The Adani Chronicles: Birthright
Chapter 24

She was held captive by icy chains, shivering in a cutting wind.

The Beast stood before her, wearing Evin’s face with those hideous red eyes, grinning maniacally. The expression made her howl with rage and despair when written on her friend’s handsome features. “You thought you could cheat death for the Son of Signy, did you, pretty thing?” Not-Evin laughed. “It matters not. He is dead now, and Kota too. Evin has taken his place at his father’s side. I have won.”

Images assaulted her; she could not close her eyes:

Brandt, gasping for breath through a lung punctured by three arrows...

Kota’s body, broken on the rocks of a dead valley, ugly gray-skinned nagrat stabbing into his flesh with their crude knives, preparing him for butchering...she stopped breathing, a second scream ripping itself from her throat at the sight...

Evin kneeling before her, blood streaming down his chest from a severed throat as he begged her, “Ryn, help me....please help me....”

And above it all, the Beast’s arrogant, lazy laugh echoed.

Faintly, someone called her name. Was it her name? She couldn’t remember anymore. But the voice was warm, forcing a throb from her frozen solid heart and melting the ice around her wrists and ankles...

“Ryn, I’m here. I’m here and I’m not going to leave you.”

Who...?

It didn’t really matter, anything was better than the monster’s laugh.

She welcomed the blackness that descended, exhausted and grieving.

Ryn first became aware she was fighting to regain consciousness on the frayed edge of a horrible vision.

Mama, Papa, Talos, their home...so much death, everywhere.

You’re dreaming.

Evin, Brandt, Kota...they lay before her, blood pooling beneath them; but Evin was stirring weakly....

She had to heal him! But she could not; her power failed him, her grasp on the magic slipping at the wrong moment, a victorious Râza crowing his triumph over her friend’s broken body.

Wake up!

She sat bolt upright, gasping, surrounded by darkness. There was a tiny lamp in the dark room, giving off a bit of light, and she was swathed in blankets on a bed. Kota was awake beside her, blinking slowly as he lay at her side, and her eyes filled with tears at the sight of him whole and hale.

He’s alive, he’s not broken and dead at the bottom of a ravine, nagrat crowing in delight at their victory, at their kill...

She shoved the thought away, throwing her arms around the warm lynx and letting loose a cry of sheer joy. Kota purred loudly, licking her shoulder and nuzzling her head as she held him close. He crawled into her lap, almost knocking her over but she refused to let go, tears wetting his fur.

“Gods, Ryn, you’re alive!” someone croaked, voice breaking. Ryn looked up to see Evin’s—thank Aeos, golden—eyes blazing before he folded her in a hard hug that stole her breath away. She let him, too happy he was alive and well to protest. Besides, he was warmer even than Kota, and she was freezing. After several long seconds, he pulled back and held her at arm’s length, choking on something she wasn’t sure wasn’t a sob. “You’re all right!”

She nodded, heart still pounding as the nightmares of the last days dissipated slowly. The movement made her dizzy and she swayed. “Brandt?”

Evin shushed her gently as he supported her neck, pressing her to lie back down. “Brandt is fine,” he answered. “We feared you might not be, though. You were completely unconscious for seven days, Ryn. What did you do?”

She swallowed and moaned, pain making itself known now that she was awake. “He was dying. I couldn’t…let…I…healed him.”

Evin nodded, absently stroking her cheek. It felt soothing, so Ryn didn’t slap his hand away like she might have normally. “You did, but at what cost to yourself?”

“Does it matter?” she asked, fixing him with a piercing glare—as piercing a glare as she could manage, anyway. Evin shifted uncomfortably. She narrowed her eyes when he didn’t answer immediately. “What’s going on, Evin?”

Her friend didn’t say anything for a long time, staring hard at the rough wood floor beneath his feet. After a few moments he took a shaking breath. “Brandt lied to me,” he said quietly, and when he looked up, his eyes were hard. “For years, he lied to me. He knew...that...about me and he never said a damned thing!” A muscle in his jaw clenched and unclenched quickly as the prince tried to control his rampaging emotions. Ryn felt her heart sink—she’d expected this, and it couldn’t have happened in a worse way.

“He was trying to protect you—”

“Don’t defend him!” Evin nearly shouted. He stood and paced the floor furiously. “I can’t, Ryn, don’t you see? I can’t go back there now. I can’t ever…face them, not after knowing…and he never even said!” She was stunned into silence, and he sat again with a sigh a moment later. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t burden you with all this immediately after you wake. Are you thirsty?”

She was incredibly thirsty, but she wanted to address this. She took a breath to say something more, but when he turned back with her cup of water, his eyes were so sad she couldn’t bring herself to mention it again. She set the offered cup aside when he sat down on the edge of her pallet and laid a hand on his stubbled face. Tears ran over his cheeks and her fingers, and she whispered his name but could think of no other comforts. Words seemed cheap, so she let him hold her and weep for his lost innocence, for the horrific crime against his mother, for the pain of betrayal by a brother.

She hoped beyond hope he could someday replace it in his heart to understand Brandt’s impossible situation and forgive him. These two were far too close to consider the alternative. It would break them both.

Ryn squeezed Evin a little closer at the thought, suppressing a shiver—of cold or despair, she could not say.

Ryn’s recovery was long and painful. It turned out giving one’s own life force to heal another was rather a trauma, she thought wryly. At first, she could barely sit up for more than a few minutes at a time. Her temperature ran blistering hot to terribly cold and she suffered severe dizzy spells as her body struggled to regain its equilibrium.

Five days after waking, she was able to stand, for a moment. Three days after that she took her first, halting steps in the middle of the night when she refused to wake Evin to get her a cup of water. She got the water, though she spilled it all over herself and ended up having to wake him anyway to help her back to bed.

It was two and a half weeks before she was able to travel; their party moved slowly as they left Retwood amongst much pomp and circumstance—the townsfolk were overjoyed at the defeat of The Beast and shocked to discover they had sheltered their princes unawares.

Evin and Brandt followed the great road back to Sannfold—no need for secrecy now. The princes were returning triumphant, with the Beast dead and the Crest of the Vaeärne in hand, and word spread quickly. They were treated with respect and decency the entire way back, given free accommodations and meals, paraded through the streets of small towns as they worked their way back west. Both men made sure Ryn and Kota received the same treatment they did at every stop.

But all was not well within their little party. Evin was still painfully distant from Brandt, who seemed to have slipped into something of a depression after the wreckage the Beast had inflicted. His head pained him often, and Ryn, thinking she had done a shoddy job healing him back in the Beast’s manse, insisted upon examining him the moment she was strong enough. She was shocked to replace his aura fractured and sharp, the colors of his life force subdued in a way that bothered her, though she could replace no evidence of physical injury; she didn’t say anything to him, but she realized she was looking at a literally broken man. She snuck a look at Evin’s aura that night as she tucked herself into her bedroll and wasn’t surprised to replace his looked much the same, except with more sharp edges. Evin was angry, deeply angry, and his moments with Brandt were filled with awkward silences and pained undercurrents, nothing like the journey east had been, even at its worst moments.

The night before they were to reach Sannfold, Evin came to Ryn outside the inn as she watched the sun set and let the last of its warmth soak into her skin. She’d had trouble getting truly, pleasantly warm since her near death, and she relished every bit of heat she could get. She ran her fingers mournfully over her shieldenstone, feeling her skin catch over the new ragged edges where red-purple crystals peeked through. Evin sat beside her on the grass, pressing his leather-clad shoulder to hers. Ryn tensed for a moment, but when he didn’t move, she relaxed. They sat like that for several minutes. Evin placed a hand over Ryn’s on the head of her staff.

“Your stone?” he asked. Ryn swallowed the lump in her throat.

“It cracked when I…in the Beast’s lair,” she answered, carefully glossing over the details of Brandt’s healing. She hadn’t told her friends about stealing from her own life force; she didn’t expect Evin—or Brandt, for that matter—would respond to news like that very well. She was sure the broken stone and pouring her own life into someone else were related.

Kenelm would kill her.

“Does it still work?” Evin’s question took her by surprise a little; she wasn’t used to someone…caring. She nodded.

“I think so. I checked on Brandt’s health with my Sight the other day and it worked just fine.”

Evin nodded and squeezed her hand, letting go with a sigh. They sat in silence for a few moments, letting the birdsong fill the quiet. After a while, Evin stirred.

“I’m not going home,” he confessed softly. Ryn sat up and twisted to look at him.

“What?”

“I’m not going back to Sannfold,” he confirmed. “I cannot do it, not yet. I need time.”

She thought for a moment, then asked, “Where will you go?”

He looked lost.

“Come with me,” she offered. “We make a good team, you and me and Kota.” And Brandt, she wanted to add, but thought that might not help the situation. Evin nodded.

“I would like that.”

“I have to stop in Sannfold first,” she said. “Meet me by the big oak south of the city, at the foot of Mount Aldnast, in three days. We will go south together.”

He was gone in the morning, Kota with him. Ryn had sent the lynx to guard him until they met again. She and Brandt continued at daybreak, joining the foot traffic that led into the largest city in Laendor. It wasn’t long before Brandt was recognized, and an impromptu parade led them to the castle, where he was greeted by his Uncle Eirik warmly.

Ryn studied the King while he embraced his nephew. He was young still, not yet in his fiftieth year, though his auburn hair was already streaked with a few light grays. His blue eyes were stern, though his lips wore a ready smile at the sight of his Heir, and his words to Brandt were warm and kind. He looked about, behind Brandt, a moment later and his brow furrowed when he did not see Evin. He looked to Brandt, question on his tongue, and the elder just shook his head.

Eirik asked no more questions, only led them all inside and ordered a great feast be prepared to celebrate the Crown Prince’s triumphant return. Ryn begged Brandt not to make her stay for that, so he escorted her to the archives and introduced her to the old, severe-looking Tomeskeeper, giving the man instruction to help her with whatever she needed. She told him the record she wished to view, and he disappeared with a swift bow.

When the man left, Brandt caught her hands in both of his own. “I will not see you again, will I?”

She forced a smile, surprised how the thought of leaving him behind made her heart ache. “You will,” she assured him, believing it. “I cannot say when, but you will.”

Brandt swallowed, eyes moving to his feet before coming back up to meet her steady gaze. She recognized his behavior as similar to the night he’d told her of Evin’s parentage, and knew he was fighting tears. His face showed nothing but naked pain as he implored her, “Guard my brother, Ryn. Guard him with your life.”

On impulse, Ryn pulled him to her with all her strength. “You know I will.” She kissed his cheek, then turned as the Tomeskeeper arrived again.

When she looked back, Brandt was gone.