42. Chapter 42

Chapter 42

C yril didn’t understand how to navigate her grief in the weeks following Bron’s death. Even the most simple of tasks, like getting out of bed or brushing her damn hair, felt like they took the sort of energy that she couldn’t muster no matter how much she slept. A feat, considering sleeping was all she felt like doing.

She wasn’t sure what she did to deserve Mikael, but he made sure she didn’t have to do anything on her own.

If she wanted to talk about anything , which wasn’t often, Mikael sat on her bed and talked with her. If all she could manage were tears, which was often, he held her silently through it all. If she even insinuated she was hungry, he was back in minutes with food and tea. And when all she wanted to do was sleep, he pulled her into the safety of his embrace and slept with her.

Hells, Mikael even drew a single fit of laughter from her when he tried and failed miserably to braid her hair. He told her how much he loved to hear her laugh, but Bron used to say that too, and her happiness wasn’t long-lived.

Some time after the first week, her sadness evolved into a numb sort of emptiness and she wanted none of the comforts that Mikael was so keen to offer her.

At night, when sleep became more of a fitful, fleeting thing, she was still grateful for his presence. The warmth of his body pressed against hers, and the possessive weight of his arm around her brought a sort of comfort she couldn’t even put into words.

But during the day? His hovering wore on her.

It took his mother making a not-so-discreet suggestion that he consider tending to his duties with the guard, lest they pile up to an unreasonable amount, for him to give her a bit of space. He didn’t seem happy about it.

Seeing as her hand was finally healed, she used that space to ride, and not even out of a personal want to do it. But she owed it to Attie to let the poor horse stretch her legs a reasonable amount again.

Mikael only had to come looking for her once, when she’d just sort of…zoned out, sitting in the glen until the sun went down. There were a lot of days where that happened, truthfully, but sometimes in less opportune places than others.

It had been two weeks since the worst days of her life when she finally saw Dion and the others again.

They returned to the palace to liaise with the royal guard on whatever valuable information they’d uncovered in their time away. Cyril didn’t even care enough about the murders, the old language, or her conspiracy theories anymore to weasel her way into any of their meetings.

The last two months they’d been here had been such an unfathomable mistake.

But it was at dinner that night that the numb and empty pit consuming Cyril cracked open, and her anger came crawling out from its yawning depths.

Anger at Dion for leaving the day after the pyre without a single fucking word.

Anger at Ren and Tyr too, for leaving her when she needed them.

Tragedy had struck their tiny, cobbled-together family, and they all just left.

There was so much more to that anger too, simmering just beneath her roiling surface. Glimmers of words Dion uttered to her at the pyre that night that she struggled to forget.

She tried to drown it all with drink instead of letting it come up for a breath of cataclysmic air.

Mikael didn’t say a word each time she filled her glass, or as she traded barbs with Dion night after night. His eyes spoke volumes about how wary he was of everything that she did, but he never strayed from his self-imposed duties.

Even with underhanded comments from Dion seeing them out, Mikael would take her uncoordinated self back to her room and make sure she at least got her boots off before she crawled into bed. If he ever spent the night, she wasn’t sure, but he was always gone when she’d wake up at noon the next day.

Three weeks after Bronson’s death, everything reached its breaking point.

Mikael was at a loss for how to deal with Cyril anymore.

Comforting her through her sadness was one thing.

In a lot of ways, it felt like it came second nature to him to take care of her like that. He struggled a bit to change course when she built her walls back up, but they fell into a new routine again.

Now, though? He didn’t know what the hell he was doing.

And it wasn’t that Cyril’s anger was misplaced. In a way, though, he understood Dion as well. The Rogue Master didn’t seem like the sort of man to sit around and stew in his feelings, and he had work to do.

But it would have been in everyone’s best interest if he attempted to spend a day or two with Cyril before he took off. These were family politics he didn’t, and wouldn’t, understand.

Each night, he watched Cyril carefully as she and Dion traded snide comments, most of which devolved into nothing more than her calling him an asshole and him saying she was childish. Mikael usually found an excuse to wrangle her drunk ass up to bed shortly after that happened.

And every night, like fucking clockwork, Cyril would make some half-assed, liquored-up attempt at goading him into properly sleeping with her. Mikael refused to cross that line, and she’d usually pass out before he even turned her down.

He’d be lying if he said he didn’t envy Astor and Reyna and the convenient excuse they found to spend the week back at her village after the first tense night.

And now? Mikael would give up a limb to be anywhere but this dining room after the words that just came out of Dion’s mouth.

“Gods, you are so much like your fucking father.”

Not a compliment, by any means, if the way Cyril stiffened and his mother intoned Dion’s name was any indicator. Mikael hadn’t even heard what she said to Dion before, and he regretted that lapse in attention.

“Excuse me?” A frightening sort of calmness settled into Cyril’s voice.

A cruel smirk tugged at Dion’s lips as he leaned in. “ I said , you are just like your fucking father.”

“Like I’m supposed to know what the fuck that means,” Cyril scoffed and drained her wine. Mikael didn’t even have a chance to grab the bottle before she filled her glass again, nearly to the brim.

“It means you think the entire fucking world revolves around you ,” he sneered. “It’s fuck everybody else and their feelings as long as you get yours, right? As long as someone is there to stroke your fragile fucking ego.”

Dion punctuated those last three words with purpose and the table fell silent.

“ Dion , I think you’ve made—” his mother started, but Dion had the audacity to hold his hand up at her. The audacity to silence the Queen of Reykr in her own fucking home.

Mikael straightened in his seat.

“Oh, I am not done.” Dion leaned further forward, bracing his hands on the table. “Hector acted like a child until the very day that he ended his cowardly life and left everyone else to deal with his fucking problems. So until you grow the fuck up and start getting your shit together, you are no better than him. You are a drunk and a wreck and a burden to everyone , just like he was.”

The only purpose Dion’s words served was to maim, and brutally at that.

As the very man who raised her, he knew how to do it with frightening proficiency. He knew every little insecurity that Cyril bore the heavy weight of, every little thing that made her tick, and he wielded that knowledge with lethality.

One of her other uncles swore, and the plates and cutlery rattled as Cyril stood, the wood of the table groaning under the pressure of her palms.

“Fuck you, Dion,” she snarled.

Mikael was all too aware of how her voice cracked at the end. How the shine in her eyes was far more than just the firelight and liquor’s doing.

And Dion? He laughed .

The monster-given-flesh laughed at Cyril and grinned like an animal as he said, “You’re going to do better than that to hurt my feelings, dove . I’m not fragile like you.”

For a woman who was already at least a couple of bottles into the night, Cyril moved with alarming speed. Her glass sailed across the table before Mikael realized it was in her hand, the wine just a swath of burgundy in the air. It missed Dion entirely.

Fucking hells.

Mikael wanted to be proud of her, but the entire room erupted into chaos. Chairs scraped across the floor, bodies were a blur of motion, and profanities flew from every direction.

Cyril was halfway across the fucking dinner table when Mikael grabbed hold of her and hauled her back. The woman was nothing but swinging limbs, but Mikael lifted her clean off the ground and walked straight out of the dining room with her restrained in his arms. When he thought she hit hard back in basic training, he was woefully mistaken. He’d have a few bruises to show for it tomorrow.

Out in the stark silence of the hall, Mikael let her go, caging her back against the wall with a hand planted on either side of her head.

“Cool off for a second,” Mikael said as gently as he could.

There was a sort of wildness in her face he did not want to be on the receiving end of.

“If that fucker thinks he— Ugh.” Cyril tried to duck under Mikael’s arm, but he grabbed hold of her shoulders and pinned her against the wall. Her chest heaved shaky, ragged breaths and a flush started to saturate her skin.

“I know, Cyr, I know. But it’s not worth it.” Mikael notched his fingers under her chin and tipped her face up to his. Her eyes were all molten, liquid gold. Beautiful and fucking dangerous. “ He is not worth your energy.”

She huffed a resoundingly bitter laugh and looked away from him. Trying to look back into the quieting dining room, he realized, as she raised on her toes.

“It should have been him,” Cyril muttered, an unmistakable crack in her voice.

Mikael cocked his head down at her, blinking. “What?”

“Bron never deserved that. He…” A sharp breath left her, and she clenched her teeth. “It should have been Dion. He’s the one who deserves to die like that.”

Well, that was a fucking sentiment to hold.

Mikael had nothing to say to that.

Truthfully, it wasn’t a sentiment he exactly disagreed with, but it was one he knew came entirely from the anger she’d let consume her.

A flicker of tension set into her jaw, and Mikael swore quietly as Dion’s voice flowed out of the dining room.

Mikael was an idiot for not taking Cyril straight upstairs.

Her lip curled back into a snarl and a spark of fire lit back in her eyes.

Ready for round two.

Mikael crowded her a bit more closely against the wall, trying to stem the tide of whatever poorly thought-out thing he knew was going through her head.

He winced when she started yelling.

“It should have been your body dumped at the fucking gates, not Bron’s! He didn’t deserve any of this!” Cyril’s voice hung somewhere between a shout and a sob as she clutched at Mikael’s arm, using it as leverage to look past him. “It should have been you .”

Flanked by a grim-looking Rendal and Tyriel, Dion wore some filthy, self-satisfied smirk as he walked by, shaking his head.

“Real fucking classy, Cyril.” He waved his hand towards them in what had to be the most insulting dismissal Mikael had ever seen. “Go back to keeping the prince’s bed warm.”

Cyril stilled, and Mikael was certain he watched her heart vacate her body.

It was a blessing for everyone involved Rendal clamped his hands on Dion’s shoulders and steered him away, his rough timbre saying in no uncertain terms, “We’re done, Dion. Let’s go.”

Steps behind them, Mikael’s parents filed out of the dining room.

His father looked exhausted—a sentiment he wholly appreciated—and his mother’s eyes were still wide.

“We’re, uh… We’re going to turn in early,” Lars said a bit hoarsely as he looked between Mikael and Cyril. “If either of you needs anything …”

“I know where to find you.”

His father nodded, and Runa muttered, “Goodnight,” so quietly he almost missed it before they disappeared down the hallway.

Cyril was far too quiet now, staring sort of blankly at the wall opposite her.

“Cyr, we should—”

She let out a breath and looked up at him. Tears had quenched every bit of fire in her eyes again. “Is he…jealous? I don’t understand…”

“I don’t know, Cyr. I really don't.” Far be it from him to understand whatever the fuck was going through that man's head. “Let's just go upstairs, yeah?”

“I think…” Mikael sighed.

They’d been in Cyril’s room for barely ten minutes, and she would not stop pacing. From one end of the room straight through to the other, she swore and clenched her fists, muttering teary declarations about Dion.

“I think your uncle is the sort of man that is used to being in control of everything , Cyr, and he is losing that control at a frightening speed.”

She nodded, slow and methodical, but didn’t stop pacing.

Mikael pushed up from the seat he’d taken at the foot of her bed and planted himself directly in her path. She went to step around him, but he clasped her face in his hands and said, “You’re going to wear a hole in the damn floor. Stop .”

A huff of annoyance left her, and she narrowed her glossy eyes.

He couldn’t even fathom what was happening in her head, but there was no way this was productive. She needed to stop for a minute and just breathe.

So Mikael kissed her.

A brief distraction, soft and affectionate, was all he intended. A moment just to ground her, but Cyril leaned into it eagerly. The warmth of her hands settled on his chest, and she made one of those quiet, needy noises that did unreasonable things to his heart rate.

Cyril tasted like nothing but wine and a glaring mistake in judgment.

Her fingers slid down his chest, stopping only when she hooked them in the laces of his pants and tugged. Mikael struggled to stifle his groan as he grabbed her wrist and pulled it away.

“Absolutely not.”

“Mika, please ,” she whined, surging up to brush her lips to his neck. “I want—”

“ No .” Mikael grabbed both her hands, holding them between them, and he leaned away from her. “Do you know how much you drank at dinner?”

Her eyes narrowed. “That doesn’t matter.”

“Yes, it does.” He sighed. Not again . “Cyr, if I can’t have you with a clear mind, I don’t want you.”

In an instant, every bit of simmering heat and anger fell from Cyril’s face, something wounded taking its place. She was already staggering a step back from him when he realized the fatal flaw in his words.

She stared at him, shaking her head, and pointed at the door. “If you don’t want me, you can fucking leave .”

“I didn't mean it like that, Cyr.” He took a step toward her, but she backed away and her eyes overflowed with tears. “You know I want you , but not like this. Not liquor and anger fueled—”

“Mikael, get the fuck out .” Cyril’s voice shook, and Mikael knew he had fucked up in such an immeasurable way. All this time spent earning her trust, making her feel wanted and important, and he squandered it with a couple of poorly thought-out words.

She looked moments away from violence.

“Alright.” Mikael nodded slowly and made his way to the door. Nothing productive would come of pushing this any further, not with her so consumed by her anger. They needed space, and a lot of it. “You know where to find me if you need anything.”

And he left.

The pained sob that traveled through the closed door hit Mikael like a physical blow. He took a slow breath and mustered up every bit of resolve he had to walk away.

He needed a fucking drink.