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Chapter Twenty-Three

TANYL

F ire circled my neck like a noose. More fire smoldered in the center of my chest. I was dead.

Surely, I had to be dead. But I was also…rocking.

“Wha…?” I tried to say, the word emerging as a moan. What the fuck is that? Was rocking part of the afterlife?

“Shh,” someone said, and a cool hand covered my forehead. It was so much better than the fire, and I tried to turn into it.

“No,” the voice rumbled. “Don’t move, and don’t try to talk.”

Bossy.

Briar.

I forced my eyes open. He stood above me, a frown between his eyes. Moonlight came from somewhere. It silvered his jaw, which was dark with stubble. He didn't look like he was dead too. He looked solid and real and alive.

“What did I just say?” he mumbled.

The rocking continued, gentle but persistent. And familiar. I lay in a bunk, moonlight streaming over me. Rippling light played over a glossy wooden footboard built into the wall. We were on the water.

The second the thought formed, memories flooded me. The Scarrok attack. The battle. Crispin’s betrayal. Skycleaver punching into my chest—and then slicing into my neck.

“Cunt,” I grunted. He’d tried to steal my throne. Although, perhaps he’d succeeded. And, somehow, Briar had spirited me onto a ship.

A snuffling sound came from behind him. He stiffened, anger glinting in his eyes. I turned my head, clenching my teeth against the agony that followed.

Briar made an exasperated sound and then angled his body so I had a clear view.

Low wooden ceilings. Slanted plank wood walls. Long, rounded windows. I saw none of it. The only thing I saw was Sylvie tied to a chair in the center of the room. She was pale and disheveled, her hair tangled around her shoulders. She wore a man’s white shirt and a pair of trousers. Her feet were bare. Dirt smudged her cheek, which was shiny with dried tears. A fresh tear rolled over the tracks as she held my stare.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

Briar fetched a chair from a glossy round table. He brought it to my side and plunked his ass in it, weariness clinging to him like a second skin. Lamplight flickered as he scrubbed a hand over his face.

I forced myself to wait. Or, rather, the fire forced it. But impatience gathered. Something was wrong , and not just Crispin stealing my throne. Something was wrong with my wife, and I needed answers right fucking now.

“She sabotaged the river gate,” Briar said. “That’s why it wouldn’t shut. She melted the stone and locked the gears in place. She let the Scarrok in.”

Sylvie flinched. Ropes circled her upper body, the length pinning her to the chair. Her wrists were bound in her lap. Her fingers were black.

Puzzle pieces slotted together in my mind. She’d tapped her power, summoning lightning so hot that it cooked her from the inside out. But why? How? How could she do such a thing?

She stared at her fingers, another tear running down her cheek.

And I stared at her, fumbling to understand. My wife. My queen. My beautiful, generous, devoted Sylvie.

“Why?” I rasped, the word like glass in my throat.

Sylvie looked up, and her mouth trembled as more tears tracked down her face. “I did it to free my mother. And to protect the kingdom. The gods spoke. You weren’t meant to rule.”

For a moment, I was too stunned to do more than stare. She’d betrayed me. She’d unleashed death on my people. Our people. And it didn’t make sense. Her mother was dead. I tried to say it, but the fire flared too hot, and the words wouldn’t come.

“Her mother rose,” Briar said, taking pity on me. Leaning forward, he rested a hand on my thigh. And he’d healed me, I realized, using his gift to knit my neck back onto my shoulders. His fingers twitched on my leg as he continued, fatigue in his voice. “Sylvie lied to you. Her father died at the river that day, but her mother became a Scarrok. Crispin hid her away. He used the Old Language to imprison her.”

Sylvie closed her eyes. “I had to help her.” She pressed her lips together. Then she looked at me. “And I had to serve the gods.”

By letting her brother chop my fucking head off? My rage must have showed on my face, because she gasped.

“I swear it wasn’t supposed to happen like this,” she said, her voice rising. “Before we wed, I saw the battle in the godswell. Everything was clear, and it did not end in your death. I swear it, Tanyl. You have to believe me.”

“How did it end, then?” Briar growled.

She drew a shuddering breath. “In the godswell, Skycleaver sliced through Tanyl’s sword. The blade cut his hand, and he bled in the river. Then the Scarrok fell.”

Briar’s bark of laughter bounced off the walls. “A convenient tale.”

“It’s the truth,” Sylvie said, casting him an angry look before turning back to me. “I vow it. In the godswell, Crispin didn’t try to kill you. He broke your sword, he cut your hand, and the river ran red with your blood. The last thing I saw were Perun’s own words spreading across the water. The king must bleed to put the rivers to rest .”

I swallowed, the fire flaring hot. She’d kept this from me. For forty-five years, she’d slept beside me. Arched under me. Ruled with me.

And lied to my face.

She’d pressured me to sit in on Council meetings. She’d pressured me to let her fight, claiming she only wanted to help.

“All lies,” I rasped, anger strengthening my voice. Briar reached for me, but I waved him off. Sorrow hung heavy around my neck, its weight more painful than the fire. I looked at my wife, and I saw a stranger.

“Please believe me,” she whispered. “I love?—”

“No,” I said. “You don’t.”

“I do,” she insisted, straining against the ropes. She leaned forward like she longed to reach me. “I wanted to tell you about the godswell, but I knew you could never give up the throne. For years, I’ve ignored the vision. I pretended it wasn’t real. Because I didn’t want it to be real. My brother pushed, and I didn’t care.”

Briar sat back in his chair. He folded his arms, a look of disgust on his face.

“The festival changed everything,” Sylvie said. “That day in the village showed me that we could be happy without crowns. You could be happy, Tanyl, and you were.” She looked between me and Briar. “The three of us were no one that day, and it was the happiest day of my life. We could do that all the time, the three of us together. We don’t need the throne.”

I stared at her, rage and grief and disbelief warring within me. My throat burned, probably more from unshed tears than from the wound Briar had healed. Sylvie believed her own lies. That somehow betraying our kingdom, letting monsters through our gates, allowing my people to be slaughtered—that this was all for some greater good. For us.

The ropes creaked as she strained against them, her face pleading. “I thought we could slip away during the battle. You would renounce the throne, and Crispin would take it. That’s what the gods wanted.”

“The gods,” I spat, contempt hotter than the fire in my throat. Every word was like a razorblade, but I pushed anyway, my voice like stone scraping against stone. “The gods who told you to betray your husband. Interesting how Perun’s desires align with your brother’s.”

Sylvie blanched. Then she shook her head. “I saw Perun’s words, Tanyl. This has nothing to do with Crispin.”

“I don’t want to hear anymore.”

She leaned harder against her bonds. Moonlight spilled over her, and I realized the dirt on her cheek was a bruise.

“Who struck you?” I demanded.

“I did,” Briar said. His eyes were steady, although his mouth was hard. “She fought when I brought you to the ship. I thought she might still possess enough magic to disable me and lower the gangplank.”

Sylvie made a choking sound. “I would have never done that. Gods, Tanyl, are you even listening?”

Yes. And I’d heard enough. My throat hurt. My chest hurt worse. I brushed my fingers over my sternum.

“The wound isn’t healing,” Briar said quietly. “That blade is no ordinary blade.” He nodded toward the corner. When I followed his gaze, shock tripped through me. Skycleaver leaned against the wall, lanternlight glinting in the metal.

“I took it from Crispin,” Briar added. “And now, I’m taking you to Mistport.”

Another jolt of shock jerked my gaze to his.

“To the Citadel,” he said, sparing me the effort of asking. “You’ll lose your magic when we cross the Covenant, but I don’t see a way around it. I don’t know how to heal you. But I know the rivers. We’ll stick to the less traveled routes, skirting Honeyrock and Newgulch to reach the sea.”

We’d skirt Mudwall, too. The place that had rejected him. It might have broken him. Made him cruel. But it hadn’t. He was gentle. He’d returned to me—and then he saved my life.

“Thank you,” I rasped. I love you.

I didn’t say it. I didn’t need to. But I would when this was over. When everything stopped hurting.

“We’ll show Grand Master Silas the sword,” he said. “No one in Andulum has more magical knowledge. He’ll know what to do.”

Sylvie shifted against the ropes. When I looked at her, she sucked in a breath.

“Tanyl—”

“Enough,” I said.

“But—”

“Enough!” I growled, agony putting tears in my eyes. I blinked them away as I turned my head more on the pillow. The hole in my chest felt like more than a sword wound. It felt like a broken heart.

Sylvie stared at me with parted lips, tears dripping from the bottom of her chin to splash onto her blackened fingers.

I dragged in a pained breath. “For once in your life, obey me.”

She bowed her head.