declan took her from me. But that was only because I knew then what he might do to her since she wasn’t the Beloved. He didn’t need her anymore. No one deserved his anger, but even less did anyone deserve his indifference.

Was it pity which drew me to her? The father she knew was a worm, and mine, well, I had experience with terrible fathers. But after Mother died, I was raised by tutors and Magdalena in a gods damn palace. It’s not as if we had anything in common. Her father had been adequate until he wasn’t. Mine had pawned me off on Declan. My brother wasn’t exactly a nurturing father; he beat me regularly when I was younger, especially once Ismene came to stay with us. Every time she earned a beating, I took it, so I was getting them almost every day for a while. When I finally left Darkhold, I made Evenmoor my sanctuary. And I wondered if it helped heal Elora as it had me. She was just learning that her parents were imperfect. Emmeline seemed reasonable and intelligent, and yet she’d failed her daughter by keeping secrets from her. Not to even mention Faxon’s betrayal.

I smiled, remembering the day she arrived at Evenmoor. Faxon, the piece of waste, was already in the city, drinking, and they had brought Elora into her chambers cuffed in obsidian and full of rage. Rage which, I learned later, had led her to bite off a mercenary’s ear; I had to compensate him more for the inconvenience. I didn’t make her stay in the dungeon, knowing she was to eventually be married to my brother—the poor thing—so her chambers were comfortable. There was a small bookcase with an assortment of novels to soothe her inevitable boredom, a soft bed, a few beautiful gowns to choose from, all things I’d thought to include in her chambers. Ismene had helped me, hating as I did what we had to do for Declan. I thought I was being rather benevolent, and yet when I walked in, Elora chucked the thickest tome she could find straight at my head. I wasn’t as adept with the shadows as Declan, but I had some control. With short notice, I could only send out a tiny wisp to protect my forehead; the book merely fell to the ground without making contact.

“Let me go, you bastard!” She had a mouth on her, and she rushed toward me, proving she had courage to go along with it. I’d easily grabbed her and backed her up against the bed, forcing her to sit. And then I introduced myself. When she kicked me in the balls, I vowed to never underestimate her again.

While I could have been around her significantly less than I was, I felt this pull toward her, and I didn’t understand it. Even now, I felt it. Felther, my wild one. I knew she was somewhere in the palace, and I wanted to find her. I wanted to explain everything to her. Not that it excused it, not at all. Especially when I thought…but I had to. I had to do it. I had to pay the price. But now, the longer I had to think about it, I knew if I was given the choice once more, I wouldn’t have paid it. No, if I could go back, I wouldn’t have done what I did.

“Afternoon, shit stain. Did you miss me?”

I groaned when I heard the captain’s voice and didn’t stop as the flickering light from the hallway illuminated his tall silhouette in the doorway of my cell. He’d been to visit just yesterday, and I had hoped to avoid two days of his mental torture in a row. But when I had felt the harsh pain radiating up my elbow from one of his impulses, I knew the odds were not in my favor.

“We have a guest with us today. Hurry.” He stepped back out into the hall and waited as I pulled myself off the pallet. The obsidian chains were long and didn’t hold my wrists too tightly. If I was a better fighter, I might have made a move. I could have jumped at the man and pulled the chains around his neck and killed him. Or at least tried to. But I barely knew how to use a sword. To be fair, it made me feel decent about myself, knowing it scared Declan to let me learn too much, afraid I would attempt to overthrow him one day. The thought wasn’t so amusing now though, considering the odds were even lower than before. I didn’t think many kings were overthrown from the dungeon of an enemy kingdom. Shuddering, I remembered Declan was King of Folterra. I wondered how Ismene was doing. Was she still in Evenmoor or had he moved her to Darkhold?

I followed the captain out of my cell, eager for the marginally fresher air outside it. “Someone wants to see me? I’m flattered.” Sometimes I wondered what possessed me to say the things I did. The captain had proven he didn’t have any qualms with injuring me, though he balked when he saw the bruises across my back. Funny, he couldn’t appreciate my brother’s handiwork.

“‘Want’ isn’t quite the word, little boy. I’d watch your tongue if I were you. She’s not in the best of moods today.” She. My damn heart leapt at the idea Elora might be the one who wanted to see me. I just wanted to see the glare on her face, to replace the memory of the shocked horror she wore as the light faded from her eyes. The image haunted me, and I wanted nothing more than to rid myself of it. Even if the expression was full of loathing and hatred, it was better than what I had. Besides, I was used to hatred and loathing. It was something I could handle.

I followed the captain up the stairs into the upper level of cells. They were bigger and lighter—less rancid, too. I wondered if one day I might get transferred to them, if I behaved. Dewalt always took me to these cells to question me. He preferred the one at the end of the hall because, rather than bars, it had a door; he didn’t like an audience. Sure enough, I saw the door was open, light from the barred window shining bright. My heart began a steady gallop, hoping it was Elora who waited for me. Elora, who would smack me the minute I walked in.

At first, I didn’t notice her, pushed back into the corner of the room like she was. Her arms were crossed with her hands tucked firmly into her armpits, as if she was fighting against herself to keep them off me. The sinking sensation of disappointment filled me when I realized it wasn’t Elora.

I’d never seen Emmeline look so small. The ferocity she held for her daughter had always made her seem so much more. She was the daughter of a minor lord, and yet she had looked at me, a prince, with a countenance dripping of derision so potent, I thought it might kill her. When she’d accused me of sending mercenaries to rape her, when she stood in front of me in nothing but a man’s shirt—that woman could have killed me without a second thought. But the woman I saw now? The only word which came to mind was broken. She didn’t look like a woman who had brought her daughter back from death. My stomach felt rock hard, and I froze, rooted to the spot. Had Oak been wrong? Was Elora actually dead?

She didn’t even look at me as Dewalt chained me to the bracket in the center of the floor. I was on my knees, my hands between my legs and attached to the bracket. Emmeline actually turned away from me at one point, staring pointedly at the barred window.

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