Temperance (39 page)

Ry’Ker walked stiffly across the chambers to where she was seated, and she gestured for him to come over to her right side. She looked up at him and gave a weak smile that barely touched her eyes.
 

“I’m glad that you are here.”

“Mother…we need to…we need to get the healer,” Ry’Ker stammered as he lowered himself down in front of her.
 

“No,” she told him softly, shaking her head with that tight-lipped smile. “I am okay. I don’t feel any pain.”

Kai knew that was a lie. There was no blood in her cheeks, no color at all as it continued to drain all over the ground underneath their feet. She leaned back, angling herself so her chest was wide open to him—a clear target.

“You’re here, and so is your brother. That is all I need.”

Ry’Ker’s body shook as he looked at her, and Kai knew that his brother was crying. He could feel the bile rising in his throat at what he knew he was about to do.

“Mother,” Ry’Ker’s voice broke as a sob escaped. “You will die.”

“I’m dying already, but I can go now. You are both back home. Back where you should be. Together.”

“No!” He moved to touch her.
 

But this time, it was Kai who heard himself say, “Ry’Ker, don’t.”

As his brother turned to face him, Kai’s eyes found his mother’s and she gave a swift nod. That was when he brought the sword down to the left side of her chest and did as she’d requested.

He ended it.

Li’Am didn’t remember taking a breath until he stormed through the door of his chambers, which were situated in the West wing of L’Mere.
 

He shut the door behind him and strode over to stop before the full-length mirror in his room, where he placed his hand on the frame and bowed his head. With reluctant eyes, he looked up at the reflection facing him and was surprised at what he saw.

There, in front of him, wasn’t the monster he’d expected to see. It was just…him.

He narrowed his eyes as he inspected his face, wondering if he was missing something. He had to be, didn’t he? How could he be doing what he was and not have it reflect outwardly in some way?

But no, there was no hint, no trace of the atrocities he’d committed.

Revolted with the relief he felt, he dropped his hand and spun away from the damning reflection. Then he walked over to the window of his room and gazed out into the night. The stars had stopped twinkling months before—another sign that the Guardians were weakening.
 

A sign that their land was indeed wasting away as it was being choked by Seraphine’s hatred.

The flicker of light across the courtyard caught his eye, and he found himself looking at the East tower—the tower he’d ‘banished’ his son to many years ago.

Si’Bastian.
 

He knew his son thought he kept him locked away for malicious reasons. That, however, was not the case. He kept Si’Bastian secluded because he was in danger of revealing everything he was without even knowing it.
 

The boy was better off not knowing all the facts. If he thought
he
hated him, then so be it. At least then he wouldn’t question his imprisonment. Which was exactly what Li’Am needed because he didn’t yet possess the answers that would keep his boy safe.

He was still missing something. He just didn’t know
what
yet.

The night Bastian had been born, his mother had passed only minutes after. She’d reached for her babe, and the nursemaid had brought him to her, wrapped in cloth as she patted down his tiny head. He’d been wailing, sucking in gulps of air for the first time in his tiny lungs, as his little fists flailed about, finally free of the confines of the warm haven of his mother’s womb.

“Here he is, Sinead. A beautiful, healthy boy.”

Sinead had brought him in close to her chest and rested him down between her breasts as she cooed to him words of comfort. Li’Am recalled the way he’d felt as he’d watched his wife and child. He’d felt peaceful—until she brushed her hand down their child’s back, pushing the cloth from his skin.

There, weaved in intricate gold at the top of his son’s spine, was a marking unlike any he’d seen on flesh before—and just when he’d been about to mention it to Sinead, her fingers trailed up and over the blemish and a brilliant light exploded in the room.

He remembered nothing beyond that…except waking to find the nursemaid collapsed and lifeless by the side of the bed and Sinead with their son crying against her breast. Her arms had lain limp by her sides, her chest no longer moving with each breath because she no longer had any.
 

Bastian’s arms had continued pumping, his feet kicking with life, and as Li’Am made himself move to Sinead’s side, he noticed on the back of his little hand a marking he knew all too well—it was that of the sensualeer.
 

His son was marked, just as his sister Seraphine was—but he was marked twice.

For hours, they remained like that—him by his dead wife’s side and his child screaming for a mother who was no longer.

Since that day, he’d devoted his life to discovering what the marking that was etched into the top of Bastian’s spine was. What powers did he hold that were so great that, within seconds of being born and touched, he’d killed two, including his mother—not that Bastian would ever know it was his flesh that had done that. As far as he was aware, it had been due to childbirth.
 

Since there’d been no one left to contradict that point, Li’Am had seen no harm in keeping it from his boy. He had learned to hate him for other reasons in the end anyhow.

Li’Am turned his back on the window and thought to himself how much it would hurt Bastian to have the mossfire cuff removed. He wished he could save him that pain, but he must continue along this path if he was to gain the answers.
 

Maybe then, he’d be forgiven.

He’d lived the life of a lie, one where the world thought he feared his sensualeer son, that he despised him, when, actually, he was doing everything in his power to understand him—to help him understand himself.

He wanted to keep his boy safe, to give him answers, even if it meant losing his own life in the process.

* * *

Siobhan looked out into the endless darkness and wondered,
What now?
They’d actually managed to get free of the castle’s walls.
 

“What now?” Fiona asked, mirroring her thoughts exactly.

How was she supposed to know?
 

Her first goal had been getting out of the room—check, they’d done that. Second goal, getting out of the castle walls—check, done that too. Hell, why not add in the third goal to acquire a heavy-as-shit sword to wave around and hopefully scare passersby—check, got that in the bag also.

She turned to face Fiona and gave a quick shrug, hoping to appear confident at least. She knew her sisters were counting on her to be the ‘brave one,’ so she could do that.
Right?

“We find Naeve.”

“Sure,” Fiona drawled softly. “Just like that.”

“Yes, just like that.”
 

Siobhan looked around and noticed that their only real option was to head toward the woods to their left. If they moved straight forward or to the right, there was nowhere to hide. It was wide-open land.

“What was the guy’s name who took her?”

“Kai,” Audra spoke up. “His name was Mala’Kai.”

“Right. Well, we need to find him. Surely someone else in this place will know who he is.”

Fiona shook her head as if she thought the idea a horrible one. “I’m not sure we should be walking around, asking for this guy. He wasn’t exactly the ‘protection inspiring’ kind. More likely the type who would have us dragged to his place and thrown in a dungeon.”

Siobhan rolled her eyes. “Really? A dungeon?”

“Yeah, a
dungeon
,” Fiona stressed. “You don’t think a place like this would have one? It’s a goddamn castle, Siobhan. Wake up. Wherever the hell we are, the dungeons they have here wouldn’t be the plush ‘sex club’ kind.”
 

“Okay, okay,” Siobhan relented. Fiona was right; they needed a plan, but what? “What if we make our way over to the woods? When we’re there, we can think of what to do next.”

Audra nodded, agreeing with her.

“Okay. Let’s stick close to the wall, and then we’ll have to make a run for it.”

“I don’t like this,” Fiona protested feebly.

“We don’t have a choice,” Siobhan said. “We need to find Naeve and get the hell out of here.”

“Fine. Let’s do this. The longer we wait, the more likely it is someone will come for us.”

Siobhan watched her two sisters start off in the direction they’d agreed on and knew already that, if there were, in fact, soldiers or guards or whatever the hell these men called themselves protecting the castle, they were
already
after them.

* * *

Naeve shifted until she was sitting beside Kai on the bed. He hadn’t moved since he’d finished talking, and that had been several minutes ago. His hands were fisted and resting on his thighs, his back straight and stiff, his jaw clenched as if he were waiting for the devil himself to come and drag him to Hell.

But he’d already been there, Naeve realized.
 

What trauma this man had suffered as a child, to have to end your mother’s life to save her from the pain of an agonizing death. She couldn’t even begin to imagine.
 

She wanted to reach out, to touch him and tell him that everything would be okay, but she knew they were just words. Words that would make her feel better from knowing that she had offered him something when, really, she had nothing that would ease whatever torment he was inflicting on himself.
 

He’d clearly lived a secluded life here in his mother’s house. He believed he was guilty of a heinous act, and Naeve knew that his brother Ry’Ker had a lot to do with his self-imposed guilt.

It was as obvious as the scar across his back.

She reached over, placed her palm over his fist, and gently squeezed it, hoping that her touch would somehow convey that she did not find him to be the monster he so truly believed he was.

He didn’t move as they sat there. She was covered in furs, and he was naked as the day he was born, sharing a moment Naeve knew was bigger than anything she’d ever shared with anyone before.

This man had bared his soul to her, laid his transgressions at her feet, and was waiting for her ultimate dismissal of him.

“Kai,” she whispered into the dark room, waiting for him to face her. When he didn’t, she shifted and kneeled on the bed beside him. “Kai?”

Still, there was nothing but silence, so she traced a finger along the scar sweeping under his shoulder blade—that had him turning towards her.

“You said your brother did this to you.”

His troubled eyes held hers as his lips parted to speak. “Yes. As I knelt before my mother with my sword inside her chest, Ry’Ker… He stood, screaming at me about how I killed her, and I just stayed there, kneeling before her, wanting to die myself.”

Naeve tightened her hand over his fist and held his stare, silently urging him to continue his tortured tale.

 
“I lowered my head and thought that maybe, just maybe, Ry would end it for me. Because I knew that I would carry the guilt I was feeling forever. That it would haunt my very soul. But he didn’t. He didn’t kill me. He didn’t
ease
my suffering. He sliced open my back, and in a voice I’d never heard from my younger brother, he told me that he hoped someone showed me the same ‘mercy’ that I just showed our mother.”

Naeve sucked in a startled breath at the cruelty.
 

“He wanted me to die that day, but just as my mother suspected, Ry never had that in him. He could never be purposely cruel to another.” He paused and looked away from her, “Well, before that, anyway.”

“So he left you there?”

“Yes,” Kai replied, and Naeve tried to imagine the anguish he as a young man must’ve felt. “He left me in the room with our mother and walked out the door. It was as though he were a different person from that day on. I’d not only killed her, but I killed him too.”

Naeve sat there in silence for a moment and wondered if she would have been that brave if need be. Would she have been able to end a life, to ease suffering?

“You did what you had to do. Your mother knew that, just like she knew you were the only one who
could
do it.”
 

He gave a short nod. “That may be so, but it still does not ease the burden.”

She thought about his brother. The man who Kai said would protect her sisters, second only to himself, yet he’d just told a story about how he’d left his own flesh and blood to die.

“What about your brother?”

“What about him?”

“Well, you said you feel like you killed the boy you used to know.”

“Yes,” he admitted.

“That man? He has my sisters…” she trailed off, and thought it over before she pressed on. “Should I be worried for their safety?”