Page 20

CYRUS

A week passes. Cyrus returns to his nest. He can’t bear to sleep in the barracks anymore. He stuffs the copied ledgers and his crooked diagram into a hole there.

His nest is barely more than a crack in the wall behind a dusty tapestry, deep in the heart of Mount Hythe’s abandoned library—a hole he’s hollowed out and lined with old clothes and bits of fur. It should be comforting. Safe. With the Court in an uproar, General Leuther has Magnus running around to do his bidding, leaving him with no time to hunt Cyrus down. Cyrus should be relieved. Instead he’s so lonely that the solitary curve of the walls hurts.

The itching deep within becomes an ache, becomes a stabbing pain that plagues him constantly. His foolish body believes it’s been betrayed. Mezor doesn’t owe him anything just because they spent his heat locked in passion. Still part of him rages at the unfairness of it.

Four meetings.

He promised.

Slowly, the pain grows to encompass his whole being. He can barely crawl out of his nest to do his duties.

Then he stops leaving.

I might die , he thinks distantly, stroking the smooth walls in his delirium. They’re warm, as if alive, but it’s only from his own body heat. Is this the end?

If he dies, he hopes Ekko will forgive him for broken promises.