Page 177 of Lady for Embers

His room. His space. Some place he had complete control over.

Scarlett bit her bottom lip, but nodded in agreement, reaching out to take his hand and Travel him back to the Greybane estate. She took them to the foyer, and before she released his hand, she looked up at him. Her eyes were a pale silvery-blue, clearly not fully replenished after the short draw from Sorin.

“This needs to happen, Cyrus,” she said earnestly. “For so many reasons... He needs this, butweneed this too. With Sorin getting weaker... ” She swallowed thickly, looking away from him. When she met his gaze again, tears glimmered in his eyes. “I don’t know how any of this will turn out, Cyrus.” Her voice was a whisper, and it trembled as she spoke. “I don’t know what will happen, but if we can get him to accept a Source, at least he will be taken care of. At least this one thing can go right, even if nothing else does.”

Cyrus reached over, thumbing away the lone tear that was sliding down her cheek. “You and Cassius,” he murmured. “Always so worried about taking care of each other, you forget there are other people who want to take care of you too.” She closed her eyes for a brief moment, and Cyrus said, “Go see your twin ?ame, Scarlett. Trust me to take care of him and to take care of this for you.”

She nodded, disappearing a moment later, and Cyrus turned to the stairs, climbing slowly to the ?oor they were staying on. He stopped outside Cassius’s door, directly across from his. Taking a deep breath, he rapped his knuckles against the wood a few times.

“Cass?” When there was no answer, he added, “I know you’re in there, Cassius.”

A few seconds later, the door opened a crack, but when Cyruspushed it open further, Cassius was already walking back to the desk across the room. He didn’t say a word. Just sat down and pulled a book towards himself, picking up a piece of charcoal.

Cyrus leaned back against the closed door, crossing his arms. Apparently Cassius was taking a page from the dragon handbook and doing the whole silent-and-broody thing.

“Why didn’t you say anything about your reserves?” Cyrus asked, his voice tense with restrained fury.

“It was ?ne,” he muttered. “I was doing ?ne in training. It wasn’t affecting anything.”

“Except it would have eventually and likely already was.”

“I did not know. Now I do. I will make adjustments accordingly.” He wrote something down on some parchment before focusing on the pages again.

“Make adjustments,” Cyrus repeated.

“Yes.”

“Like getting a Source?”

Cassius’s shoulders tensed, and Cyrus knew the motion. He was ?ghting the Shift, his emotions making it hard to control his magic. Cyrus had watched him struggle with this for days during training. He knew where wings would appear between his shoulder blades. He knew his pupils were likely vertical, eyes on the verge of glowing an amber-red.

Cyrus dropped his arms, taking a tentative step into the room. “I would have given you more blood if you’d have asked. You know that, right? All you needed to do was say something.”

“Of course I know that,” he barked, the piece of charcoal slamming down onto the desk. “You would give your life if it would be more convenient for someone else.”

“This isn’t about me,” Cyrus argued.

“It’s not?” Cassius asked, ?nally twisting to look at him from the chair. Cyrus had been right. Vertical pupils bored into him. Cassius stood then, leaning back against the desk, his hands gripping the edge behind him. “You are not about to suggest to me, yet again, that you should be my Source?”

“You need one, Cass. For all the reasons Cethin said and more. Scarlett is worried. We’re all worried. If you don’t want it to be me, ?ne, but we need to ?nd you one.”

Cassius ran a hand down his face. “Can we talk about this later? I just need some time to think.”

“So think with me,” Cyrus said, moving to the small sofa against the wall and sinking down onto it.

Cassius sighed, settling back down at the desk without another word. But he didn’t tell Cyrus to leave, which meant he’d eventually say something. Cyrus just needed to wait for it.

When he ?nally did speak a half-hour later, it’s certainly not what he was expecting him to say.

“You know you deserve more than being someone’s Source of power, right?”

Cyrus had been absent-mindedly tossing a ball of ?re into the air and catching it. At Cassius’s words, he dropped the damn thing, singeing the rug beneath his feet before he could put it out. He cursed under his breath.

“We all deserve more than what we’ve been dealt,” he replied, prodding at the burn mark with the toe of his boot. “We all deserved parents who stuck around. Sorin didn’t deserve to watch his parents killed in front of his eyes. Neither did Callan. Eliza didn’t deserve to be cursed by her father or to lose Nakoa. Scarlett didn’t deserve to have so much placed on her shoulders, and you don’t deserve to be forced into doing something you clearly don’t want. But we don’t get to choose what we deserve. We only get to make the best out of what the Fates decide we get.”

“Maybe,” Cassius mused, and Cyrus heard him shift in his chair. “But there is something to be said for not settling and ?ghting for what you deserve.”

“I know you want to wait, but we’re running out of time, Cass,” Cyrus said. “Scarlett wants to push Cethin for answers on how to leave. She’s getting impatient and wants to go to the mortal kingdoms and take down the wards. We’re going to need everyone at their full power for that.”

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