A Baron of Bonds (Conduit of Light #2)

20. Karus

Chapter 20

Karus

“Sing to me of the sweet, blue sea.

Sing to me of Hyrithia.

Whisper to me of the grass that’s green.

Whisper to me of Hyrithia.

In the fields of wheat and grain,

Through the halls of the castle,

I did find what I’d choose to claim,

As my love for Hyrithia.”

The song of our childhood returned to my lips easily in the very room I had slept in countless times. The Prince’s enormous bed, carved from the wood of an oak tree, still groaned at the foot, and the notches from our rough play as children, were still embedded in the four carved posters.

His room was unkempt, reeking of wine and stale clothes. I sighed heavily into his dark coils while he slept off his drunkenness. I continued to hum the song we would sing as children when we had little to no comprehension of the futures which awaited us.

Philius and I had been inseparable as children, and though we fought just as much as blood siblings did, we also grew together in our formative years as best friends, learning about our world side by side.

That all changed when Queen Rina had begun to raise us differently. By the time we had both turned seventeen, the Prince was off to parties and balls with the wealthy people of Hyrithia. There, he would make connections and learn what it was to be royal. His future daughter, after all, would someday become queen.

I had been put to use.

I was to help with the fires in the castle and tend to the fruit trees in the Queen’s gardens. We drifted apart, and that’s when Geyrand and I had grown in our own bond. Both of us were suddenly taken from our greatest friend, and we had found comfort in each other’s company.

Now, as I gently slid out from under Philius’s arm, I pulled his covers up over his chest. I paused at his hands, studying the black lengths of his fingers that melded into his mahogany wrists, the obsidian lines working their way up his arms.

If Heimlen was somehow still alive, I would kill him myself.

Seven years later, he remained the villain of my story as well as so many others. I only hoped the people of Hyrithia knew the truth of their “Savior”.

I kissed the top of the Prince’s head and left. I did not know how he lived his current life, but I could guess at it. That was a conversation he and I would have when he was rested. For now, I had a queen to subdue.

Queen Rina and her captain were waiting outside of his room as I closed the door quietly and breathed deeply. I turned to face her. Only the three of us stood in the hallway with the edge of night forcing its way through the great windows in their gilded frames.

“Where is Baron Revich?” I asked, feigning a vigor I did not feel.

“He is in his rooms,” the Queen answered, watching me with careful observance.

“Not a cell, then?” I knew I should not start this conversation in such a way, but my patience with this entire situation had grown irreversibly thin.

“You will remember who you address, Karus of Felgren.” Captain Yarah stepped closer, moving in front of the Queen with a sharp glare.

“Leave us, captain.”

The woman showed the slightest bit of indignation before storming off down the hall, leaving the Queen of Hyrithia and I to whatever came next.

“Karus,” she spoke softly, but firmly, as if trying out the sound on her tongue.

I nodded slowly and moved from the door, stepping closer to the woman who raised me, sheltered me, hid me from the world, and hid my potential from myself.

I wondered then if I still loved her.

I wondered if what had broken between us could ever be mended.

In all of our time apart, we had both faced the world and its adversities, confronting decisions and circumstances out of our control.

Behind the door lay her sleeping son, before her stood her adopted daughter. I was much changed from the one she gave to the man who had hurt her children and her people.

I had convinced myself she didn’t know. I had been assured at the time of my own discovery of Heimlen’s heinous deeds that the Queen did not know the origins of the Black Fever that had ravaged its way through her city.

But as we stood there together, silent in the royal chamber hall, I was not so sure. She held a painful, guilty expression and before anything else was spoken, I needed the truth.

“Did you know?”

She stiffened, opening her plum painted lips slightly and raising her chin. “Did I know what, Karus?”

“Did you know what Heimlen had done?”

“This is not the way to begin this conversation.”

I shook my head in disbelief and spoke slowly, “You gave me to the man that killed thousands of your people. It is a simple question to answer. Did you know at the time of my departure from Hyrithia that he was the one who had created and spread the Black Fever?”

Her jaw clenched. “The Prince would have died.”

“ I would have died.” I stepped forward, my hands shaking. “I was seconds away from dying that night in Felgren.”

“I was deceived by the misinformation of your death. I have been living with this guilt of sending you to a monster for the last seven years, and this is how you greet me? This is how you speak to me, knowing I have suffered greatly at my decision to save my son and send you away, hoping with every piece of a mother’s heart that you would survive under Heimlen’s rule?”

My lips trembled and my eyes welled with burning tears. “ You sent me to my death. My life as a sacrifice was Heimlen’s only intention for my power in Felgren.” I scoffed and pulled my sleeve under my nose. “And you would put to trial the man who saved me. You would condemn and judge the very person who stopped me just in time from destroying myself. The man I love and will bind my life to. You say you were deceived; I say we both were saved. Without Revich, I would not be here today before you with my memories returned and my head clear of its darkest spaces.”

“He lied. He claimed you were dead. If he was so noble and good, he would not have deceived your mother, your brother. Look at what has become of Philius. Look at what Revich’s treason has left in its wake. Open your eyes, Karus. Your love for him is irrelevant to the damage he has caused.”

“You blame him for the state of your son?” My blood was heating, my anger showing itself, pricking my fingers in a green glow. “And what of the state of your daughter? Who do you blame for that? What punishment do you place upon yourself for giving me away to a man who was willing to murder?”

“I had no choice.”

I laughed, wiping my cheeks. “I see that, My Queen. I see that it was my life or his, and that was no choice at all.”

I took a deep breath, shaking my head. “ Revich had no choice. He knew that if he told you the truth, you would have fought with all you had to bring me back to Hyrithia. And then where would I be? What state would I have continued to be away from him?”

“He—”

“He saved me. He saved me from Heimlen, he saved me from myself, and he saved me from you.” I stepped closer and spat my next words. “You will cease this trial, you will make amends with the Baron of Felgren, and you will tell the world of what he has done.”

“The trial will?—”

“The trial will not commence!” My voice echoed through the hall in a visible glow of emerald light. “You will meet with the leaders of Arcaynen and tell them you were mistaken. You will relate our story, and they will welcome Revich as the Baron of Felgren who is good, and powerful, and leads with the intention of making this isle a better place for all who live in it.”

She swallowed roughly and steadied her breath. “You have much changed. I see that you did not heed my lessons of self-sufficiency.”

“No, I did not, and I stand before you now, stronger because of it.”

She placed a hand on my cheek, a single tear sliding down her face. “I will think on your words. There is much you have yet to know.” She stepped away and quickly wiped the tear from her chin. “Now get some rest. Baron Revich sleeps next to your old room.”

Turning quickly, she grabbed her gold satin skirts and swept down the hall in dismissal.

I did not watch her go.

I had somewhere to be.

I slipped silently through the castle, turning corners and winding my way down stairs, not bothering to reminisce on my childhood home. My heart pounded through my chest at the thought of being alone with him, and I began to run, passing servants who lit the sconces and lit my way to the only future I would ever choose.

I rounded the corner of the guest room hall and saw his back. His head was bent, one hand in his pocket, the other at his neck as he paced before the bedchamber doors.

“Rev,” I whispered, breathless and on the brink of being the happiest woman alive at the sight of my lover waiting for me in the dark.

Nothing could compare.

He turned as I ran toward him, lifting me as our bodies collided, no words said or needed as our lips touched for the thousandth time.

And for the thousandth time, the world stood still. He in my arms, me in his and it was just us two. Just our souls living as one, living in the peace of knowing that this was right, that this was good, and needed, and the most powerful thing we could ever wield.

I didn’t want to dwell on what I’d just learned. I didn’t want to ruin the moment of happiness on his face with talk of how the mother who raised me knew she sent me to a monster.

So, in the true nature of myself, I said nothing.

He pushed me against the stone wall, and I slid from his lips, moving my head back for air in an attempt at clarity for my thoughts.

He pushed his body against mine, harder, his tongue finding its way across my throat in the promise of the pleasure to come.

“Rev?” I questioned, working so hard to keep myself from falling into that place where time did not move as he moved inside me.

“Yes?” he replied, hearing my inquiry and choosing to listen and work at the same time, gently unbuttoning the top two brass buttons on my frilly gown.

He was a talented lover, I’d be the first to admit. He kept me poised against the wall with one arm slung underneath me, while working his way down my dress with the other, all the while brushing kisses across my collarbone and neck.

“I don’t want to wait any longer,” I breathed, pulling him closer while trying to explain my actual intentions for the night.

He chuckled, “Neither do I.” And moved back to my mouth, his hand now sliding up my skirts instead.

“What I mean is,” I mumbled on his lips, realizing I had not been very clear. “I don’t want to wait to become companions. Tonight,” I finished before I was past the point of coherent thought. “I want our ceremony to be tonight.”

He finally understood my words and pulled his face back to beam at me. His smile would slowly kill me—death by suffocation, for I could hardly breathe in the presence of it.

“I love you,” he stated simply.

It was my turn to grin stupidly, laughing in the perfect state of bliss underneath him.

He let me slide down from the wall and pressed his forehead to mine. “Alright,” he murmured, getting down to the basics of our task. “I cannot leave the castle. And we need conduit magic to complete the ceremony.” He lifted his head and looked down the hall in deep thought, pushing both of his hands flat against the stone wall behind me. He leaned forward and spoke while I stared in awe of the beautiful creature I was gladly trapped under. “Of course, Clairannia will attempt to skin me alive if she misses it…” He looked back to me, smirking. “She probably knows how to do it, too.”

I shook my head. “I don’t care. She can skin us both, but later. After we are companions.” I stroked his smooth face, my thumb brushing his lips as he kissed it. “We have my magic. We have all the magic of the Baron of Felgren. We don’t need a conduit and we don’t need to wait.” I straightened my spine and kissed him gently. “No more, Rev. We’ve waited long enough.”

He took my hand and held his lips to the bend of my fingers, kissing my conduit ring and nodding. “I’ll take this.” He slipped the teardrop emerald from my finger and turned me around, guiding me to the door of my old room.

“What’s your plan, Baron Revich?” I giggled, as he opened the door and gently pushed me into the place I used to call my own.

“I’ll meet you back here in one hour. Bathe, dress, I don’t care—I’d bond my heart to yours either way.”

I laughed and began unbuttoning my dress even more, teasing him as I backed away from the door and further into the room.

“You’re exquisite, Karus, but your attempts to lure me further into this room are in vain. For I, the Baron of Felgren, have a task to complete of the utmost importance.”

I nodded, leaving the front of my dress half opened, the soft curve of my breasts teasing what I knew he struggled to resist. Placing my hands behind my back and stepping forward to him in the doorway, I whispered, “I await your return then, my love.” I kissed his lips gently and slow, suddenly cursing myself for stopping what a part of me cared solely about.

He held the sides of my face, his tongue easing its way into my mouth to caress mine, and then mumbled, “I lied. I shall never leave this room if I do not leave now.”

I laughed on his lips and lightly pushed him back, beginning to close the door. “I’ll see you in one hour. You’d better not be late.”

He took the door handle and murmured as he closed it, “Don’t worry, I won’t be.”