Page 50 of City of Snakes (Legends of Henosis #2)

Chapter 49

Sybilla

W e dispersed to make preparations to approach Caym with reinforcements.

Asterie, Wyeth and Fen returned to Luz, bringing Hurley along with them. Cassidee set off for the East Corridor to consult King and Queen Nadiar. Amara Egressed to Eros to oversee the crowning of the young heir to the South Corridor and to keep things there in order.

Krait, Elsedora, Ryn and I lingered in the dining hall, wordless and tired.

Krait finally broke the silence. “We’ll leave for Sahlmkar tomorrow. Ryn, I’m sending you ahead of us to prepare the flat.” Giving no further context, he rose and stepped out of the room. He took a left. Undoubtedly, he’d go to the bell tower.

I squashed my urge to follow him.

Ryn stood and stepped around the table before planting a kiss on top of Elsedora’s head and exiting. I’d forced him to tell a horrid truth, yet his dismissal still hurt.

El released a deep breath. “I want us to be right about the Sethe curse—that it will be enough to delay Caym, that he won’t get hold of Isolde’s power again.”

“But you don’t think we are right?”

She grimaced and shook her head. “Something feels unsettling. Like we’ve missed a crucial detail.”

I rose from my chair, suddenly feeling the weight of the day’s events. My joints ached, my head hurt and my heart felt like a heavy, useless weight in my chest. “You’ll watch over Emmerick—make sure that he is treated well while I’m gone?”

Elsedora offered a sad smile. “Of course. Your guard dog is safe with me.”

“And don’t kill Firose. There is more to her than her actions against Fen and the realms.”

That sentiment was met with an eye roll and a reluctant nod.

When I unlocked the cell door, Firose was sleeping fitfully in a cot. Emmerick sat on the ground with his back resting against the wall, facing her, sipping from a wooden cup of water. They both looked cleaner in their fresh linen tunics and breeches. Buckets and rags sat discarded in the corner.

Em’s attention caught on me. I walked with tender steps and lowered myself, with a grimace, to sit shoulder to shoulder with him.

With a frown, he watched me rub my wrists.

In my youth, we’d used to sit this way atop the palace walls when I’d skirted my guards. Peeking over the edge, we would joke and make up stories about people in the bailey below. Now, together we faced the inside of a dark cell and the woman who’d once tried to kill me.

“I’m sorry you must stay down here,” I whispered.

He shook his head. “It’s for the best.”

I let my head roll in his direction against the stone. “Are you alright?”

The corners of his lips turned up. All the light in his warm brown eyes had extinguished. “I’ve been better,” he answered and rubbed the magic-binding cuffs on his wrists. “You look well.”

I stifled a laugh. “No, I don’t. But I appreciate the lie.”

He shrugged in a downright playful manner and said, “I’m happy to see you, nonetheless.”

There he was.

I breathed out, “I’m so sorry, Em.”

“For what exactly?”

He was going to make me say it. Damn him. “You saw me through everything—always protecting me. You were my person for so long that, somewhere along the way, I forgot to let you be anything else. It was easier to keep you. I have been a selfish, terrible friend.”

His brow furrowed. “I wanted to be there for you. I loved you.”

Loved.

The word shouldn’t have cut.

“I wasn’t worthy of it. I let you watch as I almost married others, as I banished my feelings for you to the confines of privacy. I resented and punished you for not agreeing to run away with me when it was in neither of our best interests...”

“I think we were too young and inexperienced to know how to put each other’s best interests first,” he said with a sigh.

Then, he leaned down to touch his forehead to mine.

His body tensed slightly when he asked, “Do you love him?”

I held my breath.

Yes.

“Maybe.” Admitting it to him first felt wrong.

He rubbed my shoulder. “I have only ever wanted to see you happy, Syb.” Tears swelled, slipping down my cheeks.

As he backed away and dragged his thumb across my wet cheek, he added, “I hate to admit that, of all the matches I’ve seen you almost make, this one seems the most genuine. Even if it means losing you.”

“None of it is real. We’ll have an heir and then be mostly estranged. Love wasn’t on the table for me.”

He met my gaze with a hard stare of disbelief that made me question my own words. “When you were sick, he came looking for a way to help you. I have never seen a man more frayed at the seams. If that isn’t real, or love, then I don’t know what is.”

I reached for his hand and squeezed it. “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t need to apologize for where your heart is, Sybilla. I’ve held onto an idea of you that was unfair.” He ran his thumb over my stiff knuckles. “Is he good to you?”

It took all my self-control not to snort. Yet when I looked ahead, I couldn’t imagine life away from Krait. “He is good for me. He challenges me—infuriates me—so much.”

Em nodded. “Stop giving him reasons to infuriate you so much.”

“Rude,” I huffed out. “And completely unrealistic.”

He smirked, and Firose stirred but did not wake.

I wished that I could still love a man like Emmerick—loyal, bighearted, open with his emotions. Instead, I’d fallen for a man who thought the worst of me, guarded his emotions and remained elusive.

“I am going to be traveling to acquire some new resources against Caym. Our hope is that we can find one of the other envoys alone and put them under the Sethe curse…but if we cannot, or if he gets to you first…”

He nodded. “Then you have to place it on me.”

“Yes. We will only resort to putting you under it as a last resort. Because there is no known way to reverse it.” My voice cracked. “We’ll need to specify a timeline to break the curse.”

“Then promise me something.”

“Conditions?” I whispered with a raised brow. “Have I rubbed off on you?”

“Yes. This time I have one.” He offered me a weak smile and said, “If it comes to it, don’t let them curse me to sleep longer than my parents’ lifetimes. If I had to wake up without them…”

At that, I embraced him, burying my face in his fresh tunic.

“I promise, Em.”

Maybe it made me a fool to trust a man who had shown me nothing but betrayal in the past few months. But I knew Emmerick’s heart was still in there, somewhere behind Caym’s treachery.

The boy I’d climbed trees with, the Knight who’d protected me through my formative years, the Constable who’d stood by my side— he was here.

So long as he breathed, I wouldn’t believe there wasn’t a way to break through the darkness to get him back.