“I’m fine,” he gritted out, the words numb.
“Did you sleep on a tavern floor?” Briar clapped a hand over her nose and groaned. “Lick it too? Ugh, you reek.”
“I’ve only had a few,” he replied, but his slurred speech did little to help his case. He’d frequented several taverns in the last several days, then finished his night with a bottle of liquor in bed. The other weeks of his, for lack of a better term,bender, blurred into a mindless barrage of gods only knew what.
Briar sighed and raked a hand through her navy hair. “What spurred the urge to redecorate? Maybe next time just move a few pictures, huh?” She offered a small smirk, then surveyed the shattered mirrors lining the throne room. “Malachai would be furious,” she muttered, almost to herself.
Vesper choked on a humourless laugh and picked at the glass lodged in his knuckles, only making it worse.
His father wouldn’t have been furious.
He would’ve disowned Vesper.
Shame clogged his throat. He wasn’t sure when he had become …this. Whatever this was. With what he’d done, he was worse than Destonne. He’d sent their only hope of staunching this fever into the hands of a madman and destroyed, well, everything.
He tried a tiny, numb smile to curb the guilt, but when it didn’t work, he studied his boots. “I fucked up. And I’m sorry I kept secrets from you, Bri. I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to rearrange my face. I’ll even let you take a swing. Avoid the nose though, my profile just won’t look right.”
Briar flicked the tip of his nose. “Would you stop? I’m trying to be mad at you.” She settled on the floor and butted her hip against his. “Though this wounded prince act is filling me with all sorts of forgiveness, you’ve been a complete ass. And you owe Emmery so much more than an apology.”
“I know. We need to get her back. She’s not safe with him.” Vesper rubbed his face though he barely felt it through the boozy haze. “He’s a bloody lunatic. I served him for a century, I know what he’s like, and I could tell when I went to Blackdawn castle, he’s already wormed his way under her skin.” Vesper grit his teeth. “He’s so full of shit, he’s a walking pig pen. HemutilatedIzzy, murdered his father, and he’ll—fuck, when he’s done with her, he’ll kill her too.”
“For now, Emmery can handle herself. She’s stronger than you give her credit for. But I’ll write a letter and request a visit to that shithole of a kingdom. To see Fionn, too.” Briar gently squeezed his wrist then glanced around the room, the home he’d traded for his friendship with Emmery. She asked, her voice low, “Was it all worth it?”
He fixated on the bloodstain. “What do you think?”
“This isn’t just about Emmery, is it?” Briar built the question with each word, like a precariously constructed house of cards.
“No,” he said simply.
Vesper wrenched a large shard of glass free from his hand. Though he barely felt it, the answering steady stream of blood made him grit his teeth. He clamped a hand over the wound. His mind tangled in a mess of thoughts and emotions, and in the inebriated fog he couldn’t sift through them.
“I need to do something. I need to … I don’t know. I don’t know how to make this right.”
He couldn’t take it back. Any of it. Not only had he lost Izzy again, but her part in the prophecy now lay incomplete too.Without her and Emmery, this fever among their people would rage forever like some bloody nightmare.
Briar patted his back and pursed her lips as she studied his hands. “Let’s get you cleaned up. Everything else can wait.”
And though he promised himself he would get sober and deal with the mountains of shit piled on his desk, the next day Vesper rode to Malheim.
CHAPTER TWO
EMMERY
That blasted clock in the sitting room never shut up. Each tick shredded Emmery’s nerves like a fraying rope and, one by one, the strands snapped. Soon there would be nothing to cling to, and she would tumble into the black abyss below, the ravenous darkness ready to gobble her up.
Her unshakable fear, once confined to water, now lived in clocks too.
Great.As if she didn’t have enough problems.
She clamped her eyes shut, tried to block it out, shove the terror away, but the images burst through—the cold tile floor,warm blood seeping between her fingers, filling the cracks of her nails, pooling, spurting, and drowning Vesper.
After months, she couldn't shake it and helplessly relived the moment Death stole him over and over. She needed to get a damn grip.
Vesper was alive. She’d brought him back with that amulet and felt his warmth, the life inside him, heard his beating heart herself.
But it didn’t change that he’d sold her to the King like cattle. He’d made her believe they were friends, then betrayed her like she meant nothing. And at one time, all those years ago, they were bonded to be wed, which brought up a whole other slew of conflicting emotions.
She hated that she missed him. Briar and Marlys, too. Callias not so much.