38. Chapter 38

Chapter 38

C yril never considered that her life might fall apart in Reykr. That all she ever knew and loved could be ripped to pieces. But two days later? Everything unraveled.

The banging at her door at just past four in the morning jarred her awake and had her stumbling out of bed in a haze.

She bleared miserably at the guard who stood in the hall.

He looked apologetic as he said, “I’m sorry to wake you, Lady Cyril, but you’re wanted down in the infirmary.”

Cyril blinked.

“Was there—” She tried to clear the hoarse sleepiness from her throat. “—another murder?”

“I’m not sure.” The guard grimaced. “I was just starting my hall patrols when someone asked me to come and find you. They didn’t say why, but it seemed urgent.”

Cyril rubbed at her eyes. “ Who asked you to come find me? My uncle?”

“I, ah… I’m not sure who that is? This was a frighteningly tall man, sun-fae, I think, with black hair and dark eyes. There was another man with him, a dark-skinned fae, but he didn’t say anything.”

If that was Ren and Tyr, which it really fucking sounded like…

Sleepiness peeled away from Cyril as her heart started racing.

“Fucking hells, hold on a second.”

She shut the door in the poor guard’s face and rushed to find the clothes she discarded on the floor the night before. She hopped around one-legged, trying to get her pants and boots on, and didn’t even have her shirt fully over her head by the time that she was half out the door.

“Thank you,” Cyril said to the red-faced guard, and then she was running as fast as her feet could carry her. Straight out of the residential wing, down the main staircase, and into one of the hallways off the side of the foyer.

After half a dozen wrong turns and dead ends, her heart pounded so hard it ached, and the acrid taste of bile burned at the back of her throat. Panic had sunken its claws into every inch of her body by the time she spotted Ren and Tyr at the far end of the hall that she’d just turned down.

Ren, sitting on the ground, with his face buried in his palms.

Tyr beside him, standing with no readable expression on his face.

Between them sat Bron’s travel bag.

If all three of them were here…

Her breath came in ragged pants and she willed her feet to carry her faster.

“Where is Dion?” she called out, and her voice broke. “Where is he?”

Ren didn’t lift his head, but Tyr’s attention snapped over and his eyes went wide.

Cyril started shaking.

She wasn’t ready for this.

She always knew it was only a matter of time before Dion’s habits caught up with him. Before he smoked and drank too much and hurt himself badly . Or worse.

But she wasn’t ready for that to happen here.

Not here, not now. Not anywhere, or ever.

“Dove, wait, do not go in there.” Tyr was moving, his voice desperate, but Cyril was closer to the infirmary doors than he was.

“Tyr, what happened?” she choked out, tears already running down her face. “Is Dion— where is he?”

“ Please dove, wait—”

Panic tore through Cyril as she flung the infirmary door open.

She shouldn’t have been worrying about Dion.

Halfway into the room that reeked of death, her uncle was staring down at an exam table. Laying on that table, battered and broken, and draped up to the chest in a sterile white sheet, was Bron.

A ragged, broken sound left Cyril.

She surged forward, but two broad arms wrapped around her and held her in place.

Nononononononono—

“You shouldn’t see him like this, Cyr.” Tyr’s voice was hoarse, laden with grief.

She fought against his hold, writhing and twisting, and sobbing for him to let her go.

She couldn’t pull her eyes away from the lifeless pallor set into Bron’s skin.

The gaping wound in his throat.

His blood-soaked, matted hair, still half braided back.

“ Please , dove, come outside.”

Cyril’s feet left the ground, and she threw her elbows back against Tyriel’s chest, clawing at the arms wrapped tightly around her.

“No!” she cried. “No, no, no, no—”

“Tyriel, let her go.”

Dion’s flat, empty voice stilled them both, and Tyr eased his hold on her.

She pushed away from him, making it all of two steps forward before the cold, stone floors met her hands and knees.

The sobs that seized every inch of her body were violent, and she couldn’t catch her fucking breath. The weight of the entire room felt like it bore down on her, the air so thick with death that her lungs refused to take it.

Bron couldn’t be… No.

She needed him more than she needed anyone else in her life.

The possibility of an existence without him was never an option.

The man who taught her how to swim and ride and fight; how to nurse her first hangover, and the dozens that followed. The man who knew all her secrets, who helped her clean and wrap her wounds when she was too afraid to tell Dion. The man who held her after Keelie died, when everyone else wrote it off as a shame and nothing more.

Glimmers of it all ravaged her mind.

And he was so smart, so careful. He never, never would have…

But Bron’s body was there, just feet from her.

Void of the abundance of life it usually held.

Nausea, and anger, and a maelstrom of feelings she didn’t even understand swept through her as she staggered to her feet and wiped at her face. Cyril looked up at Dion, at the hollow darkness in his eyes, and mustered up a single, anguished word.

“How?”

Her uncle half-shrugged and shook his head. “We don’t know. The guards found his body by the gates at shift change.”

“ You don’t know ?” she choked out in total disbelief. “Where were you ?! Where was Ren? And Tyr! Why—”

“Choose your words very. Fucking. Carefully.”

Dion spoke through gritted teeth and leveled her with a stare so cold, so seething, that Cyril took a step away.

He pointed at the door.

“Out. You don’t get to be in here if you’re going to act like a child.”

Cyril was already backing up, her feet moving entirely of their own volition, and she didn’t stop until she hit the door.

She barely heard what Dion said, with the way her ears rang and muffled everything around her.

She needed out.

She needed air.

She needed quiet and dark, and for her skin to stop feeling so fucking tight.

She needed—

The light in the hallway was blinding.

There were so many people there now, and their unreadable faces felt smothering.

She couldn’t fucking breathe .

Mikael, flanked by his parents, reached for her. “Cyril…”

She pushed past the three of them, clawing the prince’s hand off her arm. She pushed past Ren and Tyr, past the gathering group of guards, and Astor and Reyna at the end of the hall.

“Cyril, wait a second!” Mikael shouted after her, but Cyril just ran.