22. Chapter 22

Chapter 22

T he Kallans knew how to throw a party.

When Cyril left her room the following morning, the palace was deserted. She even got started later than planned—sleep hadn’t come easily—but an eerie quiet hung in the halls on her journey to the dining room a few hours after sunrise.

It almost made her regret not staying longer if the post-dinner revelry had gone late enough that even the early-bird courtiers weren’t ambling about. Then again, with Dion’s premature departure and Mikael’s interest in making himself scarce, she would have been stuck fending for herself in a room full of strangers.

If the rogues’ tenets she so often disregarded were anything to believe, strangers were to always be regarded as untrustworthy, and being alone in that ballroom was equivalent to a death wish.

At least that’s what Ren would have said.

Besides, she was sure someone like Councilor Mathias didn’t get any easier to manage as the night went on.

Cyril ate her breakfast in solitude—something that didn’t bother her in the least—and learned from a patrolling guard that this was typical for the day after a state dinner or holiday. According to a chatty kitchen hand, someone would have come knocking on her door in a couple of hours to see if she wanted a meal and a hangover tonic.

Cyril took a mental note of that for the next time—Summer Solstice was just over a week away and she’d be damned if she wasn’t going to do a bit of celebrating on her favorite holiday.

The stables, at least, had their usual buzz of activity when she arrived there, a steaming mug of tea in hand. At home, Dion always complained about the smell of hay, but Cyril counted it as one of her favorite things about the stables in the morning. It was no different in Reykr.

She was already at Attie’s stall, undoing the latch, when one of the stable hands poked her head down the aisle.

“Good morning, Lady Cyril,” the woman said in the soft, sweet cadence she always spoke with. “Did you not go to the state dinner?”

Cyril had forgotten her name immediately—and her pride wouldn’t let her ask for it again—but she would always remember the calming energy that followed this woman. She was tiny, maybe five feet tall, with braids that brushed her waist and warm, dark brown eyes. There didn’t seem to be a creature in the entire building that didn’t relax a little in her presence.

“I went, but I think everyone else stayed much later than I did.” Cyril smiled and set her mug down on a ledge. Attie was already nudging at her arm, the needy thing she was. “I don’t really know anyone here, so…”

The woman nodded.

“It’s a beautiful morning to ride, at least.” She smiled, taking a step back. “I’ll go get you some apples.”

“Ah, thank you.”

Cyril supposed there were worse reputations to hold than being the Lady who shared a penchant for apples with her horse. Like being the slimy old councilor whose hands had a habit of wandering to places they didn’t belong.

She allowed herself a single second to shudder at the thought of how the night could have gone before she set about hauling out Attie’s tack. Anything to force that lingering feeling of Councilor Mathias’s grasp out of her mind.

Dion always had some philosophical saying about busy hands. She just could never fucking remember it.

The third or fourth time Attie wedged her muzzle under Cyril’s arm while she was checking the fastenings on the bridle, she stepped back and sighed.

“You’re impossible, you know.” Cyril shook her head at the horse and scoffed at the snort she got in response. “I’m serious. Keep up the attitude and I’m not sharing any apples with you in the glen.”

Attie snorted again, and Cyril planted her hands on her hips.

“Fine. It’s your loss, you know, and—”

From behind her, a rasped rendition of a familiar voice asked, “Are you arguing with a horse ?”

Cyril spun around.

Out of all the people she thought she might run into that morning, Prince Mikael was not one of them. Just the faintest glimmer of amusement sparkled through the dark shadows around his eyes. Someone got very little sleep last night.

He looked as rough as his voice sounded.

“What— Why are you here?” She blurted out. Graceful, like usual. “And I wasn’t arguing , I was…scolding.”

A wry smile tugged at his lips, and he cleared his throat.

It did nothing to help his voice.

“Scolding a horse. Right.” Mikael chuckled and pushed off of the stall he’d been leaning against. In his hand? Two apples. “I was told to make myself useful and bring these to the kind Lady Cyril .”

“Thank you.” Cyril tucked them carefully beside a book in the soft canvas bag she’d slung across her shoulders before leaving her room. With a healthy dose of skepticism, she said, “Did you come to ride?”

A wheezed laugh left him, and he leaned his shoulder against the wall.

“Gods, no. Don’t think I’d even make it up on one today.”

He raked a hand through his hair, and Cyril was clearly staring. She hadn’t even realized it wasn’t tied up—the loose, auburn waves hung just about his shoulders, half tucked behind the point of one ear.

Why did she know so many men with such fucking nice hair?

Entirely coincidental on the heels of their conversation the night before, right?

Cyril schooled her appreciative stare into something more appraising and said, “You sound like shit.”

“The lady is generous with her compliments,” the prince chuckled, and his eyes tracked her hands as she pulled her sad, limp braid over her shoulder and toyed with the end. “Truthfully, I feel like it too.”

“So if you’re hungover, and you’re not here to ride...” Cyril said slowly, Mikael nodding along until she stopped.

He blinked, and a sheepish look settled into his face as he rubbed the back of his neck. “ Right . I’m here because I wanted to ask you something.”

Gods, this was painful. She didn’t have the slightest idea what the prince might want to ask her that would involve coming all the way to the stables.

“…Go on.”

“Would you like to join us at the barracks tonight?”

It was Cyril’s turn to blink at him.

“I…don’t see why not?”

“Good.” Mikael grinned and then winced, pressing his fingers to a split on his lip. Cyril didn’t want to know where he got that last night. “Apparently, the others consider you one of us now, and I came under siege for not bringing you yesterday. So…tonight?”

Cyril fought to contain her smile, but her mouth completely betrayed her.

She nodded and agreed, “Tonight.”

A social invitation, under the pretense of people wanting her there?

Cyril had never received one in her life.

For any get-together that happened at the estate, Cyril was just…there. It was her home, after all. And maybe it wasn’t done with malice, but anyone going out of their way to invite or include her was pretty rare. The ones that did, like Bron, seemed to do it solely out of some unspoken obligation.

But this? It felt…nice. Genuine.

“I’ll see you at dinner, then.” Mikael dipped his head as he pushed off the wall and headed back down the aisle. “Enjoy your ride, Lady Cyril .”

Cyril waited until he’d rounded the corner to sigh and unhook Attie’s lead. She had been suspiciously easygoing the entire time the prince was there.

At least Cyril had held her tongue long enough to avoid asking Mikael if the spread of bruises up the side of his neck happened before or after he left the barracks last night.

Why the stables attracted nothing but pain in the ass men, Cyril hadn’t the faintest idea. But Dion was low on the list of people she thought would be standing in the stables when she returned from her ride.

She almost stayed out longer, too, sprawled in the glen’s grass and reading the book Tobias happily loaned to her on the history of Reykr, but her rumbling stomach brought her back.

Dion was chatting with stable master Boone and looked like he’d had a bit of a rough night too. A feat with how fast his ascended body bounced back from ailments—self-inflicted or not.

“I almost sent someone to look for you,” he said with a bit of a weak smile as she cleared the double doors from the trail. His voice sounded as bad as Mikael’s.

“Sorry, I— oh , thank you.” She offered an appreciative nod to Boone as he took Attie’s lead from her hands. “I was reading, lost track of time.”

Dion extended his arm to her and curled it around her shoulders when she stepped over. He kissed the crown of her head and asked, “How fast can you pack a bag? Just for a few nights.”

“ A bag ? A couple minutes, I suppose.” She looked up at him, processing as they started walking out of the stables. “We’re going somewhere?”

“Brynnhold.”

Cyril’s eyes went wide.

She’d wanted to go to the port city ever since they arrived, but Dion shut her down every time she asked him. It hadn’t helped that Bron mentioned it was just like Epheos, Helia’s port city, but bigger and more bustling. Even for all his hate and skepticism of the moon-fae and their lands, he had nothing but praise of the city so far.

And this meant she’d get to see her uncles again, and maybe—

“Don’t look so eager.” Dion’s jaw ticked with tension.

She scoffed. “Why wouldn’t I be eager? It’s a city , and back home, I never—”

“They found another body, Cyr.” Dion was quiet as they passed a couple of stable hands and made it onto the pathway back to the palace.

“Oh.” Cyril slowed, but Dion kept pulling her along.

That put a damper on, well…everything.

“Tyr and Rendal are already out sweeping the city, and Bron joined the guards for some questioning.”

Of course he did.

Bronson was notorious for two things: his ability to smooth talk information out of just about anyone, and his comfort with breaking their bodies in terrifying ways the moment they stopped.

“Everything still needs to be documented though, and you are now the guild's foremost expert in the old language, so…” Dion trailed off, raising a brow at Cyril.

She sighed.

“So I’m going to the city to work?”

“I’m afraid so. I promise we’ll be back for the Summer Solstice, so don’t give me that look.” Cyril schooled that look off her face, even though the quirk in Dion’s lips was hard to miss. “And if we end up with a couple of free hours in the city, I’ll show you around. Alright?”

Cyril grumbled her agreement as they passed through the side doors into the palace. She knew those couple of hours would never happen.

When the foyer came into view, Dion stepped away from her and said, “The scribes were getting a kit ready for you to bring. Go pack up and meet me upstairs.”

The palace was in an unusual amount of disarray when Mikael pulled his slightly less hungover ass out of bed for the second time that day.

Not that he was usually one for naps , but when he realized the feisty nymph that he spent the night with made a departure during his mid-morning absence…well, he didn’t think twice about crawling right back into bed.

Just like he hadn’t thought twice about running after Cyril like a fucking lost puppy while another woman was asleep and naked in his bed. The overabundance of lockmead he put back at the barracks was easy to blame for any of his questionable decisions.

Mikael was halfway down the main stairs when the noise and commotion of the foyer hit him—guards and councilors everywhere . Mumbling and arguing, exchanging worried glances.

Something happened while he was asleep.

His mother’s tired eyes caught him from the base of the stairs, where she was standing and talking with Dion, and she waved him down.

Mikael only caught the last few words of their conversation.

“…days and we’ll be back,” Dion said as he leaned down and kissed Runa’s cheek, giving Mikael a curt nod as he skirted around him and headed up the stairs. Mikael empathized immensely with the dark circles framing the Rogue Master’s eyes.

Runa looked up at Mikael with a weak smile.

It looked like a strong breeze might knock her clean off her feet.

“Did you have a late night, Mother?” he asked, slightly scandalized, with a raised brow.

“Not as late as you did, my boy.” Her voice was full of that sarcastic, scolding tone she was so damn good at. “I went to the barracks looking for you this morning, but Ari seemed convinced you wouldn’t be coming up for air for a few days.”

Mikael rubbed his brow.

Hopefully, that was all they saw fit to tell her about last night’s activities.

“Were you drowning your sorrows?”

“Something like that.” He opened his mouth and glanced around the foyer’s chaos before he turned back to his mother. “What in the hells did I miss?”

Runa’s sigh was palpable.

“Another body in Brynnhold. Just like the others. And it was…public.”

Well, fuck.

“Someone important, I take it, with all of this?” He jerked his chin towards the councilmen, all grouped up together near the hall that led back to the royal offices.

“A merchant, apparently, that maintained some rather prosperous trade routes. Someone your father and the others knew.” Runa shook her head and sighed again. “His family didn’t even realize he’d gone missing last night, and his daughter found him when she went to open the shop this morning. The poor girl, I…I can’t imagine.”

Mikael couldn’t either.

“The markets must have been a shitshow.”

His mother scoffed. “Mayhem. And word traveled quickly, too. A few councilors knew before General Ezra even did.”

Oh, that didn’t bode well for anyone.

“How pissed was he?”

“Furious. I thought he was going to kill the poor city commander when she got here, truthfully. It’s all under control now, though. They were just thin on manpower in the city, so Ari sent a few of your King's Guard out to help.” She paused for just a second, giving him a look that he knew said, You would have known if you had been awake . “The rogues from Helia were already there, so they’ve started working. Dion and Cyril will head there as well to join them. Ah, speaking of which…”

He followed his mother’s eyes across the foyer to where Cyril wove through groups of people. Judging by the leather satchel in her arms, she was coming from the archives. The scribes almost always had one on their person.

They just looked a bit less…frazzled.

Her braid was in pieces, with half of her blouse untucked and wrinkled, but she wore windswept and disheveled remarkably well. Almost better than she’d worn the mask of a well-dressed, highborn lady the night before.

“Tobias gave you everything you need?” his mother asked Cyril as she came to a stop in front of them. Cyril’s shoulders heaved with a heavy breath.

“That and then some. And I—” Her molten gold eyes darted up to Mikael, and widened before she winced, clutching that leather pack tight to her chest. “Tonight. I-I won’t be able to come…”

“Another night. The barracks aren’t going anywhere.” Mikael’s disappointment was immeasurable, but he gave her an empathetic smile. It wasn’t like it was her fault. He would bet good money she didn’t have a single say in if she was going or not. “More pressing things to deal with right now.”

“Right.” Cyril nodded, looking between him and his mother. If he didn’t know better, he’d say she looked disappointed too. “I have to go pack. I’m sure Dion is wondering where I am.”

Runa reached for her arm and quietly said, “Don’t forget what we talked about, alright?”

Well, that was fucking suspicious.

But Cyril smiled at his mother and nodded before she took off up the stairs.

It did not surprise him in the least that the two of them were conspiring together. His mother was always a proponent of having an expansive network of allies , as she liked to put it.

“ Mikael ,” his mother hissed. “Your eyes are lingering.”

He blinked down at her, opening his mouth and quickly shutting it. There was no getting out of that—he watched Cyril appreciatively the entire way up. Maybe last night's tumble with the nymph hadn’t sated that itch as much as he hoped.

“And?” he challenged, and his mother sighed.

“Be careful, Mika.” The look she cut him was sharp. “If you break her heart, it’s not just Dion you’ll have to worry about.”

“Break her heart ?” It was his turn to sigh. “I’m not sure what you think is going on, but that is a wild conclusion to jump—”

“ Everyone saw the two of you dancing last night, Mika. Councilor Mathias even commented to your father this morning.” Of course the fucking creepy old man did. But his mother didn’t stop there. “Are you going to tell me you just suddenly decided to be, what, friendly? A good host? I saw how you looked at her, and I saw the two of you leave together.”

“We left at the same time , Mother, not together . We left and went our separate ways.” Much to his disappointment, but no one else needed to know that.

“And now you’ve invited her to go to the barracks with you at night?”

“I did.”

“Why?”

Mikael shut his eyes and sighed. “Do I need a reason?”

This entire conversation was pointless, seeing as she wasn’t even going to be there anymore.

His mother scoffed, and he didn’t even need to see her face to know how annoyed she’d look. He was too familiar with this.

“To bring someone like Cyril to the place you get lost in your cups and pick up women? Absolutely you do.”

Of course, his mother never seemed to have an issue with what happened in the barracks before now…

“I feel bad for her. She’s alone all the time.” He could give his mother that bit of truth, at least, as long as they didn’t delve into what other sort of feelings he had stirred up for her. “Aren’t you the one who told me she needed a friend?”

An indignant noise left Runa, and Mikael smirked.

“I said friend, not bedmate. Gods, I can’t believe I birthed you sometimes.” She rubbed her brow and Mikael chuckled as he turned to leave. “But I’m dead serious, Mika. If you hurt her and Dion or one of the others doesn’t kill you first, I will. And then I’ll—”

“You’ll find someone to reanimate my corpse and then kill me all over again? Yes, I’m well aware of that drill, Mother, but thank you for the warning.”