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CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

R IVEN HOVERED OVER Nikolai’s sick bed. Deep bags were set under his eyes and his half braid was loose and tangled.

“When’s the last time you ate?” I asked, standing beside him.

Riven ignored the question. “Why hasn’t he woken up yet?”

I rubbed his shoulder. “Rheih said it would take time. He’s been through a lot—”

“We don’t know what he’s been through, he hasn’t said anything—” Riven took a deep breath. “I just don’t know what to do to help.” He turned to me with tears in his eyes. “How do I help him?”

I leaned my head on his shoulder. “You’re already doing it. You got him out, Riven. You’re here at his bedside.”

“You’re making an insufferable amount of noise,” Nikolai murmured.

Riven reared back in shock. He sat down in the chair next to Nik’s bed and grabbed his hand. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”

Nikolai slid his hand out of Riven’s grasp. “Is that what you call this?” His lip curled in disgust; it looked unnatural on his gentle face. “I may be alive, Riventh, but I am most certainly not okay.”

Riven leaned forward. “Nik—”

“I don’t want to hear it.” Nikolai crossed his arms. “Did you think getting captured would change the fact that my mother is dead ? That it would change how it was your inability to trust yourself, your need to keep the parts of yourself you didn’t like hidden away, that got her killed ?” Nikolai swallowed. “You want to know what your brother did to me? He threw me into the same pit my mother was kept in for my entire life. The daily beatings were a relief because at least for that hour I wouldn’t have to face the reality of what my mother lived with. What she barely got to forget before your brother and your lies killed her.”

Riven’s chin trembled. “Nik, I am so sorry. If I could go back—”

“But you can’t.” Nikolai raised his chin and eyed the black cloak hanging over the chair. His gaze turned venomous. “My mother is dead and you still haven’t told anyone who you are.”

Riven winced.

Nikolai shook his head in disgust. “Get out of my sight.”

“Nik—”

“Go!” Nikolai shouted, pointing at the door.

I stepped from the bed but Nik settled back. “You don’t need to go, Keera dear. If anything, you should be angry at me.” Tears welled in his eyes.

I glanced back at the door, heart torn from all the pain in the room. I grabbed Nik’s hand. “Anger doesn’t help me defeat Damien. And that’s what I need to do.” My throat tightened. I didn’t add the rest. That it was what I needed to do to make this all worth it. The lives I’d taken, Brenna, Hildegard, Maerhal. If I lost focus on my mission, their deaths and all the pain they caused, would be for naught.

Nikolai sat up. “I need to get dressed.”

“You are dressed.”

He looked down at the simple trousers and tunic I had picked out for Rheih to change him into. “This is a misery.” He lifted his hand. “Now heal me so I feel a little less miserable and can leave this room for good.”

I rolled my eyes and pushed his shoulders back down onto the bed. “You need your rest, Nik. You need to heal.”

“Exactly.” He lifted his other hand, the one with the tether along his wrist.

I didn’t move. “Nik. I can’t.”

His face fell. “I can’t just sit in this room, Keera. Underground. There’s too much to do, too much to prepare.” His voice cracked. “A funeral to plan.”

I sat down in the chair. “Nik, Rheih said you will be fine a few days. But I have no idea what will happen to you if I use my magic now that you have that .” I nodded at his tether.

Nik grabbed his wrist. He stared at the brand along his skin, caressing it with his fingers. “How did you survive it?” he asked without looking up.

My back tensed. “Survive what?”

“The pit Aemon put you in.” A tear fell from Nikolai’s eye as he looked up at me. “You were only a child. And my mother—”

“She’s how I survived it,” I whispered. “She would speak to me through the walls. Tell me stories. But mostly she just listened. She listened to me sing, she listened to me cry, she always made sure I knew that even though I couldn’t see my own hand in front of my face that I was never alone.”

“She wrote your name in a stone. Did she tell you that?” Nikolai wiped his cheek.

I froze. “No. She never said anything.”

“I felt it one night, lying on the ground. At first I thought it was just a brick or a piece of stone that had fallen away over time … maybe it was, but it was etched with your name. Dozens of them. Keera, Keera, Keera, Keera. Like she knew one day you’d come back for her.” Nikolai’s brow trembled and he picked a loose thread from the blanket over his legs. “She carved them with her fingernails.”

My throat burned so hot I didn’t know if I could speak. “That must have taken her a long time.”

“Years, I’d imagine.” Nikolai took a deep breath. “But nothing compared to the walls. She carved my name into them hundreds of times. As high up as I could reach, I could feel the carvings.” He looked up at me. “Strange that you would be housed together, with her writing names into the walls of her cage and you carving names into your skin.”

I swallowed. “No one leaves the darkness unchanged.”

Nikolai sighed and leaned back on the pillow. He was more than distraught; he was broken.

I grabbed his hand. “But the light is healing. Just give it time.”

“You swear it?” Nikolai raised a brow. “You’re not just saying that so I don’t start moping around and wearing outfits like this everywhere I go.”

“I picked that outfit, you know.”

“You spent seven hundred years locked in a tree and then five more stuffed in a hole in the ground, Keera dear. Of course you developed an atrocious sense of fashion.”

I barked a laugh and tossed the spare pillow at Nikolai’s head.

“Laughing is a good sign,” Gwyn cheered from the doorway with a plate of food. “Riven told me you might be hungry.”

Nikolai’s face soured. “Not really.”

“Are you sure?” Gwyn removed the lid from a bowl of stew and fresh bread. “The kitchen just finished.”

Nikolai’s pupils widened, and he nodded at the table beside his bed. Gwyn set the tray down but her eyes were locked on Nikolai’s wrist. “I’m so sorry that he did that to you.” Her eyes glowed bright. “He will die for it.”

A perplexed look crossed Nikolai’s face. His lips parted, trying to find the words to ask what had happened in the weeks he had been gone. But there would be time for that. He rubbed at his wrist like if he only pressed harder the brand would rub away.

I leaned back in my chair. “What did it feel like?”

Gwyn went completely still.

“It just burned.” Nikolai sighed and stopped rubbing his wrist. “And then it felt like my life would never be mine again.”

My stomach clenched. “Do you know what he tethered you to?”

“No.” Nikolai shook his head. “He just chanted the same word over and over again.”

Gwyn’s fists flexed. “What word?”

“ Moroq .” Nikolai shrugged. “It sounds old Elvish to me.”

“Maybe Vrail knows.” I turned to Gwyn to see if she had come across it in her books, but all I saw were red curls bouncing out of the room.