58. Chapter 58

Chapter 58

T he crushing weight of responsibility almost brought Mikael to his knees.

His eyes struggled to process the condition of his men's bodies strung against the back wall of the blood-soaked cellar.

These men weren’t just killed. Someone butchered them. Slaughtered them.

And every bit of it was his fault, all because he was a subservient fucking fool.

And Cyril… Gods.

The sound of her weak sobs hooked every ounce of his attention.

Some deep-seated, primal part of his brain stirred to consciousness. His body hummed with a consuming itch for retribution, to inflict unspeakable acts of violence on whatever, whoever left her like this.

But it was him, wasn’t it?

He did this to her.

Mikael was supposed to protect her, this firecracker of a woman who had shaken his entire existence. But all he did was thrust her right into harm's way. Left her to fend for herself, all because of his princely duties . He’d been a fool to think she wouldn’t do something reckless.

Blood and gore caked every damn inch of her, and the way she looked up at him with eyes so afraid, so broken… It would haunt him until the day he met his end.

No one who entered that cellar, who saw even a glimpse of the horror within it, would leave the same as they came in. But Mikael wasn’t confident Cyril was going to make it out of here at all.

He knew things were dire.

Ari told him as much when he’d intercepted Mikael’s party on his way back to the palace to get a healer.

To actually see her like this, though? Mikael had no words.

Cyril struggled to keep her eyes open as her chest rose and fell erratically. She kept making these quiet, half-sobbed noises of discomfort. The undertow of what was really happening hit him hard.

The lake of blood she was sitting in was her own, and death beckoned.

Gunner stopped Mikael as he moved towards her, shaking his head. “It’s not good, boss. Be careful with her. I don’t know how long…”

Mikael brushed him off.

“Cyr, look at me,” he said gently as he kneeled beside her, taking her face in his hands. Her skin felt like ice. That perfect, snarky brow of hers knit, and she turned to his touch, but her eyes didn’t open. “Cyril, please .”

She struggled to swallow before she whispered, “I’m tired, Mika.”

“I know you are, Cyr.” Mikael pressed his lips to her blood-splattered forehead. “You just need to stay awake a bit longer, okay? Wren is almost here.”

Gunner gave Mikael a wary look.

But she had to be here soon.

Ari had flown to grab Wren because not only was she the most capable healer in the damn kingdom, but she could shift as well. And if they flew back…

It had to be soon.

Mikael couldn’t accept any other option.

Another one of those wet, rattling coughs left Cyril, but didn’t stop this time.

She coughed over and over, gasping in between each fit, and Mikael didn’t know what the fuck to do to help her. She kept trying to raise her hand as blood sputtered out over her graying lips, but his own body refused to move.

“Help me sit her up a bit more,” Gunner said as he dropped to Cyril’s other side, easing a hand under her arm. She slouched towards Mikael, towards the brutal wound he could see on her side. “I…I think her lung collapsed, and…the internal bleeding…”

Even Gunner’s voice wavered.

Cyril was drowning in her own blood.

Mikael got his hand under her other arm, helping to ease her upright, and her coughing settled to more of an uneven, gurgling breath. Her eyes fluttered open as she tried to clear her throat, but they slipped back shut before Mikael caught them.

“I want to go home ,” she whispered, her voice thick and laden with fluid.

Mikael couldn’t handle this.

No bit of training ever prepared him to sit here and watch someone he…someone he loved die. Not like this.

He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know what to do . Useless was not something he was ever comfortable feeling, but he had no way of making this better.

He picked her hand up out of the puddle of blood they all sat in and threaded her cold, stiff fingers with his.

Gunner had started easing the already half-undone jacket off of her and he rubbed her arm, squeezed her shoulder. “You didn’t finish answering my questions, Cyril,” he said, voice wholly uneven. Cyril just made a soft noise. “In Helia do you…do you get snow? In the winter?”

Her head tipped with a nod, and she made a noise that sounded like an agreement.

“Do you get a lot?”

She swallowed with difficulty and whispered, “No.”

Gunner kept rubbing her arm, and Mikael realized what he had been doing.

Talking to someone, when they were in great amounts of pain or under duress, was part of the most basic training they received as guards. It helped to keep the person tethered, distracted from whatever ravaged their body, while you waited for help, or…

Mikael didn’t want to think about the or .

He just kept squeezing her hand and bending her fingers, running his nails over her palm, trying to stir any sort of reaction.

“We get a lot of snow here in the winter, you’ll see,” Gunner said, with too much confidence. “It’s beautiful on the solstice, though, when everything is powdery white and you’ve got a mug of hot wine. Do you do that too, in Helia?”

Cyril nodded again but didn’t muster up any noises.

Gunner kept asking her questions—about the winter solstice, and gifts, and food—but they didn’t get another coherent answer from her. Not as her movements stilled and her hand went slack in Mikael’s.

Eventually, Gunner looked at Mikael and nodded in resignation, standing up.

“I'll keep an eye out for everyone. Give you some privacy.”

Privacy for what? Saying goodbye? Mikael refused to do that.

Even as he kept pressing his fingers to her throat, searching for a pulse and terrified of what he might not find, he refused to accept the darkness staring him down.

By the time noises echoed through the building again and Wren swept into the cellar, Cyril was completely unresponsive.