Accustomed

by Kyra Gregory

  Deros scrunched his eyes shut. King Alessio was right. It really was a fate worse than death. He stood there, unable to move, unable to fight through his bonds, watching as one after the other the remaining soldiers were released from their chains and given the opportunity to defend themselves, this time against an Azurian soldier. Each one fell, some quicker than others, some at their own hands, and some after a long fight flooded with a passion for freedom. But they fell nonetheless, their bodies dropping to the floor, staining the golden sand with the viscous substance that once flowed through their veins.

  But the damage that King Alessio had hoped to inflict would be the undoing of his torture. As each Lionessan soldier was executed, his corpse tossed aside in a pile to be dealt with in the morning, Deros grew numb, cold and unfeeling with each display of brutality.

  King Alessio approached him just as the festivities seemed to be dying down, a sadistic and chilling smirk on his thin lips. He placed his hand against the post above Deros’s head, leaning against it, leaning into him so far that his warm breath against his icy skin was almost a pleasure. “So?” he prompted, his voice as low as a whisper. “Do you have anything to say to me?”

  Deros’s gaze, which had been frozen on the makeshift arena that had been made in front of him, glanced in the King’s direction, locking with his own steely eyes. “Shame,” he said, “I was finally starting to enjoy myself.”

  ***

  He awoke in the dead of night to near-pitch darkness. At most, he could make out the sight of a couple of guards, trudging through the sand with nothing more than torches of fire to light as far as three steps in front of them. They didn’t bother him, nor did their undoubtedly slumbering King, and he was thankful for it for the moment. He would take his punishment for betrayal, an agreement he made with himself with ease, but, for tonight, he’d had enough. His head ached, as did his jaw, and he could feel the stickiness and flakiness of the dried blood on the back of his head. His fingers had gone cold, as had his bare feet in the now frigid sand, from the absence of heat from a warm fire or that of the sun and the poor circulation from having his hands tied behind his back with such security which didn’t help matters at all.

  The slightest movement of his shoulder caused him agony with a sharp pain running up his left side, stifling his breath and forcing a cough which only worsened his aches. Even so, he was in full agreement with himself that he deserved everything he ever got, and would go on to deserve everything that the morning brought with it. He was foolish, completely and utterly stupid in his actions of betrayal. But, in truth, it was not because he thought his actions a bad idea in retrospect. No, this was still the right thing to do, he told himself, the cost, it would seem, was simply more dear than he would’ve liked to imagine.

  Scrunching his eyes shut as tight as he could manage, he thought about his daughter. The little girl with the beaming cheerful smile that had almost disappeared in the light of the events of the past few days. He couldn’t help wondering if his absence, permanent as it seemed it would become, would do anything to hinder that smile from ever appearing on her face again or if she would be able to persevere and see herself to a happy future.

  But there was no happiness in the future as the daughter of a man who appeared to have had no allegiances, having betrayed his own country, his own father, and even that of the woman he loved. As tears stung his eyes, he thought about Sybelle. With her disapproving stare, glaring at him through the hurt in his eyes, he wondered if she could ever find it within herself to forgive him for his actions. He didn’t think so. Frankly, he could hardly forgive himself. Not for the betrayal in itself, but for the betrayal that he’d inflicted upon her. In a world where he’d, somehow, become a light, he succeeded in turning even that to darkness, in spite of his best intentions. If King Alessio was right about anything at all, it was the fact that he was, indeed, a traitor. He was a traitor and he absolutely hated himself for it.

  He wondered how much it hurt her. With a heavy heart of his own, he couldn’t help but think of her pain. How much was she troubled by what he’d done? Not troubled politically, not troubled strategically. How troubled was she, personally? Was her heart truly wounded by what he’d done? How did she feel towards him? Was the hate for what he’d done so strong or was the pain even stronger? Would she not care whether he was alive or not? Would she throw her hands up and, if pressed, fire the canons upon her shores regardless of if she hit friend or foe? Regardless of the answer his exhausted mind conjured up in the dead of the night, he wasn’t happy with any of them.

  No, he thought, casting his gaze to the star-speckled sky, he would never be happy with what he’d done to her. And, perhaps, it suited him. Perhaps, even amidst the torture King Alessio would inflict upon him, this would be a self-inflicted torture, one more suited, more excruciating, for his treacherous soul.

  ***

  Sybelle’s face contorted into a cringe. She struggled, trying her best to take a deep breath and finding it impossible to do so. Her fingers sunk into the soft fabric of her sheets, clenching into fists and threatening to tear holes into the silk fabric with her nails. She forced her eyes open, her mouth widening as she dragged a breath into her deprived lungs. She took a look at herself, struggling to find the cause of so much discomfort within her body as a nervous edginess took over her. A mess of black, something soft and feathery, brushed against her cheek and she looked to see what it was. There, lying on her shoulder, she saw Deros’s head, his unkempt black hair tucked beneath her chin. Her breathing accelerated, her chest rising and falling at a frenzied pace. The movement seemed to stir him or, at the very least, alert him to her awareness of him. His body, lying beside hers on her bed, made subtle twitches that became more frenzied. Eventually, his hand planted itself beside her on the bed and he dragged himself to sit upright. He looked at her and she felt her body go cold and stiff. His eyes were white, entirely white, a look she’d seen before in her brother’s eyes. He was stone-faced as he stared at her. She shut her eyes, as tight as she possibly could, counting to five as she told herself that this was not reality, that he was not here and that she could rid herself of this haunting apparition.

  “You cannot just lie here and do nothing,” Deros voice told her, so vivid that she was sure that she could never have been capable of imagining such a thing. “I’m dying for this!” He growled at her.

  Her eyelids flew open, her nostrils flared and she stared at him with gritted teeth. “You’re dying because you left,” she said, slipping off the bed and creating distance between them. “You have no one to blame for your actions but yourself!”

  “Is that what you think?” Deros asked, raising both his eyebrows at her, his voice that raspy, smokey voice that she’d once held such love for. “Is this not your war? Is this not all for your need for revenge?”

  “My war is possible even without you throwing yourself into the hands of my enemy,” she retorted, her nose crinkled in disgust. “I told you there were other ways! I told you that it was all well within my control!” She turned around, walking a few paces before spinning around again, pointing an accusing finger at the apparition, “This is your fault! You disobeyed my orders!”

  Deros smirked, his eyes flickering to the canopy of her bed, “And damn those that may ever disobey your orders,” he said. He looked back at her and his eyes, white as they may have been, seemed to have hardened in intensity, “Because you’re Queen,” he said. “Because you think as Queen that you may do whatever you like!”

  “I was open to other ideas,” she said.

  “So long as you spilt the blood of the Azurians,” he supplemented for her.

  “So long as I spilt the blood of the Azurians,” she reiterated with confidence, her eyes narrowing.

  “Well,” he said, looking down at himself, at the stain of blood that had started blooming across the sheets, “however much I hate to disappoint you, it is not their blood that is being spilt.”

  Staring at the crimson po
ol, Sybelle found it difficult to breathe. Then it occurred to her, looking at him, a demon version of the person that she loved, that she could take it as an opportunity. An opportunity to do what she may never be able to do. She swallowed the lump of overwhelming emotions in her throat, shifting, “Your sacrifice won’t be worth nothing,” she said. “I won’t fail at what I set out to do.”

  “And what about what I set out to do?” He cocked his head to one side and his smirk seemed to quiver on his lips, almost like the apparition struggled between taunting her and loving her. “What about what I set out to do?”

  She shrugged her shoulders, throwing her hands out at her sides as her eyes stung painfully with tears that threatened to fall. “I don’t know what you set out to do,” she confessed. “Break my heart, perhaps?”

  Deros hung his head, though she wasn’t sure out of what when his smirk remained prominent on his lips. She wanted nothing more than to have him back, to look at her the way he’d come to do so, with so much love and adoration for her. She wanted nothing more than to be embraced by him. She threw her hands up at her sides once more, the tears streaming down her cheeks. Her body went cold. She blinked and Deros disappeared.

  She hung her head, wiping the tears from her eyes. Her dress was open at the front and the chill in the air brushed across her whole body. She took a deep breath and looked around, now awake to the real world. Her bed was as she’d left it, though absent the crimson stain that her mind had deceived her eyes into believing had grown into her sheets. On the headboard, perched comfortably, was the familiar jet black raven she’d come to expect when death lingered near.

  Ellyn stood not far from the door to her chambers, playing with her fingers against her dress as she waited patiently for all to pass. Realising that she was back, aware of her, she looked at her with large eyes, inquiring as though she wondered if she was truly there, “Your Majesty?”

  Sybelle said nothing. She didn’t think she could. Her insanity had become apparent to all those around her and there was no defending it, not with intimidation, not with anger, not with excuses. No. She needed action. She needed to accomplish what she set out to do and she needed that to be enough. It needed to be enough to convince those around her that she was still fit to be Queen.

  Sybelle stood in the doorway of the throne room. The corridors were dark, poorly lit at such a late hour of the night. Every so often, a guard would patrol through the corridors but, otherwise, there was not a soul in sight. Except for the one that lingered in the throne room, hovering over the marble-topped table that was flooded with papers.

  Every so often, Ewin would rub one of his hunched shoulders, sighing with exhaustion.

  “Perhaps if you ask me about what it is you’re looking for, you would be done with this sooner and would be able to find your bed,” Sybelle eventually said, making her presence known. He snapped his head in her direction. She smiled at him, sure to show him that she was not mad that he was working by himself, late into the night.

  He shifted were he stood and paid another glance towards the papers on the table. He clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, turning to her, his hand still gliding along the marble, and said, “I’m worried about Gyles,” he said. “We haven’t heard from him in Evrad for some time and it’s started to bother me.”

  “Why does it bother you?” Sybelle asked, shrugging her shoulders.

  “Because it’s not like him to go quiet at a time like this,” he retorted. “I worry that his silence is caused only by his death.” He bowed his head. His fists were clenched by his sides. “The man was not in the right state of mind when he left Lionessa. I worry not just what others may have done to him, a Lionessan general in the lands of those grieving from the country’s slayings, but what he may have done to himself.”

  It was a reality that Sybelle had tried to ignore for the longest time. Gyles was a broken man, now a shadow of the person that she’d known ever since childhood, and she always feared that this new face of his would cause him to fall deeper into despair.

  “Gyles may be dead,” she replied, shrugging her shoulders. “But you won’t hear word from him in Evrad because he’s no longer there.”

  Ewin’s eyes widened and then he raised his brows, “Where is he then?”

  Sybelle shrugged, both with the lack of knowledge and with indifference, “I don’t know exactly. I know that the company he finds himself in may mean that death is a possibility but it won’t be by his own hand.”

  “He’s in danger then,” Ewin stated. “Why haven’t we done something?”

  “Because it suits us to do nothing about it,” she said, taking a seat at the table. “Because we have enough problems here and because, if he is successful, his being there will be what saves us from all of this.”

  Ewin sat down across from her. His features overwhelmed with so much confusion. He laid his head in his hand, shaking it and looking to her for answers, “I don’t understand any of this,” he said.

  “And it’s best if you don’t,” Sybelle replied, laughing. “All you need to know, for now, is that Gyles is precisely where he needs to be. If not, then he is likely already dead.”

  Ewin recoiled, his mouth agape but unable to take in any breaths. He stared at her, his eyes wide and filled with concern.

  Sybelle smiled tenderly, “Your concern for him is touching,” she started, “and it’s a concern that is not unfounded. However, if we are to succeed, if Gyles hopes to ever have a home to return to, then he is best suited where he is. If that means that we are kept in the dark, if it means that we are to assume the worst as he we sit in the silence that he has left us in, then so be it.”

  Ewin fell back into his seat, saying nothing. His gaze fell to the table, unable to look at her as he drowned in the darkness of the knowledge she’d bestowed upon him.

  “Now,” she started again, “is there anything else?” Ewin shook his head. She got to her feet, sighing, “Good,” she said, “then you may put this to rest for now and do the same with yourself.” She walked past him but he didn’t move from his sight, his body too weighted by exhaustion and unease to bring himself to rise so soon.

  “Was this your idea or his?” Ewin asked, calling after her.

  She looked over her shoulder. All she could see of him was his hand, his index finger following the intricate patterns on the armrest, the back of the chair shielding his entire form from her. “Does it matter?”

  That hand on the armrest recoiled, clenching and unclenching in a matter of seconds. “Not really,” he replied in a hoarse, broken voice. “I just thought to ask if it was...you who commanded him there or if he chose such a plan as an opportunity to meet his own end.”

  “What has caused you to have become so protective of the man?” Sybelle asked, her brows twitching until they met.

  There was a pause. His hand slammed down on the armrest and then clenched around it. “Because it’s my fault that he is like this,” he replied. Sybelle tiptoed back to where Ewin was seated, peering over the back of the chair. He looked up at her, allowing his watery-eyed gaze, filled with so much self-hatred, to meet hers. “Like it or not,” he started, “I had a hand in Dreyny’s death. I had a hand in Gyles’s broken mind.”

  “You shouldn’t be blaming yourself for this,” Sybelle whispered, shaking her head.

  “But I do,” he said. “I do blame myself.”

  Sybelle’s shoulders fell. There was no convincing him otherwise and she didn’t have it in her to blame him when similar burdens preyed upon herself. There, she told him the conjurer of the plan that put Gyles in danger.

  CHAPTER 12

  IT SHOULD’VE BEEN easy to allow herself to wallow in her despair and pretend her pain was the only one that mattered. But, somehow, it wasn’t. Neyva’s cries in the corridors of the palace were too loud to ignore, causing Sybelle to rush through them, circling corners until she found her, sobbing into her hands and refusing to move into her chambers in spite of Ellyn’s gentle
coaxing.

  Sybelle gathered her skirt in her hands and crouched down in front of her, extending her hand to her damp cheek. Neyva stifled her sobs, wiping her face with the back of her sleeve. Her eyes were flooded with tears and her lips quivered, her chest wracked with grief.

  Sybelle stroked her cheek until she stopped crying, until her skin was no longer damp with tears. She got to her feet and extended her hand to the little girl. She latched on tightly with all ten little fingers and she led her into her chambers, waving Ellyn off, dismissing her in silence.

  Sybelle turned down the sheets on the young girl’s bed, exchanging little word with her. She helped her up the steps and, heaving a sigh, she lifted her up and placed her in bed. “My father,” she started again, her breath catching in her throat as she sobbed. “My mother,” she said, so desperate to have a shred of normalcy in her life that she turned to muttering for the person that she knew to have left her.

  Sybelle sat across from her, crossing her arms in her lap as she leaned into her. “Your mother has left,” Sybelle said, regrettably, “and so has your father.” Before the girl could break into greater sobs, she quickly added, “But your father may return. And, when he does, he cannot see that you’ve been crying.” She leaned forward, shifting to sit closer to her, running her fingers through her hair. “Your father loves you very, very much,” she whispered, “and it would break his heart to know that you’ve been crying for him.”