Page 52 of Blood King, Part I (Crowns #4)

Chapter forty-one

“ No! ” Essandra screamed again.

Cyrus raced faster toward her chamber. “Essandra!” he roared. He reached her hall and barreled down it.

Aaron and Amiel stood at the end, at their posts outside her door. When they saw Cyrus, they both straightened and dropped their hands to their swords.

“Where is she?” Cyrus thundered.

“Inside, sleeping,” Amiel said quickly.

Cyrus collided with her door, but it was locked. “I heard her scream!” He beat on it with his fist. “Essandra!”

“I’ve heard nothing,” Amiel told him.

But Cyrus had. And she wasn’t screaming now. Now, there was only silence.

He threw his weight against the door, but this had originally been the king’s chamber, and it couldn’t be forced open by one man. “Essandra!” He beat again. “Help me open it!” he snapped at them.

Just then, the door swung open.

Essandra stood in front of him in her nightgown, her eyes squinting against the hall torchlight. “What is the matter with you?” she practically yelled. “Why are you beating on my door in the middle of the night?”

Cyrus pushed inside.

“You can’t just come in here!”

Amiel followed in with a torch, lighting the room.

The empty room.

“I heard you scream,” Cyrus told her.

“What?” She shook her head. “I was sleeping! I was—” Her breath caught, and she stopped abruptly. Her eyes widened as they locked with his. “You heard me?”

“So, you did scream?”

“No!”

He was even more confused. He pressed his fingers to his head. He thought he’d seen a flash of a vision as well, but in his hurry, he hadn’t caught what it was. No, that couldn’t be right. It couldn’t have been a vision. He couldn’t hear in visions.

Except once before.

And then the words that she’d spoken a few moments ago sank in a little more— you heard me. He had heard something. And she knew it. He paused as a thought came to him.

“Were you having a nightmare?” he asked. Was that what it was? Not a vision, not a memory.

She crossed her arms in front of her, backing away slightly. “I’m perfectly fine. You can go.”

“How could I hear you?”

She shook her head again. “I-I don’t know. I used your blood earlier.”

“So, it was a nightmare.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Essandra—”

“I said I don’t want to talk about it. Get out!”

He stared at her, not sure what he could say to get her to talk to him. She wouldn’t. He already knew.

“Get out,” she said again.

He sighed, then nodded to Amiel to go. Cyrus followed.

Stepping out into the hall, he turned back to Essandra, but she promptly closed the door.

He stood without words as he heard the lock slide into place, his sword still in hand, his pulse still racing with the heat of fight.

Her scream lingered in his mind. But there was no threat, nothing for him to do.

“We’ll be right here,” Amiel assured him as he and Aaron assumed their posts again.

Cyrus couldn’t do anything but return to his chamber. He lumbered back down the hall. Whatever the assassins’ visit had stirred within him, it had also stirred something within her, whether directly related or not. But he wouldn’t be getting any answers from her.

He reached his chamber; however, he didn’t go back to bed. Instead, he paced the floor.

Something about the assassins’ visit had scared her. Something that now brought her nightmares. He was going to find out what that something was.

Right now.

He quickly pulled on his boots and a tunic and strode from his chamber and out of the palace.

The corridors of the cells below the arena were dark, and his skin prickled. Not that he was afraid. He was the monster in these halls. They belonged to him now.

The air was cool, damp with a slight mustiness. It wasn’t a comfortable place to be kept. He’d said these cells would never be used again. But that was when he’d been naive to the world. Naive to what was required of him to keep those he cared for safe.

Cyrus stopped in front of the cell that held the assassins.

Their leader quickly got to his feet and met him at the bars. “You have to let us out of here; you have to let us go,” he said, his voice tinged with urgency.

“Who are you?” Cyrus asked him.

“My name is Orion Rome.”

Cyrus wasn’t sure why he’d asked. He didn’t care. “Why did you call her Sabine Laveau?”

The assassin shifted, and his brow twitched. “Because that’s her name. But it doesn’t matter. We’ll call her whatever she wants, you just have to let us go.”

“Why does your arrival bother her?”

“My arrival usually does bother people.”

Cyrus was in no mood for games. “You know what I mean. Answer me. Who is she hiding from?”

“Look—I don’t know.”

“I think you do.”

Orion snorted, his frustration showing. “I told you everything. The witch in Faulken gave us her name.”

“You said Etreus before.” Now he knew this man was lying.

“No, we first heard about her in Faulken, but we didn’t find out you took the throne with a witch until Etreus.”

Cyrus didn’t believe him.

The man stepped forward and gripped the bars of the cell. “If you’re not interested in our bargain, fine. Just let us go.”

That wasn’t going to happen. If Essandra was hiding from someone, he wouldn’t risk her being discovered. “You’re not going anywhere.”

“Then you condemn us!” He jerked up his arm, revealing the rune marking on his wrist again. “When the guild’s call comes, and we don’t go, these marks will kill us.” He glanced back at one of the other men in the cell. “Mace just got a call. He can’t stay here. None of us can.”

“Maybe you should have thought about that before you came.” Cyrus’s voice held no sympathy, but surprisingly, he wasn’t completely without it.

There was something in the assassin’s words, in his circumstance, eating away some of his hatred.

Coerced obedience, a slave to another man’s cause, compelled to kill or be killed.

Is that not what Cyrus had been? Were they that different?

It didn’t matter. He’d killed men like himself before. And he would again. The only thing keeping him from doing it now was that there was something else going on, something Essandra wasn’t telling him. Something she was afraid of. He had every intention of finding out what that something was.

He turned and headed back the way he’d come.

“Cyrus!” the man called after him.

His plate sat untouched in front of him. It wasn’t the food. Despite Cyrus significantly scaling back palace storehouses, his master cook, Portia, still managed to make feasts of simple things. Juniper-marinated beef—a favorite. Maidenroot vegetables—also a favorite. Still, he couldn’t eat.

Cyrus’s gaze traveled around the table from Kord to Everan to Visa to Essandra.

No one spoke. Not even the rest of his men. They seemed to sense something was amiss.

Essandra had refused him any answers about the assassins or what was upsetting her. He’d pushed her again until she’d refused him any conversation at all. And now he had an angry witch, and still twelve assassins in the cells under the arena that he hadn’t yet decided what to do with.

And that was only one of his problems. Under the weight of the crown, each day seemed longer than the last. Building a kingdom took time.

Rebuilding a destroyed kingdom took even more time, especially with an active resistance working against him and growing bolder, and Cyrus was running out of time.

Yes, he’d committed himself to rebuilding Rael, and he was trying his damnedest, but the need within him chained him like no manacle ever could—the need for blood. He blamed the assassins for stirring that need again. The only things that filled his mind were Alexander and the Shadow King.

And then there was Serra. The masses grew more vocal each day.

He’d committed to moving against the slavers’ kingdom, and it made sense the people were pressing him for action.

They would make no progress in their cause if Serra kept stealing people from their homes, putting them in chains, and selling them to the highest bidder.

However, the worst part of it all was that he wasn’t actually doing anything. Not against Serra, not against Alexander, not against the Shadow King.

Each day that passed whispered that the longer he waited, the more he risked missing the opportunity to do anything at all.

But he hadn’t yet had an opportunity. Alexander wasn’t accessible to him—protected deep within Mercia—and spending resources to go after his brother in a kingdom that wasn’t an enemy would upset the people, especially if it came before taking action against Serra.

And to take Serra, he needed an army. To take the Shadow King, he needed an even larger army.

He’d have an army eventually, with each day bringing a new wave of refugees.

But they weren’t really an army.

They’d become one.

He couldn’t ask this of them.

They expected it; it was why they’d come. They practically fell at his feet, offering their lives for the cause.

They flocked to him.

They trusted him.

This wasn’t just for himself anymore. He owed it to them.

But their fervor was for Serra.

He pushed out a long sigh. He also needed to focus on Rael. Rebuilding. Providing. It was what his council pressed him for. It’s what Essandra pressed him for.

He just needed more time. He needed strength.

He needed her.

Not just for her power, though the kingdom was standing on it. Not just for her mind, though half the council’s momentum came from her voice in his ear. He needed the way she pulled him forward.

Did she need him too?

She looked at him, and their eyes met.

“It’s time for me to leave Rael,” she said.