Weakness

Weakness
Amval

I crouch on the floor of my cell, watching through the bars and ignoring the persistent ache of my wounded leg. Heels click along the stone floor—yes, there is the third round, again. There are three soldiers down here with me now, I’m sure of it.

And none of them are Yasa or Pak. Those two, Kaloni made sure to take with her.

Just thinking her name twists a knife in my gut. She truly did this. Arranged it all. She looked at Mother and Father and thought they were weak. That she had a better path, one she could only pave with their blood.

Theirs–and mine.

The soldier making the first round returns again, sharp and precise. If I snapped a breeze out fast enough, I could trip him and snatch the jingling keys off his belt. But there is a stalagmite jutting out of the ground right where he would fall. Visions of blood and viscera, brains splattered on grass still my hand. Kaloni wants to paint the world with blood. I need to find another way. Without Yasa and Pak here, I can’t even be sure these men know who they’re guarding. My hair has grown long in the long weeks under the veil, and I did not shave my beard while in the cave. Wearing a filthy prisoner’s robe, I could be any cutpurse or liar. Trying to convince them of my identity is a waste of breath. It doesn’t matter that I know every one of their names.

Except in that it makes the idea of splattering them over the stone that much more sickening.

But my mark throbs with an urgent need to escape. There’s no light down here, no way of telling time. All I know is that Ingrid’s wedding is coming, and if I am not there, she has no plan.

Goddess above, does she even know that I’ve been captured? Did she visit me and find an empty cave? I reach through the nothingness between us, trying to force the knowledge that I am alive, that I am coming for her, through impassible air.

Joli joked that she ought to sneak a holy woman out to wed us in the cave so we could all communicate. I have never more resented failing to listen to my youngest sister.

I roll back to sit, my leg still screaming from the deep bite, and survey what I have. A silver manacle, trapping me in this form. A reeking bucket in the corner that I don’t much want to investigate. A wooden board of a bed, chained to the wall. As many pebbles as I could want. Nothing that I can use without hurting a trio of soldiers who have done nothing but obey their Luna, as they should.

The second round does not pass by. I twist, my heart leaping. A mistake? A rescue attempt?

“Oh, this is worth being late,” Corwyn says as he steps into view at the front of my cell.

“With a smirk that large,” I reply, “I’m surprised the weight of your swollen head doesn’t topple you right over.”

His smirk sours. “Some people just never know when they’ve been humbled.”

I chuckle in his face, hearing the harmony of laughter I know Ingrid would share if she were here. “The mirror might show you another.”

“Those fools would never have been able to pull it off without that ridiculous mate bond you all cling to.” He sneers at me. “She ruined you, you know? You used to know respect, at least.”

I straighten to my full height, all princely bearing as my father taught me. “Ingrid taught me respect is only worth the trouble with those who deserve it. A bastard like you does not.”

“Silence.” His hand flashes to the ruby-encrusted dagger at his belt, and I realize that, for the first time since he reappeared within the walls of Som Palace, Corwyn is wearing noble finery. The crest of house Hajni covers him in intricate embroidery.

And, I realize as my gut drops, he’s wearing Som colors. His very outfit is a declaration of loyalty. Moonlight Beach won’t have him, not after everything he did to them, but my fucking sister will.

“I will scream from the stars themselves if I can.” I stride up to the bars, unafraid. “Corwyn Hajni is an asshole!. He couldn’t earn a kingdom, so he tried to steal one, and he couldn’t even—”

Corwyn seizes me by the throat, choking the words to death on my last gasp of air. My pounding headache returns, dancing from temple to temple.

“You stumbled into a throne you could never dream to deserve,” he hisses. “From the day I met you, I knew you were going to be a weak king. Conciliatory, unable to stand on your own two feet without asking someone if those were really the two they thought you ought to use. Perhaps I failed—but I fucking tried something. What have you done?”

Answers pound the drums for my dancing headache, too busy to reach my gasping tongue. I claw at his hand, but the silver holds me back from any real shredding, keeps me weak.

With a sneer, Corwyn drops me. “Kaloni is right. It’s better for Lightning Cape that you die here, forgotten.”

I gasp in a lungful of mildew-stained air as he strides away. My chest burns, my head worse. He beat me on the beach. He beat me here, without even drawing that blade I know he can’t use, or at least couldn’t until recently. He snuck into my palace under my very nose—every carriage passed through the stables, and I didn’t so much as spot him. And Kaloni….

Kaloni played me for a fool. More than three years ago, we retook the palace. She has hated me for more than three years, my own sister, and I never noticed. I just plunged forward, business as usual. If she was around less, well, so was everyone. We had a whole palace to spread out in. If she never appeared with exactly the idea I needed, I had other advisors. If she never gave me the permission I didn’t realize I was waiting to choose for myself, I didn’t need it.

I roll onto my back and stare up at the stone ceiling. These weeks since my death have proven over and over again what a worthless king I would’ve been. Ingrid proved that I have no policies I want to enact on my own. I refused leadership in the stables and forced Nur to give it to Tek instead. I refused to see the wisdom my own mate was handing to me because I didn’t like what it implied.

With a sour stab of pain, I realize Corwyn and Kaloni are correct. Lightning Cape is better off without me. They need a king with new ideas. Brave ones. Father was a good king, but he wanted too much to stay the same or return to how it was. My kingdom deserves to grow, to truly be reborn in our freedom. And I don’t have those ideas. Not now. Perhaps not ever.

Much too late, the second patrol comes by. Aydolun walks with a slight limp, his left knee damaged in a fight early on in King Gavin’s rule. I couldn’t mistake him for the third patrol if I wanted to.

That’s the kind of king you should be, Ingrid says in my memory. Someone who looks out for their friends, she meant.

I think she was wrong about that. When I thought about my policies, I could only think about the Festival of First Wind. Something small and personal. A king needs to see the whole map, think about everyone without personal feelings getting in the way. And no matter what Mother and Father tried, they never taught me how to do that.

Late. Corwyn said he was going to be late—but for what? Those clothes outstrip anything he would need for all but the most formal occasions.

Like a royal wedding.

Achingly, I sit up. I am not the kind of king Lightning Cape needs—but my people are not the only reason I need to escape this cell. Somewhere else in this palace, my mate is about to marry someone else.

Lightning Cape doesn’t need me to stop that.

I do.

The wind struggles to my call with the silver still clamped around my wrist, but I clench my teeth and channel every iota of power I have ever possessed.

The third patrol, Ekca, is approaching.

For the first time in my life, I unleash the full storm roaring inside me. In a single blast of wind, the stone my manacle is embedded into explodes into nothing but gravel.

“What the–” Ekca’s boot lands in front of my cell.

I launch myself forward, a whip of wind exploding out of my palm. It bands his ankle rather than tripping him and yanks him up.

“Hey—!”

I rip his voice out of his throat.

Ekca hangs, silent and bug-eyed, from the ceiling. I reach up and snatch the keys dangling off his belt. A few tries find the right one for my cell. I unlock it, drag him inside by a snare of wind, and dart out. He mouths furious words as I lock him inside.

I turn down the hallway with the ring of keys on my hip. I cage up two more soldiers before I so much as escape the dungeon.

Tomorrow, I’ll give them a rest, time with the healer, whatever they need.

Today, Ingrid needs me.