“You trust me?” Emory asked, her eyes on the bands in his hands rather than on his face.
“No,” Easton said, his voice clipped. “But we can’t trust most people these days, can we? You were a pawn in this, and we all know that. So, we’re giving you some freedom. Not completely, however. You will still be watched. Though you aren’t alone in being watched.”
I resisted the urge to look over at Garrik.
Or even at Easton.
After all, Easton was never truly alone, although he had been when he came to see me in my bedroom. Perhaps others had been watching him, and I just hadn’t noticed.
After all, I had been very much in my head at the time.
“What am I supposed to do?” Emory asked.
“Figure it out,” I said, so tired now. “A war is coming. Or maybe it’s already here. We need all the help we can get. And if the girl I knew is still inside you somewhere, find her and help us. I will do my best to return you to how you were. For now, this will help you. Right?” I looked at Justise.
He nodded. “This’ll bind your powers and make it so you can’t feel it. It might make you tired. You may not have the same energy you once had. But it won’t hurt you. You can trust me on that.”
“I don’t know who to trust,” she whispered, and my heart broke for her. I hated that she was going through this. There wasn’t anything else I could do, though. It was either this or leave her in a dungeon. And I hated the thought of doing the latter.
“Let’s figure this out together, one step at a time. Because this is only the beginning, Emory. I’ve already lost Braelynn, at least most of her. I can’t lose you, too.”
The others were silent as Emory looked at me. I didn’t know what else there was to say.
When she nodded, relief flowed through me, and I knew that this moment was our break, a time where we could just breathe, the calm before the storm. I would take it.
I would accept this bit of freedom, this moment of peace. Because the darkness was coming, and he had a name.
The Gray.
Only he wasn’t working alone, and it was those other members that I knew we had to be leery of.
Not only were we worried about Garrik and about Easton. But now we had to look at Emory, too. Because what if she worked for him? What if we were all wrong?
We would find that darkness, and we would try to bring it to the light. I just didn’t know what would happen before then.
Chapter Nineteen
Easton
* * *
I draped my leg over the edge of the chair as I watched the others move around the room. I was exhausted. I didn’t really want them to know. Nobody could know. Though I had a feeling my uncles did. And Lyric. I couldn’t help but notice the way her eyes constantly met mine as if she knew exactly what I was thinking. The fact that, sometimes, even I didn’t know what I was thinking, however, meant that she may know more than I did.
I purposely didn’t look over to where Lyric stood with the others, instead choosing to focus on trying to remain upright in my chair. I was exhausted, but I wasn’t allowed to show it. Not even to the family or to the people closest to me. Every single person in this room.
I had spent the day walking through the court, talking to as many people as I could. I met with the farmers, the butchers, the weavers. I met with the soldiers and the infantry. With the other minor healers and teachers. I tried to meet with everyone so they could see their king, attempted to reassure them that we were finding answers, that we were one step closer to figuring out exactly what to do to protect them and their families.
I both hated and loved that part of my job.
I loathed the lying because I knew we weren’t any closer. Not really. It didn’t matter that we knew the prophecy. That Lyric was here as a beacon of hope.
We didn’t know what the next step was. And for someone who prided themselves on figuring out exactly what needed to be done in order to protect their people, I wasn’t doing okay with that.
However, the part of my job I did like was actually speaking to my people. They had watched me grow up as the queen’s child, the prodigal son. We weren’t light, we were of darkness—something that I never forgot. The world had cast its shadow upon us when we were in infancy. Said that our powers were of the dark, not the light. In reality, my people were the opposite. They brought the light; they brought purity to my kingdom. It wasn’t me. It wasn’t anyone in power. It was those who worked hard day in and day out to keep the crops alive, to teach their children and watch them grow into adults, into Wielders. Those hanging by the thread we were all dangling from as they tried to create new lives in a world where their powers could be taken from them at any moment as the crystal sparked its energy.
From the time I was a boy, I had watched my people start to deteriorate, even as they tried to stand firm and grow.
The Fall had occurred long before my birth, my mother’s father having lost everything, including his life, during the war with the former King of Lumière.
I knew of the atrocities each side had committed, although, in reality, my grandfather hadn’t been the worst.
No, it had been the King of Lumière, Rhodes’ grandfather. Just like the king’s second son, the late Lord of Water, Rhodes and Rosamond’s father. They had bastardized their magics, killing and stripping the lives of the Spirit Wielders and Obscurité alike.
That had been their legacy. One that had been tarnished over time to where there now was pure evil and goodness on either side. And then again, the Obscurité had to be the dark, they had to be absolute evil. Without them as the enemy, as the darkness, then the light couldn’t be just in their wars. Because that’s what history had written, even if it might not be the truth.
Today, however, I had walked through the people, trying to help where I could. I hadn’t slept the night before, too worried about what might come, of what might take me in my sleep and wrap its shadowy chains around me without me knowing.
The way we fought, the way we won, had to be different this time. It had to be.
I couldn’t let The Gray take me. Because if I did, then all would be lost, and there would be no point in any of this.
I had helped to rebuild some of the buildings that were damaged. The battle with Lore wasn’t the only thing that had caused destruction. Every time the crystal shattered a bit more and sent out the shockwave that stripped the magic from its people, it also destroyed anything in its path.
So, it was my job to ensure that everyone knew I would be around to help as much as I could. Then I wondered…what if they find out who has had control of me this entire time? What if they figured out that I was just a fake? That I wasn’t who they thought I was.
“Why are you frowning and brooding like that?” Ridley asked, coming to stand closer to me.
I shook myself out of my reverie and looked over at my uncle, smiling. It helped to smile, to pretend that everything was fine. Even though nothing had been fine for a long time—longer than I cared to admit.
Ridley saw right through my façade. And as Justise came up to his side, slowly wrapping his arm around his husband’s waist, I knew that he saw through my act, as well.
I looked at my two uncles and wished that I had what they had. They’d been mated for as long as I could remember. And they always had each other.
I didn’t know the story of their courtship, they kept it private, something just for themselves. I knew they loved each other beyond measure. And they were always there for me. Even when I didn’t know I needed them. Cameo had loved her younger brother with all of her heart, and she had made sure that the world knew that while she was queen. He was family and should be revered just as she was.
Justise had never liked the spotlight, though, and so he had shunned anything royal until I needed help. And now, anytime I had to leave, Justise and Ridley were there, assuming the mantle so I could do what I needed to for my people.
And they tried to keep me safe when no one els
e could. The fact that they knew I had disappeared for a time and they had thought it was Lore, reaffirmed my worries regarding what we’d all thought in the past. We’d been wrong, so wrong about everything we’d thought to be the truth. More than once.
Because the orchestrator hadn’t been Lore. No, it had been The Gray.
And I didn’t think any of us were strong enough to fight that shadow monster.
“I’m not brooding,” I brooded.
“You are. It’s sort of your trademark. That and the smirk,” Ridley said, his eyes full of laughter.
“You know, I am your king. You should probably bow to me instead of treating me like a little kid.”
“When you stop acting like a child as you sometimes do, then maybe I’ll stop treating you like one,” Justise said, and Ridley elbowed him in the gut.
“Be nice. If anyone broods, it’s you, dear husband.”
“I do not brood. I glower. There is a difference.”
“Did someone say brooding?” Teagan asked as Wyn followed him, rolling her eyes.
“Please don’t say that you brood,” Wyn said, snorting at Teagan as he frowned.
“I brood.”
“No, you really don’t. You try, and then you snort and laugh and growl. You don’t brood.”
“Can we please stop using the word brood?” I asked, sliding my leg over my chair so I could get up. I hated when everybody stood around me while I was the only one sitting. The layout of my grandfather’s court had made it that way, mostly because his throne had been a little bit higher. My mother hadn’t ruled from that pedestal. She had only required some of the reverence to keep people in line. She wasn’t like dear old Grandpa.
Not that I had ever met the man. My grandfather had believed in fear and power to keep the uprisers out bay—or out of the picture altogether. My mother had done her best to keep the idea of purity and power within the kingdom so wrapped up in mystery that the members of the territories would never truly understand who she was. That’s how they could love and her believe in her rule.
I needed to figure out what kind of king I wanted to be. However, I didn’t really have time for that right now, because the king I needed to be was one who had to keep his people safe. And that meant keeping Lyric safe.
I looked at her where she stood, Rhodes and Rosamond on either side of her. She had a drink in her hand, and the three were talking to one another over the canapés that had been laid out. Tonight was family dinner, even though it really wasn’t just family anymore. I risked a glance at Uncle Justise as he looked at me, and I knew that I didn’t really have much family left. Just the two men at my side, who I knew would do anything to help me. “The darkness won’t have you forever,” Rosamond said, cutting through the other conversations as she and Lyric and Rhodes came towards me. Everyone quieted, and I looked over at her.
“What do you See, Seer?” I asked. Rhodes glared at me.
“Don’t badger her,” he snapped out, and Lyric put her hand on his arm and gave it a squeeze.
I wanted to reach out and tear her away from him, to punch Rhodes in the face so he’d never let her touch him again.
Then something inside of me slowly moved up, like an oil slick spreading through my body as it dug in its claws, and then I could feel nothing. Only numbness.
I rubbed at my chest, trying to catch my breath. I hated this. Why the hell had The Gray done this? Why did I have this curse?
I knew something was there. I could feel it aching beneath my skin. But every time I reached for it, every time something came through, even just a peek of feeling that might actually be real, the curse came back, and I could feel nothing. Nothing but what The Gray wanted me to feel.
And I hated myself for it.
“I don’t know what I’m Seeing,” Rosamond said, pulling me out of my dark thoughts. “Only that there has to be light. If that weren’t the case, I wouldn’t be Seeing it at all.”
“So, you only see for the Lumière?” Teagan asked. I nodded—I had the same question.
“No, this group is not Lumière and Obscurité. We’re the light, and the dark.”
“As that’s the literal translation of our names, it would be nice if you were more specific,” I drawled.
“Light as in what is right, what keeps us whole. The darkness is of shadow, not the magic in your veins. The shadows that creep, that whisper lies, that probe secrets and unearth truths that were never meant to be aired. Light and dark might not be the words chosen. However, they are the words for now.” Rosamond shook her head and rubbed at her temple. “I hate sounding like one of the Spirit Wielders,” she said, flashing a self-deprecating smile.
This time, Lyric reached out and hugged the other woman.
“Well, I think that made a little more sense than the others. At least what you just said were almost complete sentences rather than riddles.”
I wanted to reach out and pull Lyric close and tell her that we would figure this out. I just didn’t know if that would be a lie or not. And I didn’t want to lie to her. She had been through enough, and I wouldn’t compound on that.
“I guess since we’ve had a vision from the Seer, that must be the dinner bell,” I said, trying to sound jovial and as if nothing was wrong.
I knew nobody believed that. After all, we were all waiting for the next shoe to drop. To hear the next scream, join the next fight, feel more pain. Because that’s what happened when you let your guard down.
I looked around the room at Rhodes and Rosamond, at my uncles, at Teagan and Wyn, and then at Lyric, and I knew that not all of us would survive this. We couldn’t.
Not with a snake in our midst—and while I could be that serpent. Not with all the unknown, or the fact that we didn’t know what the King of Lumière was planning. Or The Gray. The world was dying, turning to embers and ash, and I was afraid I wouldn’t be enough to help save it. That the curse holding me back wouldn’t allow me to protect the girl in front of me. The one I should love. The woman I could feel nothing for other than a desire I knew wasn’t strong enough to surpass the magic that held me back.
There was a knock on the door, and the guards poked their heads in. I held up my hand and gestured for them to enter, and Garrik stood between them. The man who had been The Gray’s fourth looked at me, and then at the others, and seemed to close in on himself, as if he were afraid of what the others might think.
I wanted to believe this act. I wanted him to be good and simply under The Gray’s control, same as I was. However, if I didn’t trust myself, I knew I couldn’t trust him.
And even as I had that thought, as I thought of Lyric and what I wanted, a shadow slid around my heart, chaining it to a wall of smoke. I gasped out a breath, falling out of the chair to my knees.
Lyric was there first, her hands on my face as she said something I couldn’t hear. There was white noise in my ears, as if all sound had been sucked away, and all I could hear was the vacuum of vastness. Ridley’s hands were on my back, telling me to do something. What, I didn’t know.
Garrik was there, as well, his eyes full of fear as he came forward. The guards held him back, Teagan glowering at the man, as well.
“I’m fine,” I rasped out, knowing it was a lie. “I’m fine.”
The others didn’t believe me, and I didn’t blame them. Because I wasn’t fine. The Gray had control of me—or at least had a hold on me. And I couldn’t break the tie.
I had a feeling the only way I could break that cord was something that would be the final end.
Because The Gray couldn’t control me if I weren’t alive for him to grasp on to.
And to save Lyric, to save my people, I would sacrifice myself in a heartbeat.
I really hoped to hell that wasn’t the answer, though.
Chapter Twenty
Lyric
* * *
“Are you going to tell me what that was about?” I asked as I followed Easton into the courtyard after our dinner had been cut short.
Garrik had stood in front of us all as if wanting to reach out to help Easton. None of us let him touch him, though. We didn’t trust Garrik, and we weren’t sure we could trust Easton for long—not with The Gray coming for him. And that’s what must have happened. It had to be. “It’s fine. I’m fine.” He spit out the words, and I wanted to reach out and tell him that it would be okay, just like he kept saying to me. Lies. But I couldn’t. I just stood behind him as he looked off into the distance, the wind blowing through his hair.
“It wasn’t nothing. You fell to the floor, clutching at your chest. Was it The Gray?”
He whirled on me, Fire dancing in his eyes as he glared. “Of course, it was. It’s always going to be him now, isn’t it?”
“Maybe. Though it doesn’t have to be. We can figure this out.”
He let out a bark of laughter that told me he didn’t believe me. It wasn’t like I actually believed it either.
“The Gray has always been the bogeyman. The myth told to keep us on the side of good for fear of him getting us. He was the one who slept under our beds, who crept through our closets in the night before wrapping his spindly, smoky fingers around us, clutching at us until we could no longer breathe. Until we could no longer Wield.”
“Those stories are a little darker than the ones I grew up with,” I said, trying to come across as nonchalant. I attempted to sound as if I weren’t scared to death that I would lose him, even though I didn’t really have him.
“Your fairy tales, at least the ones I remember seeing when I was in that realm, are based on far darker ones than mine. They’re about death and dismemberment and horror. Then they add a little smiling elf or bird and, suddenly, it’s cute.”
“Okay, you may have a point there.”
“At least, yours aren’t real,” he said, his voice bleak again. Fire slid across his fingertips, and I didn’t even know if he realized he was doing it. It was as if it were a game to him, the way he didn’t even care about how I felt.
From Spirit and Binding Page 17
