“Derrick!” I was on my knees, begging him not to go. “You have to stop. If they find out you are with the rebels after the attack at Montfort—” They will kill him.
“You are going to have to tell them to stop me.” My brother’s jaw clenched, and I saw he was no longer just the boy I had helped raise, but a man. “I will keep searching. Because one of us has to. And if you turn me in—and I don’t think you will—you will have to deal with my blood on your hands. And you can live your life knowing you betrayed your own brother. And when Alex and our parents cripple in despair, you will know it was you who did it. It will be you who destroyed your life.”
****
I stumbled to my chambers—but before I did I made sure to dry my eyes. To clean my face. To brush the straw from my breeches. To hold my head up high and smile as I passed the regular patrol of guards.
As soon as I had reached my chamber I threw the door shut and fell to my bed, a muffled scream into the mattress beneath. I hated Derrick. I hated him for using my love against me. He knew I would never betray him to the Crown, and even if his tasks now were innocent enough, I would not be able to protect him if he got caught.
Why? Why does it have to be my brother who gets involved in this scheme? I hated Commander Nyx. Ian. HOW DARE HE TRY TO CONVERT ME! Ray. All of those angry soldiers at the keep. Jacob. Myself. Why couldn’t Derrick have been more like Alex? Why did he have to be like me?
I hated every last one of them. I hated Derrick for asking me to choose. Because by asking me, he had known I would choose him. He knew I wouldn’t betray him to Darren. Because I couldn’t betray my brother, my own flesh and blood—the little boy who I had spent all those days chasing around a field, wrestling in the mud… Which meant Darren could never betray Blayne—the brother he had seen beaten and bruised, the one he had sworn to protect. And I couldn’t count on Blayne not to condemn Derrick.
My brother had made me a traitor. And I would never, ever forgive him.
A sob escaped my lips.
“Ryiah?” There was a concerned knock at the door.
My chest squeezed until it hurt, and I had to dig my nails down into the blankets to fight back a cry. I couldn’t talk to Darren. Not now. Not while everything I knew was falling apart. My brother had forced me to pick a side. And it wasn’t Darren’s.
I held my breath and waited until he left.
Derrick had implied the one I loved could be the traitor in our midst. But he was wrong. Because deep down, I knew. If Darren had asked me to kill an evil tyrant and his brother? If he had begged? If he had told me it was all for Jerar? I would have stood by his side.
The true traitors were the rebels. Or King Horrace of Caltoth. Or perhaps the Pythian king himself.
Had I known that this was how it would be? The life of a mage of Combat, betrothed to a prince? A kingdom in ruin. And with so many loose threads, something would tear.
And when it did, it would all fall apart.
Chapter Seventeen
I had picked a side. But it didn’t mean I was willing to embrace it. I was still determined to stop my brother any way I could.
Even if it meant becoming a traitor myself.
If I find him proof, he can go back to Commander Nyx. And that was all I cared about. Because as long as he was in the palace, he was at risk. And some part of me really did want to believe what he said about King Lucius. Because after all the man had done to his sons, anything was possible.
On my three days off for each of the next two weeks, I scoured every inch of the old king’s rooms. Blayne hadn’t transitioned over to King Lucius’s chambers—after all, he was still in mourning—so nothing had yet been moved. The guards in the Crown hall only monitored its entrance, and since my chamber was a part of it, they never sought to check beyond.
I didn’t need a key. I broke the lock on the second try. Rusting the metal until it cracked with just the slightest casting necessary. No one would ever suspect a thing.
And they didn’t. Blayne was too busy in his war chambers, meeting with his board of advisors and Darren, whose counsel served to advise those in all of Combat with the other two Colored Robes following his lead. I didn’t even miss not being a part of it; it was like Derrick said, now that I had my own mission, the envy was gone. My time was too busy spent searching, silently thanking the gods for sparing my brother and me thus far.
And praying we found whatever it was we were searching for before they found us.
But I didn’t find a thing.
“The king would never keep the documents in his chambers!” Derrick admonished me one afternoon in the stables when I came to report my findings. “A man as underhanded as him? He probably burned them all.”
“Then why are you still searching?” I threw up my hands in frustration. “Why are you still here? Go back, Derrick. Go back to the keep before they catch you.” My voice broke, and I punched at the wall with my fist. “I can’t keep doing this.”