Page 63 of Iron Crown

“Blood of my blood,” he whispered, then opened his palms in front of him. “How life has imitated art.”

He slowly turned and languidly walked up the steps, towards our bedroom, moving like a man possessed.

I stood still, waiting. For what?I had no fucking idea.

I stared at the painting for long minutes.

I must have stared at the painting for an hour, maybe more. I was looking for some sign about what he was talking about. What prophecy? What life imitated art? I wanted to know. I wanted to open his brain in my hand like a pomegranate and devour the insides until all his secrets were laid bare before me.

He said I knew all of his secrets, but I had barely cracked the surface.

A man like Eoghan is more than his biography. He was images and lore. He was a thousand different symbols, interwoven. Like a painting that was just a little bit different every time you looked at it.

I found no insight in the canvas in front of me. I had to give up. So, I went upstairs, hoping that he could give me the answers I needed.

Eoghan was naked in our bed, his head disheveled from going to sleep with it wet. Tears stained his cheeks.

I tucked him in, then removed my clothes. I slid beneath the sheets beside him, pressing my naked chest against his back, wrapping my arms around him from behind.

“Eoghan,” I whispered, as I ran a hand through his silky golden hair. “What has happened to you, my love?”

Chapter nineteen

Try Not To Die

Eoghan

When I went into the bedroom, I cleaned the blood off and dumped my clothes into the laundry chute. They were used to cleaning blood from clothes, though this was going to be quite the task.

When I got out from under the shower spray, my phone buzzed on the countertop.

I didn’t look to see who it was. I didn’t need to.

“Dairo.”

“Eoghan.”

“How’s the child?” I asked flatly.

“I’ve grown quite attached to my nephew. He seems to think I’m you.”

I chuckled, not surprised that the little one would mistake us. We’d always been close to twins, distinguishable only by the stark color of our eyes. Mine black, his a bright arctic blue.

“He keeps asking for his mother, though,” Dairo sighed. “The twins distract him. He’s a very good older cousin to Jos and Jer.”

Dairo’s twins were a bloody handful.

I wasn’t surprised to know my son was good with younger children, though. If he gained anything from me, it was probably the rampant desire to have a larger family than the one fate would bestow. Genetics are a fucking curse.

“I’m glad to hear it.” I wasn’t, though.

Intellectually, I was happy to understand my son was not suffering too much in his mother’s absence, but I did not have it in me to feel anything but the weight of impending loss.

Dairo and I both sighed, each of us lost in the heavy silence that passed between us.

“I think she’s going to leave me,” Dairo finally said.

I was sorry to hear that.

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