“I can’t. These men were in Southbay. With Alrec.”
“I know. None of them have seen my brother.”
That had to be a good sign, right? That he wasn’t among the wounded. He must be out there, bringing more men back to the castle.
I searched the faces for one I recognized. As much as I wanted to help the others, I had to conserve the rest of my magic in case Alrec needed me. I wouldn’t fail him the way I had failed the last man, now staring blankly toward the cloudless sky.
A tall soldier in blackened livery stumbled among the fallen men, clutching his side.
My heart swelled with hope. “Is that . . . ?”
“Broderick,” Caiman finished, his hand at my waist tightening.
I would’ve given out about the way he held me, except without him I wasn’t sure I’d be able to stand. Together, we started for Broderick. The closer we drew, the more I panicked. He appeared to be alone. He was never alone. He was Alrec’s shadow. Where was my fiancé?
When the guard saw us approaching, he grimaced.
“Where is he?” Caiman demanded.
Broderick’s dark eyes shuttered. “Prince Alrec,” he choked, drawing in a rasping breath and clutching his bleeding side, “is dead.”
9
CAIMAN
I’d bathedthrice since the chaos in the courtyard, and yet I still felt blood on my hands. Three days had passed, but I didn’t think I’d ever feel clean again. My brother’s foolish arrogance had cost twenty-seven men their lives. Wives made widows. Children left fatherless. And for what? So he could prove to me that he was invincible?
Alrec may have been the one to issue the order, but he wouldn’t have been in Southbay if I hadn’t pushed him to the limit. What had I been thinking? I knew he would never back down from a challenge. And now he was gone.
“I don’t understand,” my father kept muttering, blank eyes searching the shadowed ceiling for answers. “He is to be king. He is the king . . .”
The king didn’t fight his own battles. He had soldiers do it for him. As the useless second son, it should’ve been my responsibility to serve in the army, but my physical ailments as a child had kept me from that life.
It should’ve been me.
Alrec had a kingdom who loved him. And Roisin . . .
She hadn’t left her chambers in days.
In the courtyard, she hadn’t balked at the blood staining her hands or bare feet, ruining her fine blue gown. She’d been brilliant, healing wounded men as if they were her own people, stepping seamlessly into the role of the queen I always hoped she could be.
And then Broderick had given us the devastating news.
I’d refused to believe it, ordering Lord Devon to have fresh troops sent to Southbay to scour the coast for any sign of my brother. Of the twenty-seven men killed, seven of them had been lost at sea. Seven bodies never recovered, my brother’s among them.
Broderick had left the infirmary earlier this morning, lucky to be alive. If it weren’t for Lady Seren’s healing magic, his fate would’ve been the same as—
Dammit.
I dropped my head into my hands. Alrec couldn’t be dead. He couldn’t.
My father turned to me, a rare moment of clarity crossing his sunken eyes as he took my hand, his grip surprisingly strong for a man at death’s door. His rattling inhale left me sinking even lower. “You must honor the betrothal contract.”
“Father, you’re not thinking straight.” It must be the morphine talking. Roisin could go back to Iodale and find some other wealthy lord to marry.
“I made a promise to Lady Seren that her daughter would wed my son. I swore . . . I swore it to the fae.” My father struggled to draw himself upright against the dark headboard. I put a hand on his shoulder to keep him abed. Now, more than ever, he needed to conserve what little strength he had. I couldn’t lose him too. “You are the only son I have left.”
The back-up.