Page 64 of Blood King, Part I (Crowns #4)

Chapter fifty

Cyrus drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly.

He wasn’t sure if he was relieved in his decision, or disappointed in himself.

He’d intended to order Jaem to kill Bravat.

The out-of-control fighter now posed too great a risk to Rael, and he was killing innocents, which he’d been doing for some time.

It soured Cyrus’s stomach, even if they were innocents under his brother’s protection, which he was inclined to subvert.

It would be a suicide task for Jaem. After he killed Bravat, assuming he could, Bravat’s men would kill him. And if he couldn’t, Bravat would kill him himself, then Bravat would be even more dangerous.

As Cyrus heard Jaem’s voice in his mind, running down his updates, he found himself unable to give the command, unable to ask this of his friend. His brother.

Jaem would do it. He’d do it without question.

But Cyrus couldn’t ask him.

Now, afterward, he was left twisted in relief and frustration with himself.

He needed to get this under control, just as he needed to get the growing disquiet of his people under control.

They called for action against Serra and had now started various protests through the capital, with a vocal few delivering quite passionate orations to rile people even further.

He needed to discuss it with Everan, but first, there was something else he had to do. He gave an awkward knock on the chamber door with his elbow.

As Essandra opened it, her eyes widened. He held the blood vials out for her in his linen-wrapped hands.

She blinked. “What is all this?” she asked.

“It’s several days’ worth, but I know you go through it quickly. I’ll have it delivered to you regularly. You’ll never be without.”

“That’s…” She shook her head as if unsure what to say. “I mean, is that really practical?”

When had he cared about practical? “I’ll make sure you always have it.” He held out the vials, and slowly, she took them.

Her hand brushed his as she gathered them, and she paused, letting it linger. “You never question me about what I use the blood for,” she said.

“Do you want me to?”

She shook her head. “No.”

He nodded. “All right, then.”

She stood, holding the vials.

He stood, looking at her holding the vials.

“I’ll leave you,” he said finally. “I just wanted you to have it.” He turned to go.

“I don’t just use it for spells,” she said. “I use it to see them. It helps me remember.”

He paused, turning back. There was a space of quiet. Then he asked, “Your mother and your sister?”

Her gaze dropped, but she nodded. “I use the power to unlock old memories—things forgotten.”

“Can you show them to me?” He regretted the words as soon as they left his tongue. It was too private. “I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “You don’t have to do that.”

“Do you want to see them?” she asked softly.

Her invitation caught him by surprise. “It would be a privilege.”

Essandra opened the chamber door wider, letting him in, and he stepped inside. Carefully, she laid the vials on a side table, save one, and moved to the settee by the window.

“We should sit,” she said.

Cyrus sat down beside her, shifting to face her. His heart beat heavily in his chest. He was nervous. No, not nervous, but… something.

She handed him the vial.

She could have opened it herself, used the blood inside it herself. But allowing him to take it, allowing him to touch it to her skin…

He took her hand in his, using his thumb to press a drop of blood to her palm. She closed her eyes, and he did too. He didn’t release her hand.

Cyrus followed the call of his blood, and Essandra let him into her mind. She brought him into the center of a village. There were people all around them, working, bustling about.

A group of young girls held hands, skipping in a circle. A man walked by a few paces away with a bundle of firewood on his shoulder.

“ I’d forgotten what all of this looked like, ” she told him. “ So long I’d seen it in ruin. But now… ”

Her words trailed off. She smiled as a boy carried by two sloshing buckets of water.

“ This way, ” she said, and led him down the center street to a side street of houses.

They came to a house on the end, with a small garden. As they drew nearer, Cyrus saw a woman working between the rows of green. She was only a little older than him, no more than ten years his senior, with a young girl beside her—twelve maybe, or thirteen.

Essandra walked toward the garden, her eyes fixed on them, and stopped at the edge, watching them.

“ Aren’t they beautiful? ” she whispered.

The woman turned, and as Cyrus got a better look at her face, he stilled. He’d seen her before. His eyes darted around him. This village…

And suddenly, he remembered—the dream, the vision—the only vision he’d ever been able to hear. This was where it had been.

“ Is something wrong? ” she asked.

“ No, ” he said quickly.

Essandra looked back out at the garden. “ My father died when my sister and I were barely walking. I tried to uncover memories of him, but they’re too far gone.

I was too young. My mother raised us. ” She smiled sadly.

“ She was an amazing woman. She always knew what to do. ” Her eyes welled.

“ Teron said I can only pick one, but how can I choose between them? ”

She wiped a tear that had spilled down her cheek.

“ I know my mother would have me choose my sister. And I love Indira, more than anything. But my mother—she made me feel safe. She made me strong. I need her. I know it’s selfish, but I need her.

I miss her so much. ” She hugged herself.

“ To be able to see her like this again has been such a gift. I just wish that she could see me too. I wish I could hug her. Feel her. ” Essandra’s lip trembled.

“ Sometimes, I just need my mother. ” She covered her mouth to silence her cry.

Cyrus looked back out at Essandra’s mother and sister in the garden. This was a memory. He wished he had the power to manipulate the image of a memory.

Maybe he did…

He channeled his focus, studying the memory, then slowly started replacing its pieces with copies of his own making, though they weren’t perfect. Essandra glanced around, sensing the change.

“ What is that? ” she asked.

Piece by piece, he replaced it with his own re-creation, to something he could control.

She took a step back. “ Is that you? Are you doing something? ”

Piece by piece.

She took another step back. “ Cyrus. ”

It wasn’t real. Could she see through it? Piece by piece. Person by person. Would she hate him for doing this? He wavered slightly.

“ Cyrus, ” she said again, her voice laced with alarm. She grabbed his arm. “ Whatever you’re doing, stop! ”

But then she froze as her mother stood from the garden and looked straight at her. Essandra stared at her, and she sucked in a ragged breath. She took a step back. “ Can she see me? ” she whispered, her breath quaking.

He pulled the image of her mother forward, into a slow walk toward Essandra. He lit the woman’s face with a look of joy, a look of love—one that he’d wished he’d seen from his own mother.

“ Can she see me? ” Essandra asked again, more desperate now.

He didn’t want to lie. Fortunately, she didn’t give him the chance. Essandra stumbled forward, toward her mother, practically running as she let out a cry.

And Cyrus poured everything he had into the woman. All his power, all his energy. More than a vision , he willed. It wasn’t enough for Essandra to see; he wanted her to feel. She had to feel.

It had to be real.

He’d make it real.

Everything he had, he gave, channeling every scrap of will.

And he knew he’d done it as Essandra threw her arms around her mother and sobbed. They clung to each other.

Cyrus was quickly losing strength. He felt himself weakening, but he forced himself to hold. Just a little more time. But he couldn’t. The vision started to fade.

Essandra stumbled back and snapped her eyes to him. “ Cyrus! ” she said in alarm.

He shook his head, breathing heavily. “ I’m sorry, I can’t hold it. ”

“ Let it go. ”

Just a little bit longer…

“ Let it go! ”

He released the vision, opening his eyes back in her chamber. Blood spilled from his nose, and he wavered to the side.

She grabbed his arm, catching him. “Cyrus!”

“I’m fine.” He tried to blink back the darkness closing in.

He just needed a minute.

When he opened his eyes again, he was lying on his back. Confusion flooded him as he focused his vision on the beams of the ceiling.

His beams. His ceiling.

His chamber.

How… What…

Cyrus pushed himself up. He was in his bed. Sun poured through the window. The room was quiet around him. He was alone.

The door to his chamber opened, and Visa swept in with a plate of food in one hand and a carafe in the other.

“Oh, you’re awake!” she said when she saw him.

“What’s going on?” he asked her. “What happened?”

“Essandra will be back shortly,” she told him. “She was waiting in here with you, but she was an absolute mess. I sent her to clean up.”

“But what happened?” he asked again.

“She said you overexerted yourself. She said if you woke up, you needed to eat”—she lifted the plate—“and drink”—she lifted the carafe.

“I’m not hungry.” He pushed off the thin sheet covering him.

“No,” Visa said firmly, setting the carafe down on the side table and moving to the bed to keep him from getting out. She pushed the plate into his hands. “You can’t get up until you eat all of this.”

“But I’m not—”

“Eat, Cyrus,” she ordered.

Fine. He snapped up an apple and took a bite in irritation. She pursed her lips into a satisfied smile, then bustled around the room, straightening it.

The door opened again, and Essandra stepped inside.

Visa paused. “He just woke,” she told her.

Essandra perked as her eyes found him. “How are you feeling?” she asked.

“Fine,” he said. Fine enough. “How did I get here?”

“Aaron and Amiel carried you.”

That was… great. More people seeing him weak.

“I’ll leave you two,” Visa said, and she slipped out of the room.

Cyrus promptly set his plate down on the bedside table.

“No, eat that,” Essandra said.

He stifled a growl.

She moved to the far corner of the bed and sat down, her eyes on him.

They both stayed for a moment, neither sure of what to say first.

“I don’t know how you did that,” she said finally, “with my mother. But thank you.”

It was a relief she wasn’t angry at him. He’d been a little worried she would be.

“How did you make me feel her?” she asked.

His mind scrambled to remember everything. “Honestly, I don’t know.”

“It triggered more memories,” she said softly, “ones I’m not sure I would have recovered otherwise. Feeling her. Holding on to her.” Her eyes teared, and she blinked them back.

“I’m glad.”

She gave a sad smile. “It’s so easy to forget.”

“I know.”

“Do you remember much of your mother?”

He shifted.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t know what I was thinking. You don’t have to answer that. I know you don’t want to talk about her.”

She rose and moved to the carafe on the table, filling a cup. She brought it to him.

“Are you thirsty?”

He was, but as he took the cup, he paused.

“I killed my mother,” he said, a whisper so faint he wasn’t sure he’d truly spoken it.

She stopped. So did her breaths.

“She left me to die,” he said. “Alone in the dead of winter.”

His voice didn’t sound like his own.

“She said I was cursed,” he told her. “Evil.” It had been a long time since he’d let himself remember. Really remember. “She thought the cold would finish me.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “That would have been a mercy.”

He felt her eyes on him, but he couldn’t look at her as he spoke.

“She was the only person I didn’t need the blood to travel to.

I threw my mind after her. I begged her to come back.

I begged her to save me. Not to leave me.

” The backs of his eyes stung. “I told her I loved her.” That was the shame that still crushed him, shame that it had been true.

After everything she’d said to him, everything she’d done to him, he’d still loved her.

“I told her I wouldn’t do it anymore. That I’d be a good son.

” He wiped the corner of his eye. “But she only screamed at me to stop haunting her.” A silent sob racked him.

“I tried. Over the next year. I tried to stop. But sometimes I’d think that maybe she’d changed her mind.

” His voice dropped to a whisper. “I’d travel back.

” He shook his head. “She never changed her mind. In fact, eventually she took her life to get away from me.” He swallowed down the knot that threatened to choke him.

He’d never told anyone that. “I killed her.”

Cyrus finally dared to look at Essandra.

Her breaths were short and shallow.

“I suppose that does make me evil,” he said quietly.

She shook her head. “You’re not evil,” she whispered. “You’re one of the best men I know.”

His eyes darted to hers. He hadn’t been fishing for reassurance, but it felt good to hear it. Surprisingly good. He gave a soft chuff at the weight that fell from his shoulders.

Essandra sat slowly on the end corner of the bed again. “I’ve been thinking more about the bloodline bond.”

He wasn’t sure what she meant. “The what?”

“The bond we discussed, between witches and seers.”

“Oh.” He nodded. “Right.” He wouldn’t have called it a discussion.

Her throat bobbed. “I think I want to do it.”

He let himself lean back against the headboard. “Are you sure?”

She nodded.

“What made you change your mind?”

She drew in a long breath and cast her gaze down. “Honestly, because I need it, especially after I leave.”

After I leave.

Her words knifed him. It wasn’t a surprise, so he didn’t know why it felt like one. He knew she’d stayed as long as she had only because she needed his power.

“Also”—her eyes met his again—“I don’t think there’s anything you would do with my power that I wouldn’t do for you. And I trust you, Cyrus.”

He trusted her too, but he’d be giving her the ability to leave him. He sighed. He didn’t want his power to be the reason she stayed.

“Do it,” he said.