Page 34 of A Fate Unwoven
FOURTEEN
DIMAS
Your father is dead.
Dimas’s hand shook as he read the note. The screech of the snow eagle as it took flight once more sounded distant, almost a whisper against the pressure in his mind. He’d known even before the note arrived what the news would be. Had been denying it ever since Deyecia when he’d seen a flash of his Fateweaver cradling her marked wrist and felt the bond between them pull taut.
The shadows in his mind had been harder to ignore since then, the exhaustion in his limbs an almost physical thing. Now the frosted ground beneath him lurched, the world threatening to fall apart at the edges. His father was dead.
And he still did not have his Fateweaver.
“Your Highness,” Ioseph said, standing behind him. Dimas wasn’t sure how long he’d been frozen in place, parchment clutched in hand, but the soldier’s voice was gentle. Coaxing. “You should come back inside.”
No one asked what the note said. The eagle had flown low over their carriage, forcing Ioseph to stop as it dropped the rolled-up piece ofparchment into his lap. He’d handed it to Dimas without a word, brows drawn tight as the prince broke the imperial seal with his dagger and began to read. Had stood aside as Dimas stumbled from the carriage and into the icy wilderness with the note still in hand.
He reached for that same note now, gloved fingers brushing against Dimas’s own. “Your High—”
“My father and Lady Sefywn have passed. My uncle requests that I return to the palace.” His voice sounded strange, like it belonged to someone else. His uncle had written that, as acting regent, he would be able to keep Dimas’s father and Lady Sefwyn’s deaths a secret for a short while, but not indefinitely. And once the empire found out they were dead, and that Dimas did not have his Fateweaver, Wyrecia would descend into chaos.
“That … might be wise.” Ioseph’s voice cut through his growing panic. “The empire will need you for what comes next.”
He almost laughed at that, the sound choking in his throat. “I can’t go back there, ’Seph. Not withouther.”
“Deyecia is on the way home. We will continue with the plan—find the girl, have Finæn convince her to join us.” Ioseph’s fingers flexed against his, and it took everything in Dimas not to interlace them with his own.
“And if she isn’t there? Or if she … if she refuses?”
He didn’t know what he’d do if she did. His threat to kill Maia if she denied him had been a way of luring Lenora out. But if it came down to it, if he was forced to choose between hurting one innocent girl and condemning his empire to ruin, he didn’t know what he’d do.
His father wouldn’t hesitate. Would claim that if the girl had to die so their empire could thrive, then it was because Næbya willed it that way. But Dimas was not his father, and Næbya had abandoned him a long time ago.
Hadn’t she?
“Dimas, are you still with me?” Ioseph’s fingers slid to Dimas’s wrist, gripping it with enough force to bring Dimas back to himself.This close, Dimas could see the flakes of snow caught in Ioseph’s hair. Could see the rough, newly chapped skin of his lips. Even after days out in the Wilds, he was beautiful …
Dimas pulled back, putting as much space between them as he could. “Sorry, I—yes, I’ll go to Deyecia and find Lenora, as planned. Then I’ll return to the palace.” He swallowed against the lump in his throat. “But if we don’t find Lenora, or if … if she refuses us, we need to ensure what happened with the Furybringer doesn’t happen again.”
“We will.”
“No, ’Seph, I mean it.Whateverit takes.”
Don’t make me say it out loud,he thought.Don’t make me ask you to kill me.
It was how theZværnahad eventually defeated the Furybringer; killing the emperor she was bonded to had destroyed her own mortal body. The magic inside of her had simply passed on to her successor, barely six winters old at the time.
Whilst the story had been mostly erased from Wyrecia’s history, it was one Dimas knew well. He’d told it to Ioseph in the quiet hours of night, when Ioseph had roused him from a nightmare with reassuring whispers and gentle hands.
He knew the moment when Ioseph realized what he was asking. Ioseph’s eyes glistened, fingers gripping Dimas’s wrist as if it were a lifeline. “No.”
“Your duty is to this empire,” Dimas said, desperately trying not to meet Ioseph’s gaze.
But Ioseph had stepped closer again, making it impossible to look at anythingbutthe way the soldier’s irises darkened as Ioseph looked upon him. “My duty,” he whispered, breath a silent whisper against Dimas’s cheek, “is toyou.”
The words felt like a challenge, a gauntlet thrown down into the carefully constructed space Dimas had always kept between them. They were standing close enough that the slightest tilt of Dimas’s head wouldbring their lips together, and when Ioseph spoke again, Dimas could taste the steel and leather scent of him on his tongue.
“I won’t hurt you.”
Dimas was just about to lean forward, to pick up the gauntlet Ioseph had thrown for him, when pain sliced through his head. He stumbled forward, Ioseph’s arms catching him before he could hit the icy ground. There was the familiar flash of Ioseph’s face, pinched with worry.
