Page 23 of Wolf Caged
She yanked it open with enough force that the hinges creaked and barked over her shoulder, “I am not speaking with you until you do the right thing!”
“I am trying to do the right thing!” I barked right back at her, patience wearing thin and close to snapping as memories tore at me, as that night roared up on me and I could hear their screams of pain, could smell their fear, and their blood. “Can you imagine the torment our brother might have suffered in the decades we have been apart? What the wretched seelie might be doing to him right this moment?”
Jenavyr turned on me, hurt flaring in her damp silver eyes, and bit out, “Our brother is dead. He isdead, Kael. You are trying to save a ghost and hurting everyone in the process, including yourself. Can you not see that?”
I curled my fingers into tight fists at my side, my emerging claws cutting into my palms as I reined in my shadows, and quietly, as calmly as I could manage, ground out, “He is alive. I can feel it.”
Bitterness coated her voice as she glared at me. “You only feel what you want to feel. What will justify this reckless hunger for war. You only feel what will justify the cold, callous male you have become. Maybe both of my brothers died that day?—”
“Jenavyr.” Her name was soft on my lips.
She locked up tight, regret flashing across her face, and opened her mouth, looking as if she might apologise.
Because she knew the things I had done for her sake and that of my people.
She knew the price I had paid to keep them safe.
Her shoulders sagged, and her features softened, that look cutting me deeper than her vicious words had because I could see the despair that lived in her heart in it, the hope she clung to and the pain that haunted her too. We had both paid too steep a price.
“Let the wolf go,” she whispered, gaze imploring me to listen this time. “This is not like you. This is… this is too much, Kael. Believing in visions and buying innocent people. I do not like where this is heading. I do not like what is happening to you. I do not like that I am finding it harder to recognise the brother I once knew in you.”
“Enough!” I slammed my hand down on the desk, the force of the blow cracking it in half, and shadows erupted from me, filling the room and chilling the air, striking at everything and obliterating it.
Only a small space around her remained untouched.
Because no matter how hard she pushed me, how deeply she angered me, I would never—never—harm her.
“Do you remember what happened the last time a gentle king sat on the throne of the Shadow Court?” I straightened, shadows writhing around me as they slowly receded, forcing myself to look at my sister as she struggled to remain still and standing tall. The tremble in her fingertips she could not quite control tore at me, had my rage turning inwards, towards myself for losing control, for frightening my beloved sister.
My blood.
She averted her gaze.
Afraid to look at me.
Shredding what little remained of my soul.
Regret swept through me, because it was not like Vyr to withdraw from me.
She had understood once, long ago, when the throne had become mine that bloody night and in the years that followed it. She had understood that I could not be weak. I could not be kind. A king did not remain in control of a court by being a friend to his people. He needed to rule it. He needed to keep everyone in line.
He needed to be firm.
Unyielding.
Our father had tried to rule with gentleness, with kindness, and it had gotten him killed.
Yet apparently I had not quite destroyed all gentleness or kindness I had once possessed because I still lined up an apology.
But she turned on me, darkness branching outwards from her bright silver eyes.
“How can I forget when you drag it behind you, chained to it, as if your sole purpose is to carry the weight of it like a burden for all eternity… When you are obsessed with chasing ghosts. Our brother. The seelie who killed our parents. They are all dead, Kael.” Tears glistened in her eyes, born of pain that chilled onepart of her even as rage made the other burn hotter than the fires of the Forge. Her sharpened teeth flashed between her lips as she hurled the words at me. “How can I ever forget what happened and move past it when you constantly punish yourself for what happened when it was not your fault?”
She disappeared in glittering black smoke.
I stood there, as still as the night sky, because every word had hit its mark far more accurately than mine ever could, lodging deep into my heart.
This burdenwasmine to carry.
