40. Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty

Tovi

R iven stood over a small dusty bed.

A canopy made of tulle had been eaten by moths and was dotted with tattered holes like windows to the golden threaded quilt beyond. Untouched for centuries, the bed held the memory of the brightest joy Drystan Castle had ever known. Stars and constellations shined through the dust, reminding Tovi what her brother had called his son.

My whole universe.

It hurt. No memory, no reminder, no thought of her nephew ever undid the guilt of what she’d done. Not his bright smile, his curious thoughts, or bubbly laugh.

For some time, Tovi had suspected her brother had been promised this—to bring back the dead. A promise similar to one their father had been granted with their mother. And yet, Tovi hadn’t said it out loud, as if whispering the words on the wind gave the possibility power. She also hadn’t wanted to face the sickening truth. Riven would not yearn for his wife and child if she hadn’t been so selfish. Her own mistake threatened to destroy their homeland.

“You’re a fool if you think she’ll bring them back, Riven. She won’t,” Tovi whispered from her hiding place.

Riven didn’t flinch, didn’t give any indication she’d spooked him at all. “You don’t know that.” He trailed a bony finger across the bed’s dusty frame.

“Riven.” She emerged from behind the curtain, saying his name like a plea. “You know she’s manipulative. She did it to Father and all of us.”

“She’s shown me them, Tovi,” Riven said, still not looking at her.

“It isn’t real.”

He whipped his attention towards her. “What if it is?”

“Is it worth destroying our homeland, our people for?”

“You wouldn’t understand. You’ve never loved anyone.”

Tovi clutched her chest as if a dagger had pierced her heart. She set her shoulders back, stretching against the hurt of his words.

“That isn’t true. I loved them, too. I still love you, after everything.”

Riven tsked. “You didn’t love them. If you had, you wouldn’t have forgotten about them, and they wouldn’t have died.”

Tovi shut her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

Her apology shuddered out of her. She’d already said it so many times. Even then, when she’d been a terrible version of herself, her heart had broken for her sister-in-law and nephew. She’d never meant to hurt them. Never meant to fail them. “I can’t undo what I did. I can’t bring them back, and you can’t trust her to do so either.”

Riven remained silent and still, eyes burrowing into his son’s empty bed.

“I don’t trust her,” he whispered. “But I can’t let that get in the way of the slightest chance I can bring them back.”

Tovi tried to find the right words, tried to tread carefully in Riven’s emotional state. “Even if she did bring them back, what’s to say they’ll be the same? Resurrecting the dead is dark magic, Riven. You—”

Riven growled and whirled, prowling towards her. “Aren’t you listening? I don’t care. ”

She did hear him—she saw a lost, heartbroken man poisoned by false hope. Like their father.

“I won’t let you do this,” she said, shoulders back, head held high.

Riven chuckled. “You think freeing Evelyn will stop me? I will hunt her down. I will kill anyone and everyone protecting her. Her blood is mine .”

Bloody hel, he meant it.

The curse, thick and oozy, turned the air humid. It stuck to Tovi’s skin, raising the hairs on the back of her neck. It crept up and up like the beast she’d been afraid to turn and see.

Her brother was lost.

She hadn’t wanted to accept it, that his efforts weren’t to become king and break the curse. That was a fleeting, frivolous goal she could dissuade him of, but she could never ask him to not wish for his wife and son to be alive again. Her soul squeezed for her brother. The divide between them stretched farther than ever before.

As if it agreed, the walls of the castle shook, the canopy above the bed wavered, and Riven had to grasp the bed frame. Tovi crouched into a deeper stance, keeping balance as the tremors continued.

She and her brother’s stares connected, and Tovi leaped as Riven charged. He growled, fangs bared as he chased her through the room.

“She may have escaped, but I won’t let you,” he hissed.

He appeared ahead of her, fast as ever, yet Tovi had always been light on her feet. She sidestepped and jumped, grabbing hold of the curtain as she swung into the window, shoulder first. She barreled through it, letting go of the aged fabric as she met the cold night air. The cracked glass rang with Riven’s monstrous cry.

“Sorry, brother,” she whispered, her farewell filtering into the wind.

Tovi fell, fell, and fell, the last of her emotional connection to her brother snapping as she somersaulted and landed on her feet. The force boomed, dirt ricocheting in a circle. She ran, headed south, not looking back at the home she so desperately wanted to save.