50. Chapter 50

Chapter 50

D ay four of being the honorary barracks mother, and Cyril wasn’t sure if guards or rogues were worse at following the most basic of instructions.

“No! No no no . Not there! Just— Oh fucking hells, just give them here. I’ll deal with them,” Cyril groaned as she pried an armful of freshly laundered uniforms from a bewildered trainee and dumped them on a table in the mess hall.

Her office, as Mikael liked to call it.

“Those”—she waved wildly towards crates of dirty uniforms the trainee almost dumped them into—“are dirty, filthy , to go to the palace. Clean? Here .” She pointed at the three tables that became a makeshift folding area for the dozens upon dozens of uniforms that came back from the laundress every day.

Cyril had no idea why they changed their uniforms so often, but she had vastly underestimated how many guards were in rotation with the royal service.

“Should I, uh, get more?” The poor doe-eyed man just blinked at Cyril.

Apparently, he’d been part of the recruits in the most recent round of basic training. But as a moon-fae man with short blonde hair and honey-brown eyes, the same as a half-dozen others in that group, Cyril didn’t remember him.

She pretended, though.

“Yes.” Cyril plastered on a smile. “You, back and forth, get everything clean from the laundress and put it on these tables. I will fold and put it away.”

“Right. Okay.” He nodded, looking like he mostly understood, she hoped. “Thank you, Miss Cyril.”

Miss , because he insisted on a title, and Lady sure as fuck wasn’t going to be it.

Cyril waited until he cleared the mess hall doors before she sunk her face into the pile of fresh laundry, nearly as tall as she was on the table, and she groaned .

She had grossly underestimated the physical toll running the barracks like this was going to take.

Her feet throbbed in her boots. Her neck had a wicked kink in it. Her hands were so damn dry and cracked from cleaning and organizing and touching so many damn rough things they bled in some spots.

“You can fold while sitting down, you know.”

Cyril swore and straightened up. She leveled an unimpressed stare over her shoulder at Mikael, leaning insufferably in the doorframe.

He had tea though, and something wrapped in parchment in his other hand.

“You can also sit to eat lunch, which I was told you didn’t bother doing today.” He sighed. “We talked about this…”

Gods, had they ever, and she didn’t want to talk about it again.

Either the prince himself or one of any number of the guards were all over her about eating, multiple times a day at that. Did she eat? Did she eat enough? What did she have to eat? Was she drinking enough water?

It was exhausting.

“I missed a single meal, Mika,” she groaned. “ And it was Gunner’s fault. No one else would throw darts with him.”

Her excuse was pretty pathetic, but it was the truth. Of all the guards, Gunner was the only one trying to still uphold some semblance of normal .

Mikael’s displeasure was palpable as he strode over to her and slid a chair out with his foot, jerking his chin at it. “Sit. Eat. I’ll fold.”

Cyril’s brows climbed, and she laughed.

“How much laundry have you done in your life, seriously?”

Mikael set down the tea and—ooh, he’d brought her a pastry.

“Enough, thank you. Now sit and eat, please .” The insufferable arse gripped her shoulders and steered Cyril to the chair. “You look like you’re going to fall asleep standing up.”

Gods, she wanted to argue with him on principle. But he wasn’t wrong in the least. Cyril complied, even though she wasn’t confident getting back up was something she’d manage.

“I’m just not used to this anymore,” she grumbled.

Just like how Mikael was evidently not used to ever doing much folding based on the haphazard way he was dealing with the stack of pants. She’d save that to tease him with another day.

“I know. Now shut up and eat.”

Cyril glared at him before she tore into the icing-covered and apple-filled pastry. It could have been her hunger talking, but it was absolutely delicious. The watery excuse for tea was definitely Kaia’s doing, but Cyril downed it all anyway.

Then she watched Mikael fold—poorly.

She didn’t have enough energy to correct him, or even give him a hard time.

He made it around halfway through the pile when Cyril saw another guard come into the mess hall. And it wasn’t her trainee, which raised all sorts of concerns. She didn’t even want to think where he ended up with another armful of laundry.

“Yes?” Cyril said, because this one wasn’t great with his words either.

“Miss Cyril.” He nodded at her and stiffened up when Mikael turned around. “Commander, His Majesty sent for you.”

“Why?” Mikael sighed and grabbed another pair of pants to fold. “I swear to the gods if this is about resourcing again…”

The trainee cleared his throat. “The crown prince has taken ill. He collapsed in a council session apparently, and they’ve brought him to the infirmary.”

Mikael went still.

Something that looked an awful lot like fear flickered through his eyes.

“Just go,” Cyril said as she took the half-folded pants from him. “I’ve got this under control. Go.”

Mikael grabbed them back and tossed them on the table.

“Please,” he said softly, and there was never a way in any of the hells she’d be able to tell him no. Just that single word, spoken with that sort of unease, made her chest tight.

Cyril took his hand and let him lead her towards the door.

“You,” he said to the guard standing still as a fencepost by the door, “tell Kaia where we’ve gone, but no one else.”

Just the sight of the infirmary’s double doors set every part of Cyril’s being on edge. It was a blessing Mikael didn’t even think twice when she told him to go in without her, that she would wait in the hall.

Weeks ago now, when he’d tried to bring her down to have her eye looked at—and for a supply of contraceptive tonics—things hadn’t gone well.

In the wake of a wave of panic so terrorizing it made her sick, Cyril had opted to let the bruising heal on its own. Mikael shouldered the brunt of the awkward conversation with one of the healer’s aides about tonics , which she now took daily.

She wasn’t sure if she would ever be ready to see the inside of those walls again. But Mikael had far more pressing things to worry about now than Cyril’s fear of that room.

The irony of the situation wasn’t lost on her either.

She now sat exactly where Tyr and Ren sat on the day she tried so hard not to think about. The same spot where she laid eyes on them moments before her world unraveled, waiting now to find out if Mikael’s own life faced the same fate.

Time in that hallway drifted by at an agonizing pace.

Murmurs and muffled voices came in waves from the door just a few feet away, but Cyril couldn’t pick up on the details of what was being said. Mostly Runa, she could tell, with another unfamiliar female voice and occasional top-ups of what could have been Lars or Mikael, she wasn’t sure.

Her eyes had slipped shut for long enough that when the hinges of the door squealed, she jolted upright.

“Cyr? I—Ah.” Mikael looked down and gave her a lopsided, exhausted smile. “There you are.”

Cyril went to haul her ass off the ground, but Mikael’s back met the wall and he slid down beside her, legs splayed out in front of him. Cyril offered him her hand, and he laced his fingers tightly with hers.

“Is he…?” There were too many ways for Cyril to end that question.

“Lucid, sort of.” Mikael nodded absently. She couldn’t imagine what the inside of his head felt like right now. “It comes and goes.”

“Do they know what’s wrong?”

“Something with his blood. An infection, I think? I didn’t entirely understand, but…”

“…He’s going to be alright?”

“Wren thinks so, but it’ll be a slow recovery. He’s ascended and hasn’t been able to fight it off on his own, so it’s something severe.” The prince freed his hair from its knot and raked his free hand through. “If his half-lucid ramblings are to be believed, he hasn’t been feeling well for weeks.”

“ Weeks? ” Cyril blinked. “And he didn’t tell anyone?”

Mikael nodded. “Apparently he didn’t want to worry anyone, with everything going on, so Reyna arranged for him to be treated in the city by healers from her village.” He cast Cyril a sidelong glance. “The same ones who have been treating her .”

Her eyes widened. “ No .”

“Oh, yes.” Mikael huffed a bitter laugh. “Turns out I’m less of an idiot than everyone likes to assume. All these trips back home? Treatment . Because our healers here aren’t trustworthy.”

Cyril just shook her head.

The Forn’s renowned and beloved healers were nothing but a farce, acting in smoke and mirrors, and fear . It only took a single afternoon in the archives for Cyril to figure out that much. They were more worried about the state of those damned cosmic scales than they were about proper medicine.

It just never felt like Cyril’s place, to surface facts that Runa surely knew about her people. To weigh Mikael down with things that weren’t important. Every bit of knowledge she ever pulled from the archives proved to be useless, and why wouldn’t that have been any different?

But now? Maybe Cyril should have said something if it meant there was a sliver of a chance of sparing the family slowly becoming her own from this stress. If it meant she could have prevented the unease that she could see strung through every fiber of Mikael.

Maybe she should have told Mikael about the Forn’s beliefs on balances and scales and their archaic practices.

Maybe she should have told Runa about Mikael’s suspicions with Reyna’s health, and been a voice for him like he’d done endlessly for her.

Gods, maybe all three of them should have talked together about beliefs and farces, about scales and cleansing, about purists and the Forns.

Maybe she should have…

Cyril’s entire body tensed.

“Mika…?” she said quietly.

“Hm?” Mikael shifted in her periphery, but Cyril couldn’t pull her eyes away from the sterile, white wall opposite them. “What is it?”

“I…”

Cyril cleared her throat.

If she put any of this into words, there would be no going back.

If Mikael thought she was out of her mind, or overstepping her bounds, she had no course of recovery.

But she had to trust him.

Had to trust that he was the one person she could voice anything to.

So Cyril looked up at him, at those weary blue eyes, and asked, “Did Astor say how long Reyna has been sick for?”

Mikael’s brows pulled together.

“Many months, I think.” He sighed. “Astor was spotty on that, but it sounded like it’s been a really long time.”

Cyril nodded, slowly.

“And when…” Gods. The words just didn’t want to form. “Mika, promise me you won’t think of me any differently for asking this?”

His head tipped, and he squeezed her hand.

“Of course I won’t. What is it?”

She swallowed down the lump in her throat.

“When did the murders start?” she said hoarsely.

“The murders ?” Mikael blinked, and Cyril watched as something wholly uncomfortable crept into his body. “Cyril, what do you mean…”

His narrowed eyes and tense jaw made Cyril want to curl in on herself and disappear, but she couldn’t fold, not now. She drew on every fleeting strand of courage and said, “I think the timing might not be a coincidence, Mika.”

The disbelief Mikael stared at her with was sickening.

He shook his head slowly, his lips parted, but the infirmary doors creaked open before he could put whatever was in his mind into words. Mikael kept staring straight through her, but the sight of Runa hooked every ounce of Cyril’s attention.

Never, in all of Cyril’s months in Reykr, had the queen ever looked so normal . Her sweeping mane of gorgeous, copper waves? Tied up, and rather haphazardly at that. Her clothes? No robes, or embroidery, or exquisitely crafted brocade in sight. Just a pale gray tunic and dark, loose pants.

A woman thrown from her element and frazzled.

Runa’s attention fell to Mikael and Cyril. Her whole body heaved with a sigh.

“Gods, you two, I’m sorry. We can’t catch a damn break…” Runa’s tired eyes turned scrutinizing in a heartbeat. “My boy, you look pale. Maybe you should go get some rest. I know it’s easier said than—”

“Can we talk to you?” Mikael’s voice was hoarse, but he finally pulled his eyes away from Cyril and looked up at his mother. “Privately.”

Cyril took a slow breath.

This conversation was going to happen.

Runa glanced between the two of them before she nodded. “Of course. Follow me.”