Page 43 of Blood King, Part I (Crowns #4)

Chapter thirty-four

His foot touched grass. He didn’t know why he’d thought it would be entirely different from traveling with the portal witch—probably because Essandra had him worried about burning in the Aether. But they both stepped through, and neither of them burned.

When Essandra had said she’d linked the Aether to a place of power, he’d imagined something more… majestic. A temple, maybe. Marble columns and altars. Not this.

They stepped into a circle of massive standing stones, each one weathered and lichen-streaked, their surfaces etched by time. They stood like silent sentinels, rough-hewn and ancient, the height of two men.

Essandra’s eyes welled, and her lip trembled. Slowly, she sank to her knees, threading the grass between her fingers. He stood quietly, giving her a moment. Clearly, this place was important to her.

He combed the landscape around them. The stone circle was surrounded by trees, with a low layer of mist. His breath fogged in the air. It was cold—not as cold as Mercia had been, but cold enough that he would have appreciated warmer clothing.

As she stood again, she shivered. “I’m sorry. I can’t warm us without…”

Her fire witch.

“It’s all right.”

She turned her attention outside the circle of stones and started into the trees. “This way,” she said.

He followed.

They walked until the forest thinned and the trees were few and far between.

The terrain became slightly sharper. Then it leveled out amid scattered heaps of stone.

An eerie quiet lingered. No sounds of wildlife, no birds.

Essandra walked like she was in a dream—slow, somber, with her hands slightly open in front of her, almost reaching.

She’d said there was power here. Maybe she was feeling it. Cyrus felt nothing.

He followed just behind her, wary, watchful, taking in everything around them.

As they walked, he realized these weren’t just heaps of stone.

They were ruins. Thick layers of moss and plants had grown over the rubble, making the structures difficult to recognize, but he slowly made out the stacked stone of houses that had been toppled.

In what used to be streets or walking paths lay fragments of pottery and small metal goods that had withstood years of elemental wear.

He paused. There was something familiar about everything, although he was certain he’d never been here before. “What is this place?” he asked.

Her sad eyes moved over the ruins. “Home.” She kept walking.

Home? He caught back up to her. “What happened here?”

“Invaders from Choan.”

“Choan,” he repeated. “I’ve never heard of it.”

“Well, it’s not a kingdom anymore. It was destroyed by the Shadow King.”

“Why?” Probably purely for the sake of destruction.

She shook her head. “I don’t know, but I like to think of it as a gift of fate.” She smiled sadly to herself. “That’s strange to say, isn’t it? The Shadow King—a gift.”

Cyrus stopped cold. “A gift ?”

His pulse quickened. She thought he was a gift ? After everything he’d done? “Do you support him?”

Essandra stopped and turned to look back at him. “No. But I don’t have to support him to feel gratitude for him killing those who killed my family and destroyed my life.”

“Gratitude doesn’t make him less of a monster.”

“It might not make him less of a monster, but it doesn’t make him wrong either. I also won’t deny a sense of indebtedness.”

He stiffened as a chill rippled through him. Was this a warning? “Would you try to stop me from killing him?”

She stared at him for a moment. For a long breath, she didn’t answer.

Then she shook her head. “No.”

The tightness in his shoulders slacked, and he eased.

She cocked her head. “What if I’d said yes?”

He picked up his pace again, not answering. She didn’t press him, and he was glad. He wasn’t sure what he would have said, but a friend of the Shadow King couldn’t be a friend of his. A friend of the Shadow King would share the king’s fate.

They passed the last of the ruins, and the trees grew thick again. Essandra kept on an invisible path, knowing where she was going, and he followed.

The ground grew slippery. Somewhere along the way—he wasn’t sure when—it became wet, but it wasn’t raining.

“How much farther?” he asked.

“Not much.”

Except it was.

Finally, they reached a clearing. The fog had disappeared, and light broke through the clouds of gray to shine down on two trees in the center.

They were small trees, different from the trees of the forest. Their branches twisted wickedly, although the eerie unease he’d felt in the town was gone.

The trees held no leaves, save each a single white bloom. And it was warmer here, somehow.

Essandra stood, staring at them. “They’re everlife trees.”

“That’s what you said I needed to bring Kieve back.” Just saying his name brought a pain to his chest.

She nodded sadly.

“These are trees you’ve grown?”

“Yes. They have to be grown over the bodies of the people who died. After Choan destroyed my village and left, I came back and found my mother and my sister. I buried them. I didn’t know about the trees then, but when I learned about the Amoran Cup, about the spell to bring back the dead, I returned to plant them, in case one day… ”

She swallowed.

“It takes twenty years or more for them to start to bloom,” she said. “And then they produce one flower every month.” She nodded at the one on the right. “That’s my sister’s tree.” Then the one on the left. “That’s my mother’s. I planted them twenty-three years ago.”

Twenty-three years.

That was how long she’d been working to bring them back.

He stared at the twisted branches, each tree holding a single bloom.

This was what hope looked like—fragile, hard-won, and painfully slow.

This was also what defeat looked like—the realization that even if he could find Kieve’s body, this was what he’d have to do.

Would he be able to grow the tree? Would he even be alive long enough to see it flower?

“Two years ago, they started to bloom,” she told him. “But I didn’t have the cup.”

“Now you do,” he said softly.

Her eyes glistened. “Yes. I do.”

She moved to the trees, pulling her dagger, and gently cut the bloom from the tree on the right.

The flower turned red, and crimson sap beaded from where she’d made the slice on the branch.

She did the same for the left tree—again, the flower turned red.

Carefully, she wrapped each bloom in a white silk cloth and tucked them into the bag she wore over her shoulder.

She clutched the bag to her chest for a moment and closed her eyes. She’d waited a long time for this.

And he hated to break the moment, but he needed to ask…

“So, do you have to… dig them out?” What he was really wondering was if she was going to ask him to dig them out.

Essandra shook her head, her eyes on the ground beneath the trees. “No. These bodies are gone.”

“Then… how…”

“The Amoran Cup will make them new.”

Right. Well. That was helpful.

A light mist started around them, and she glanced up at the sky. “Let’s get back.”

He nodded, and they started their return toward the stone circle.

She walked beside him now, instead of in front of him. “Can I ask you a personal question?” she said.

“Sure.” She already knew the most personal things about him. He wasn’t sure what else was left.

“Why do you want to kill your brother?”

Except that.

Cyrus wasn’t completely averse to people knowing about Alexander. He didn’t lie about him. He just didn’t talk about him. It was hard to—the memories were still trenched in loss and hurt. He’d thought that would go away with time. It never did.

He didn’t know what made him answer. Maybe it was because he felt like he should. Or maybe he just wanted to tell someone who wanted to listen.

“He abandoned me,” he said finally. “He was the person I was closest to in this world. I loved him, and he left me.”

“Wasn’t that a long time ago? Wasn’t he a child?”

“He’s not a child now. He could have come. He could have looked for me.”

She frowned. “Maybe he did.”

“Then he gave up too easily,” he snapped.

Her gaze dropped to the ground in front of them.

“If I was in a position of power, and I knew Everan was trapped somewhere. Or Kord. Or Bash. Or Jaem. Or Ram.” Or Kieve . The backs of his eyes stung. “If I knew they were suffering…” His voice broke as he clenched his fists. “Nothing would stop me.”

He felt her eyes on him, but he kept his gaze forward.

“They’re lucky to have that,” she said softly. “To have you.”

He slowed. No one had ever told him that.

“What about your mother?” she asked.

His chest tightened. “I don’t want to talk about her.” He never talked about his mother, not even with Everan.

Essandra pulled her bottom lip between her teeth. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.”

He shook his head. “It’s fine. I-I just don’t want to talk about her.”

“Okay.”

A quiet fell around them, but it wasn’t an uneasy quiet.

Essandra held her bag tightly to her as she walked. Seeing her so close to achieving what she’d worked so long for stirred something deep inside him. The joy and hope of being on the cusp—was this how he would feel when he reached his own moment? What moment would that be? And then what after?

“What will you do after you bring back your sister and your mother?” he asked her.

She didn’t answer right away. He hoped it wasn’t too personal a question, especially after he’d avoided her question to him. But as he glanced at her, she had a hint of a smile on her lips, and she was still clutching her bag to her chest again.

“I don’t know,” she said. “My mother was a teacher, and my sister always wanted to open a school for people with our abilities. I’ve dreamed about it a lot over the years—us doing that together. It made me feel close to them, I guess. Now it feels like something I need to do.”

He could see how it would.

“I know that sounds silly,” she added.

“It doesn’t sound silly. You should do it.”

She paused, and he paused with her. Her brows lifted slightly, and her lips parted. “Really?”

“Yes. Anywhere you want in Rael, it’s yours.”

She quieted and cast her eyes down. Had what he’d said bothered her? But she replied, “That’s very kind. Thank you.” She started them forward again, quickening their pace.

They reached the stone circle, and Essandra pulled the small sachet of her door-making mixture. But she paused before opening it. “Thank you,” she said. “For coming with me. For everything.”

“Of course. I’m glad I could help you.”

The faintest of smiles touched her lips. “Now to see if we can get back.” She poured the mixture into her hand and drew a line in front of them.

He watched her. “Yeah, so… you were joking before, right? About burning up in Aether?”

She paused for a beat. “No.”

He nodded. “Right.”

“Here we go,” she said, and she pulled him through.

Returning was much like how they’d come: over the mixture and directly into Essandra’s workroom. The stone circle faded behind them until it was only a wall, and they both stood, looking at each other.

She had a smudge of dirt across her cheek, but she was the most beautiful he’d ever seen her. Not because of the way she looked but because of everything she carried—strength, grit, grace. Hope.

“Are you going to try it now?” he asked finally. “To bring them back?”

She swallowed. “Yes.”

“Should I stay? Can I help somehow?”

She shook her head. “No. I’d like to do it alone, actually.”

He could understand that. “I’ll leave you, then.” He started toward the door, but paused, turning back to her. “I’m looking forward to meeting them.”

Her eyes welled, and she gave him a smile—small, shaky. But a real smile.

The first he’d seen from her.