The Consort Read online

  Someone clamped fingers over her nose.

  “Drink this,” said the other voice.

  Not Dean.

  He hadn’t said a word since she called out to him. How could I think he would? When she had been implicated in killing his father and mother. When he had trusted her, and then his world had shattered. Even if she’d had no knowledge of Maelia’s actions…she had brought Maelia to the island capital city of Eleysia. She had brought Affiliates to their homeland for the first time in years when they were banned from the city, and in turn, she had brought death.

  Liquid was forced down her mouth, and she swallowed to keep from drowning on the potion. She choked and sputtered, but he didn’t stop until she finished. Then, when he was through, he finally released her.

  She tried to move. Tried to think. Tried to grasp at the fleeting memories that hovered at the front of her mind. But whatever she had been thinking before, whatever grief had hit her full in the chest, was dissolving.

  For a moment, she mourned the loss of her mind. In the next, she was thankful for the sedative to numb the pain…to numb her from the world. Because a part of her did not want to live in it anymore.

  Sunlight.

  Just a small stream.

  Cyrene felt it on her skin, bright like a beacon on the sea. It warmed her face, pushing away the darkness, calling to her.

  Light.

  Not the absence of darkness but its playmate. Always reaching out to grasp the other, to hold it for a few more seconds each day. Constantly chasing. An endless game of tug-of-war. For, without one…how could there be an appreciation for the other?

  Cyrene shucked off the darkness like a heavy blanket. She peeled it back from her head where it’d lain on her eyes, down her body, and all the way to her feet until she felt the weight of it release her. Though her heart remained heavy, whatever had held her underwater no longer remained. She must have burned it off with fever, for her skin was clammy. Her neck still slick with sweat.

  Slowly, she opened her weary eyes and raised one dark blue eye up to the shaft of light breaching her prison cell. Her pupil shuttered to a mere pinprick. Warmth infused her, and she drank it up, letting it fill her to the brim.

  No more.

  She’d had enough.

  She refused to ever feel so weak again. To ever let someone force her into nothingness. To ever have to claw her way back to sanity.

  Even if she no longer knew which way was up or down, where her heart lay, or the bleakness of the road ahead, she knew that she was not weak. She had never been weak. She would never be weak.

  And Dean had made a grave error in believing her to be so. To bringing her to her knees in such a manner.

  With trepidation she hated feeling, she eased onto one elbow and took a shuddering breath. And then another. She was alive. That was what mattered right now. They hadn’t killed her without a proper trial, like Maelia. Though…Maelia’s crimes had been evident. Blood on her hands.

  Cyrene snapped her eyes shut and curled in on herself again.

  Blood. Creator. Blood.

  How had I let this happen? How hadn’t I seen what my friend intended? She had seen the effortlessness of the way Maelia held a sword but assumed it had come from the training of having two Captains of the Guard as parents. Maelia never confirmed or denied that. She had seen the way Maelia blended into crowds so seamlessly that no one remembered seeing her, but Cyrene had just thought people had shoddy memories. She should have seen the fierceness hidden under the meek girl she had known as her friend. Should have known the deception that would follow. The assassin waiting to strike in their midst.

  She shuddered once more at the thought and then let it slide to the back of her mind. She couldn’t process it all yet. Slowly, she moved into a sitting position with her back against the rock wall and looked around.

  She was in a dark prison cell. Alone. She had been knocked out and drugged to keep her from accessing her magic. She should not have been awake. That much, she knew.

  Dreamily, she remembered the other person saying they had given her a stronger dose. A sedative, she assumed. But what could numb me so completely? What could cut me off from my powers…from myself?

  A question for another time. First things first, she needed to find out how long she had been down here and how to get out. It couldn’t have been that long, or she would have already stood trial…or been killed. Surely, the Eleysian court would be calling for her head.

  The prince’s betrothed had turned traitor in the course of an afternoon. Uproar and commotion and fire and brimstone. She was no longer their prized and cherished soon-to-be princess, as she had been for that one glorious afternoon.

  So, why am I here still?

  Dean.

  She crushed the idea. No. Dean would not save her. The way he had looked at her. No, she doubted very much that Dean cared whether or not she lost her pretty head.

  But the weight on her finger held her fast.

  Why had he not removed my engagement ring? The exquisite stone glinted up at her in the meager light. If he truly did not care for her life, then this should be gone. But she didn’t know the answer to that question. To any of her questions.

  Cyrene ran trembling fingers through her matted hair and tried to find some semblance of her old self. The proud, honorable girl who would bring on a hurricane to stay with the man she loved, who would stop it to save his life. A piece of that girl had broken off while she lay on the prison cell floor.

  Love was foolish and weak.

  Love was destruction.

  Love was utter ruin.

  Pride, honor, power, control. These things were worth cultivating. Worth living and dying for.

  She knew that now, where she had not known it before. Things would be different this time.

  Cyrene heard the stomping of boots as they came down the dusty hallway, toward her cell. Keys clattered against a man’s leg. But a fresh smell breezed toward her—lumber and soap and sandalwood. A scent she would remember anywhere. Dean.

  But is he coming to try to subdue me again or to take me away?

  She hurried to her feet and casually leaned back against the opposite wall. She picked at the sand and grime that had caked under her fingernails and strove for nonchalance.

  When Dean finally reached her cell door, he startled in surprise at finding her standing and clearly coherent. She didn’t look up, but she could just make out his appearance from the edge of her peripheral vision. He looked haggard and worn. Though he was clean, his clothes were rumpled. Mud caked his boots. This was not a man who had been at ease since his parents’ tragic deaths. If she was not so furious, she would have felt sympathy. Instead, she felt nothing.

  “You’re awake,” he said hoarsely.

  “How astute of you,” she bit out.

  “You…you aren’t…”

  “Clearly, I’m not supposed to be awake, yet I am.”

  His eyes bore into her so fiercely, it was nearly impossible to avoid his gaze, but she didn’t look up. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

  “Cyrene, I…”

  “When is my trial?” she snapped.

  “Your trial?”

  She sighed and gave in, looking up into his piercing eyes and immediately wishing she hadn’t. He was gorgeous. Her stomach fluttered to life, and she cursed her heart for yearning for him.

  “Yes. You accused me of a crime. I’m to stand trial to plead my case,” she said slowly, as if he were dim-witted.

  “You won’t stand trial.”

  “Excuse me?” She straightened considerably, giving off the practiced air of royalty.

  Dean didn’t shrink from it, of course. He actually was royal and had been raised as such. The youngest and only son of the king and queen of Eleysia. Eleven older sisters—a fact he knew all too well since he would never be in line for the throne of the queendom.

  “You’re too dangerous to stand trial. We’re keeping you imprisoned until we decide what to d
o with you,” he said simply.

  Cyrene’s stomach roiled. How dare they! “And how long have I been imprisoned thus far?”

  He looked sheepish. “Two weeks.”

  Two weeks. She’d lost two weeks to that sleeping draught. Two weeks without Maelia. Two weeks without knowing what was coming next and where her friends were. Without her powers, which she still couldn’t access, Avoca couldn’t reach her through their magical bond. When she and Avoca had been bound together, it gave them the power to intertwine their magic as well as provided them with a tether to the other person. But the tether was silent, as were her abilities.

  And she had sent her friends Ahlvie and Orden back to Byern to deliver a letter to King Edric, who had been prepared to send an army to Eleysia to retrieve Cyrene. She’d thought the letter would stall Edric from doing anything rash, but if not, she had believed the storms would keep him away. Now, in her current predicament, she wasn’t sure what would be worse—Edric coming for her or abandoning her.

  “Two weeks,” she finally intoned, her voice flat. “You’ve held me captive and drugged with no trial for two weeks.”

  His face seemed to harden at that as he remembered where he was. “Yes. And we will keep you here longer until we figure out what to do with you.”

  “What to do with me,” she repeated.

  “You were an accomplice to murder!”

  Cyrene stretched a slow catlike smile onto her face. She had been with Dean for months. They had met in the Aurum woods with neither the wiser of who the other was. He had not been a prince in that moment, and she, not a Byern Affiliate that he would have otherwise despised. He had completely accepted her, trusted her, believed in her…loved her. And, now, with that one horrible sentence, everything fell apart.

  “And you smile,” he spat as anger suffused him.

  “Do you truly believe that?” she asked calmly.

  “What else am I to believe? You invaded my country, waited out your time until you had our complete trust, and then sent an assassin in to do your dirty work. Affiliates were never welcome in Eleysia. Now, I understand why.”

  “You’re a fool.”

  “She claims I’m the fool!” he cried, throwing his hands out in frustration and turning from her. He ran a shaky hand back through his hair and then solemnly looked back at her. “Yes, perhaps I am a fool…for loving you.”

  Cyrene swallowed, refusing to wince at the accusation, even as her heart ached. With considerable effort, she straightened and walked as steadily as possible toward Dean.

  “Cyrene…do not take another step closer,” he warned.

  “Or what?”

  If she had her magic, there would be nothing he could do to her. He wasn’t quick enough to subdue her again. He had only been successful the first time because she had been so shocked when she heard of the murders and Maelia’s involvement. But she was not going to let him know that she couldn’t access her powers. Whatever was in that potion had definitely dampened her innate ability…or else…

  No. She didn’t want to think of the other possibility. That she might have burned out her powers entirely.

  “Cyrene,” he growled out again.

  She stepped right up to the iron gate that separated them. His scent was even stronger there. She just wanted to bury her face into his shoulder and hold him. The strain and pain and grief were evident in the lines of his youthful face. Something primal in her woke up at his nearness. She needed to keep herself in control. He had put her behind these bars after all.

  Cyrene slowly reached out and tenderly touched his cheek. He flinched but let her touch him. She dragged the pads of her fingers down his cheek and curved toward his mouth. Her thumb stroked across his lower lip, and he took a sharp breath before taking a step backward.

  “Think,” she whispered, her hand still outstretched toward him. “Just think, Dean. You know what I’m capable of. Why would I have sent an assassin to do my dirty work? Why would I’ve even bothered? Why wait months in Eleysia when I could have done the job by the Eos holiday and returned home, if that were the plan? Why would I have agreed to marry you, made love to you after the betrothal, and then saved you from certain death on the water? Why would I have allowed you to incapacitate me in the first place if I had known what I would be returning to that day?”

  Dean never responded. He just stood there, captivated by her ocean-blue eyes, and she dropped her hand.

  She sighed heavily. “If you truly believe that I had a hand in this, take me to trial right now. Prove my guilt.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “And why not?” she growled, unable to keep the bitter anger from her voice.

  His eyes locked on hers, and she saw something soften and then harden once more before he said, “Because you are safer in there.”

  Cyrene laughed hoarsely. “Safer? In a prison cell?”

  “My sister…Queen Brigette needs no proof of your guilt. She will try you before the council and sentence your death without blinking an eye.”

  “So, you have left me in here to rot?”

  “I have left you in here to live.”

  Cyrene shook her head. “This is no life.”

  With a flourish, Dean produced a small green vial from the inside of his jacket pocket. Cyrene recoiled. She hated to admit that the thought of another potion frightened her. She knew that her abilities fought off illness and injuries at an alarmingly fast rate, which was likely how she had been able to rid her body of the potion that had knocked her out. But that didn’t mean it didn’t scare her that something like that was even possible.

  “Drink this,” he commanded, shoving it toward her.

  “I will not.”

  “Cyrene, don’t be so difficult.”

  “I will not drink another thing you give me unless I see you drink it first,” she spat.

  “Just drink it!”

  “Let me stand trial,” she shot back.

  “If you stand trial, you will die.”

  “Wouldn’t that make you happy?”

  His anguish was clear in that moment, but he didn’t respond. He slowly bent down and placed the green vial on the floor of the prison cell. “Drink the vial. Don’t drink the vial. It’s up to you, Cyrene. But make up your mind before the moon rises full tonight.”

  Dean took a step back and then another before turning and striding away.

  “Or what?” she called out to him.

  But he didn’t respond. He just kept walking.

  Whatever semblance of control she had been holding on to left her as his footsteps echoed softly down the hall and then disappeared entirely. She slammed her hands against the iron grate and wrenched at the door. She pulled and tugged and pushed and kicked at it, desperate for something, anything to happen.

  Just get out of the way.

  The last time she had been trapped, she had used her magic to burst through the door and knocked down several stone walls past the door. No such luck today. At the time, Dean’s sister Alise had left her alone in a locked room. Alise had hated Cyrene for her happiness with Dean, for Alise was in love with a man she was not allowed to marry. A commoner turned military rival of Dean’s. Robard.

  At the memory of Robard, the life left Cyrene.

  Because it was not just the king and queen and Maelia whose lives had been forfeited that day two weeks ago; Robard had died, too. No, not died. Killed. Dean had killed him.

  Robard had snuck aboard the vessel where she and Dean were celebrating their engagement. Robard had intended to kill them that day, out of jealousy or spite. She would never truly know what his insane motivations had been. All she knew was that, when he had attacked, Dean had not hesitated in taking down his friend.

  And worse…Cyrene had felt the magic in Robard’s blood call to her. She shivered at the thought. Even in her bedraggled state, bereft of her own magic, she could distinctly remember the dark call. She didn’t know what it meant that dark magic sang to her.

  Had I been
so weak after starting and attempting to stop a hurricane in the span of an hour? Or did I truly long for that?

  Her mind turned to what she had seen in her fever dream after halting the hurricane and passing out. Two thousand years ago, Viktor Dremylon had overthrown the evil Doma court and their leader, Domina Serafina. At least, that was the story Cyrene had been told all her life. Now, she knew that Viktor and Serafina not only had loved each other greatly, been separated because Serafina had magic and Viktor did not, but that they had also performed a Creator-cursed act. Together, they had slit the throat of Viktor’s firstborn child and used the strong blood magic to bind themselves together for all of eternity.

  Like called to like. A magical and nonmagical person could never be bound officially, as Cyrene and Avoca had been bound. But using dark magic to perform the ceremony and entangling the pure, untainted Doma magic with blood magic was unthinkable.

  Had that driven Viktor to kill Serafina? Was that how he had defeated the most powerful ruler in all of history?

  Cyrene’s head spun, and she slowly lowered herself to the hard stone floor. She had not fully recovered yet, and she was pushing herself.

  Her eyes darted to the green vial. It seemed so inconsequential. It could kill her. Poison.

  It seemed beneath Dean. He’d had the opportunity to kill her, and he hadn’t. For two weeks, he had kept her alive and safe…albeit imprisoned and incapacitated.

  She mulled over his words. He’d accused her of being an accomplice to murder in one breath, and in the next, he’d claimed she was safer where she was.

  So, which is it? Am I a danger to the throne—a traitor and an assassin? Or am I someone to be kept safe—alive and healthy?

  Cyrene palmed the vial. She considered it like an enemy would. Am I an enemy to be disposed of?

  No. If she were an enemy, they would want it to be public. This vial was a way out. It would be too easy like this. They would want to make a spectacle of her. Like they had with Maelia. She knew that much.

  But she didn’t know why Dean had given this to her. Had he planned to give it to me himself but hadn’t been able to because I was awake?