Someone—Shen—gripped the handles of his chair and began to turn him.
Chaol twisted, teeth bared at the guard. “Don’t touch it.”
But Shen didn’t release the handles, even as apology shone in his eyes. He knew—Chaol realized the guard knew just how it felt to have the chair touched, moved, without being asked. Just as Chaol knew what defying the khagan’s order to escort him from the room might mean for Shen.
So Chaol again fixed his stare on the khagan. “Your city is the greatest I have ever laid eyes upon, your empire the standard by which all others should be measured. When Morath comes to lay waste to it, who will stand with you if we are all carrion?”
The khagan’s eyes burned like coals.
Shen kept pushing his chair toward that door.
Chaol’s arms shook with the effort to keep from shoving the guard away, his legs trembling as he tried and tried to rise. Chaol looked over his shoulder and growled, “I stood on the wrong side of the line for too damn long, and it cost me everything. Do not make the same mistakes that I—”
“Do not presume to tell a khagan what he must do,” Urus said, his eyes like chips of ice. He jerked his chin to the guards shifting on their feet at the door. “Escort Lord Westfall back to his rooms. Do not allow him into my meetings again.”
The threat lay beneath the calm, cold words. Urus had no need to raise his voice, to roar to make his promise of punishment clear enough to the guards.
Chaol pushed and pushed against his chair, arms straining as he fought to stand, to even rise slightly.
But then Shen had his chair through the doors, and down the gleaming bright hallways.
Still his body did not obey. Did not answer.
The doors to the khagan’s council chamber shut with a soft click that reverberated through Chaol’s every bone and muscle, the sound more damning than any word the khagan had uttered.
Yrene had left Chaol to his thoughts the night before.
Left them as she stormed back to the Torre and decided that Hasar … Oh, she did not mind manipulating the princess one bit. And realized precisely how she’d get the princess to invite her to that damned oasis.
But it seemed that even a morning in the training ring with the guards had not soothed the jagged edge in Chaol’s own temper. The temper still simmering as he waited in the sitting room while Yrene sent Kadja off on another fool’s errand—twine, goat’s milk, and vinegar—and at last readied to work on him.
Summer was boiling toward a steamy close, the wild winds of autumn beginning to lash at the waters of the turquoise bay. It was always warm in Antica, but the Narrow Sea turned rough and unwieldy from Yulemas to Beltane. If an armada did not sail from the southern continent before then … Well, Yrene supposed that after last night, one wouldn’t sail anyway.
Sitting near their usual gold couch, Chaol didn’t greet her with more than a cursory glance. Not at all like his usual grim smile. And the shadows under his eyes … Any thought of rushing in here to tell him of her plan flowed out of Yrene’s head as she asked, “Were you up all night?”
“For parts of it,” he said, his voice low.
Yrene approached the couch but did not sit. Instead, she simply watched him, folding her arms across her abdomen. “Perhaps the khagan will consider. He’s aware of how his children scheme. He’s too smart not to have seen Arghun and Hasar working in tandem—for once—and to not be suspicious.”
“And you know the khagan so well?” A cold, biting question.
“No, but I’ve certainly lived here a good deal longer than you have.”
His brown eyes flashed. “I don’t have two years to spare. To play their games.”
And she did, apparently.
Yrene stifled her irritation. “Well, brooding about it won’t fix anything.”
His nostrils flared. “Indeed.”
She hadn’t seen him like this in weeks.
Had it been so long already? Her birthday was in a fortnight. Sooner than she’d realized.
It wasn’t the time to mention it, or the plan she’d hatched. It was inconsequential, really, given everything swarming around them. The burdens he bore. The frustration and despair she now saw pushing on those shoulders.
“Tell me what happened.” Something had—something had shifted since they’d parted ways last night.
A cutting glance her way. She braced herself for his refusal as his jaw tightened.
But then he said, “I went to see the khagan this morning.”
“You got an audience?”
“Not quite.” His lips thinned.
“What happened?” Yrene braced a hand on the arm of the sofa.
“He had me hauled out of the room.” Cold, flat words. “I couldn’t even try to get around the guards. Try to make him listen.”
“If you’d been standing, they’d have hauled you away all the same.” Likely hurt him in the process.
He glared. “I didn’t want to fight them. I wanted to beg him. And I couldn’t even get onto my knees to do it.”
Her heart strained as he looked toward the garden window. Rage and sorrow and fear all crossed over his face. “You’ve made remarkable progress already.”
“I want to be able to fight alongside my men again,” Chaol said quietly. “To die beside them.”
The words were an icy slice of fear through her, but Yrene said stiffly, “You can do that from a horse.”
“I want to do it shoulder-to-shoulder,” he snarled. “I want to fight in the mud, on a killing field.”
“So you’d heal here only so you can go die somewhere else?” The words snapped from her.
“Yes.”
A cold, hard answer. His face equally so.
This storm brewing in him … She wouldn’t see their progress ruined by it.
And war was truly breaking across their home. Regardless of what he wished to do with himself, he did not—they did not have time. Her people in Fenharrow did not have time.
So Yrene stepped up to him, gripped him under a shoulder, and said, “Then get up.”
Chaol was in a shit mood, and he knew it.
The more he’d thought about it, the more he realized how easily the prince and princess had played him, toyed with him last night … It didn’t matter what move Aelin had made. Anything she had done, they would have turned against her. Against him. Had Aelin played the damsel, they would have called her a weak and uncertain ally. There was no way to win.
The meeting with the khagan had been folly. Perhaps Kashin had played him, too. For if the khagan had been willing to hear him out before, he certainly was not going to now. And even if Nesryn returned with Sartaq’s rukhin in tow … Her note yesterday had been carefully worded.
The rukhin are deft archers. They find my own skills intriguing, too. I should like to keep instructing. And learning. They fly free here. I’ll see you in three weeks.
He didn’t know what to make of it. The penultimate line. Was it an insult to him, or a coded message that the rukhin and Sartaq might disobey the commands of their khagan if he refused to let them leave? Would Sartaq truly risk treason to aid them? Chaol didn’t dare leave the message unburned.
Fly free. He had never known such a feeling. It would never be his to discover. These weeks with Yrene, dining in the city under the stars, talking to her about everything and nothing … It had come close, perhaps. But it did not change what lay ahead.
No—they were still very much alone in this war. And the longer he lingered, with his friends now in combat, now on the move …
He was still here. In this chair. With no army, no allies.
“Get up.”
He slowly faced Yrene as she repeated her command, a hand tightly gripped under his shoulder, her face full of fiery challenge.
Chaol blinked at her. “What.” Not quite a question.
“Get. Up.” Her mouth tightened. “You want to die in this war so badly, then get up.”
She was in a mood, too. Good. He?
??d been aching for a fight—the clashes with the guards still unsatisfactory in this gods-damned chair. But Yrene …
He hadn’t allowed himself to touch her these weeks. Had made himself keep a distance, despite her unintentional moments of contact, the times when her head dipped close to his and all he could do was watch her mouth.
Yet he’d seen the tension in her at dinner last night, when Hasar had taunted about Nesryn’s return. The disappointment she’d tried so hard to keep hidden, then the relief when he’d revealed Nesryn’s extended trip.
He was a champion bastard. Even if he’d managed to convince the khagan to save their asses in this war … He would leave here. Empty handed or with an army, he’d leave. And despite Yrene’s plans to return to their continent, he wasn’t certain when he’d see her again. If ever.
None of them might make it anyway.
And this one task, this one task that his friends had given him, that Dorian had given him …
He’d failed.
Even with all he’d endured, all he’d learned … It was not enough.
Chaol gave a pointed look to his legs. “How?” They’d made more progress than he could have dreamed, yet this—
Her grip tightened to the point of pain. “You said it yourself: you don’t have two years. I’ve repaired enough now that you should be able to stand. So get up.” She even went so far as to tug on him.
He stared at her beneath lowered brows, letting his temper slip its leash by a few notches. “Let go.”
“Or what?” Oh, she was pissed.
“Who knows what the spies will feed to the royals?” Cold, hard words.
Yrene’s mouth tightened. “I have nothing to fear from their reports.”
“Don’t you? You didn’t seem to mind the privileges that came when you snapped your fingers and Kashin ran here. Perhaps he’ll grow tired of you stringing him along.”
“That is nonsense and you know it.” She tugged on his arm. “Get up.”
He did no such thing. “So a prince is not good enough for you, but the disowned son of a lord is?”
He’d never even voiced the thought. Even to himself.
“Just because you’re pissed off that Hasar and Arghun outmaneuvered you, that the khagan still won’t listen to you, doesn’t give you the right to try to drag me into a fight.” Her lips curled back from her teeth. “Now get up, since you’re so eager to rush off into battle.”
He yanked his shoulder out of her grip. “You didn’t answer the question.”
“I’m not going to answer the question.” Yrene didn’t grab his shoulder again, but slid her entire arm under him and grunted, as if she’d lift him herself, when he was nearly double her weight.
Chaol gritted his teeth, and just to avoid her injuring herself, he shook her off again and set his feet on the floor. Braced his hands on the arms of the chair and hauled himself forward as far as he could manage. “And?”
He could move his knees and below, and his thighs had been tingling this past week every now and then, yet …
“And you remember how to stand, don’t you?”
He only shot back, “Why did you look so relieved when I said Nesryn would be delayed a few more weeks?”
Color bloomed on her freckled skin, but she reached for him again, looping her arms through his. “I didn’t want it to distract you from our progress.”
“Liar.” Her scent wrapped around him as she tugged, the chair groaning as he began to push down on the arms.
And then Yrene parried and went on the offensive, sleek as a snake. “I think you were relieved,” she seethed, her breath hot against his ear. “I think you were glad for her to remain away, so you can pretend that you are honor-bound to her and let that be a wall. So that when you are here, with me, you don’t need to see her watching, don’t need to think about what she is to you. With her away, she is a memory, a distant ideal, but when she is here, and you look at her, what do you see? What do you feel ?”
“I had her in my bed, so I think that says enough about my feelings.”
He hated the words, even as the temper, the sharpness … it was a relief, too.
Yrene sucked in a breath, but didn’t back down. “Yes, you had her in your bed, but I think she was likely a distraction, and was sick of it. Perhaps sick of being a consolation prize.”
His arms strained, the chair wobbling as he pushed and pushed upward, if only so he could stand long enough to glare into her face. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” She had not mentioned Aelin at all, hadn’t asked after last night’s dinner. Until—
“Did she pick Dorian, then? The queen. I’m surprised she could stomach either of you, given your history. What your kingdom did to hers.”
Roaring filled his ears as he began shifting his weight onto his feet, willing his spine to hold while he spat at her, “You didn’t seem to mind it one bit, that night at the party. I had you practically begging me.” He didn’t know what the hell was coming out of his mouth.
Her nails dug into his back. “You’d be surprised the people that opiate makes you consider. Who you’ll find yourself willing to sully yourself with.”
“Right. A son of Adarlan. An oath-breaking, faithless traitor. That’s what I am, isn’t it?”
“I wouldn’t know—you rarely even attempt to talk about it.”
“And you are so good at it, I suppose?”
“This is about you, not me.”
“Yet you were assigned to me because your Healer on High saw otherwise. Saw that no matter how high you climbed in that tower, you’re still that girl in Fenharrow.” A laugh came out of him, icy and bitter. “I knew another woman who lost as much as you. And do you know what she did with it—that loss?” He could barely stop the words from pouring out, could barely think over the roar in his head. “She hunted down the people responsible for it and obliterated them. What the hell have you bothered to do these years?”
Chaol felt the words hit their mark.
Felt the stillness shudder through her body.
Right as he pushed up—right as his weight adjusted and knees bent, and he found himself standing.
Too far. He’d gone too far. He’d never once believed those things. Even thought them.
Not about Yrene.
Her chest rose in a jagged breath that brushed against his, and she blinked up at him, mouth closing. And with the movement, he could see a wall rising up. Sealing.
Never again. She’d never again forgive him, smile at him, for what he’d said.
Never forget it. Standing or no.
“Yrene,” he rasped, but she slid her arms from him and backed away a step, shaking her head. Leaving him standing—alone. Alone and exposed as she retreated another step and the sunlight caught in the silver starting to line her eyes.
It ripped his chest wide open.
Chaol put a hand on it, as if he could feel the caving within, even as his legs wavered beneath him. “I am no one to even mention such things. I am nothing, and it was myself that I—”
“I might not have battled kings and shattered castles,” she said coldly, voice shaking with anger as she continued her retreat, “but I am the heir apparent to the Healer on High. Through my own work and suffering and sacrifice. And you’re standing right now because of that. People are alive because of that. So I may not be a warrior waving a sword about, may not be worthy of your glorious tales, but at least I save lives—not end them.”
“I know,” he said, fighting the urge to grip the arms of the chair now seeming so far below him as his balance wavered. “Yrene, I know.” Too far. He had gone too far, and he had never hated himself more, for wanting to pick a fight and being so gods-damned stupid, when he’d really been talking about himself—
Yrene backed away another step.
“Please,” he said.
But she was heading for the door. And if she left …
He had let them all go. Had walked out himself, too, but with Aelin, with Dorian, wi
th Nesryn, he had let them go, and he had not gone after them.
But that woman backing toward the door, trying to keep the tears from falling—tears from the hurt he’d caused her, tears of the anger he so rightfully deserved—
She reached the handle. Fumbled blindly for it.
And if she left, if he let her walk out …
Yrene pushed down on the handle.
And Chaol took a step toward her.
CHAPTER
39
Chaol did not think.
He did not marvel at the sensation of being so high. At the weight of his body, the sway of it as he took that staggering step.
There was only Yrene, and her hand on the doorknob, and the tears in her furious, lovely eyes. The most beautiful he’d ever seen.
They widened as he took that step toward her.
As he lurched and swayed. But he managed another.
Yrene stumbled toward him, studying him from head to toe, a hand rising to cover her open mouth. She stopped a few feet away.
He hadn’t realized how much smaller she was. How delicate.
How—how the world looked and seemed and tasted this way.
“Don’t go,” he breathed. “I’m sorry.”
Yrene surveyed him again, from his feet to his face. Tears slipped down her cheeks as she tipped her head back.
“I’m sorry,” Chaol said again.
Still she did not speak. Tears only rolled and rolled.
“I meant none of it,” he rasped, his knees beginning to ache and buckle, his thighs trembling. “I was spoiling for a fight and—I meant none of it, Yrene. None of it. And I’m sorry.”
“A kernel of it must have been in you, though,” she whispered.
Chaol shook his head, the motion making him sway. He gripped the back of a stuffed armchair to stay upright. “I meant it about myself. What you have done, Yrene, what you are willing to still do … You did this—all this not for glory or ambition, but because you believe it is the right thing to do. Your bravery, your cleverness, your unfaltering will … I do not have words for it, Yrene.”
Her face did not change.
“Please, Yrene.”
He reached for her, risking a staggering, wobbling step.