CHAPTER 75

ELLIE

“I can’t do this, El. I can’t be king. I can’t…”

Evander paces back and forth in our bedroom, the ichor from the battle still staining both our clothes. The putrid scent fills my nostrils, making me ill. The odor keeps bringing me back to the courtyard, to the devastation.

The king’s body mauled by the beast, the feel of my father-in-law’s hair against my fingers as I wrenched the crown from his corpse.

Asha once told me she often vomited when she was feeling anxious.

I thought it an unfortunate affliction at the time, but now I wish I could. Wish my stomach would relieve me of at least some of the weight I carry.

Cecilia coos as I rock her. My arms shake with the weight of lugging the sword up over my head and into the monster’s neck as I hacked away.

That scent again.

But I hold my child, my child who is safe and fast asleep, undisturbed by the uprooting of life as we knew it.

My arms tremble, but I hold her all the same.

“Evander.” His name feels limp on my tongue, mostly because it seems like such an empty thing to say to him, my husband, who just watched his father slaughtered before his very eyes, whose mother’s screams still echo in both our ears. Peck gave her a draft to put her to sleep a half hour ago, after she worked herself into such devastation, he’d worried for her sanity.

She’ll wake to the same amount of pain, but I’m glad for her. For the short reprieve she’s currently receiving in slumber.

Evander receives none of it.

I watch, helpless, as my husband paces back and forth, muttering to himself and rubbing the back of his neck.

I don’t know what to say. What I even could say. In the heat of the moment, when I watched Evander’s body go into shock at the sight of his father’s mangled corpse, when I heard the whisperings of the crowd, heard Evander’s awful cousin Casper daring to sound pleased as he bragged to his mother… In that moment, I knew exactly what to do.

There’d been no doubt in my mind as I hacked the crown away from that awful creature’s jaws, ichor spraying me in the process. There was no wondering if I was doing the right thing.

No, there’d been a quiet voice in my ear, my mother’s, telling me that sometimes, respect grows or withers from the esteem or lack thereof of those closest to someone.

So I gritted my teeth and willed myself not to vomit, and I placed the crown upon Evander’s head.

And then I kneeled, hoping, praying the people would follow.

There was a single moment of unease when I failed to hear their knees bend. But then Evangeline, Fates bless her, followed me. And Orion. And even Peck. And soon the entire crowd followed my lead.

And then…

And then I realized I didn’t know what would come next.

I faintly heard Peck command a few of the guards to help with Evander’s mother, and then Orion had been by my and Evander’s sides, rushing us away before the shock from the crowd could fade, before they could bombard us with questions.

Somehow, we ended up here, both in a shocked haze, Evander more so.

Collins had brought me Cecilia, and we’ve been sitting here ever since, Evander pacing, me rocking back and forth, as much for my own soothing as Cecilia’s.

“Evander,” I say again, gesturing wearily toward the bathroom with my head. “Let me help you get out of those clothes.”

Evander stops, still stunned as he looks down at the mingled silver and scarlet blood that coats him. I rise from the chair, setting Cecilia in her crib and squeezing her little hand gently before I go to him, helping him out of his bloodstained garments.

“This should have been Jerad.” Evander’s hair is still wet from the bath. He sits on the edge of the bed next to me, staring out the window, into the distance. His thumb rubs absentmindedly across the slick silver of the crown resting on his knee.

It aches, seeing my carefree husband like this. I’ve seen him mourn, seen him terrified. I watched him tremble when I went into labor and neither of us thought Cecilia would survive.

But Cecilia did survive.

I haven’t watched Evander lose someone yet. Not really.

It’s not the first time he’s lost someone, I realize. I imagine my husband a few years ago, stumbling upon the body of his brother, dead at the bottom of a ravine after a night of Evander pushing drinks upon him.

He’s always considered it his own fault. Is that how he feels about his father’s death? And is it harder, losing someone you were close to, or losing someone you had longed to be close to, but never were?

“This should have been Jerad’s,” Evander says, ripping the crown off his lap and throwing it across the room, before burying his face in his hands. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t.”

The baby starts crying.

“Why did you do it? Why give me the crown?” Evander asks, anguish dripping from his eyes.

“Because,” I say carefully, “it’s yours.”

“I don’t want it.”

“We don’t always get to choose the responsibilities that are handed to us.”

He huffs. “You act as if you’re not the one who handed it to me.”

I jerk my head back, tears stinging at my eyes.

Guilt washes over his face, and he reaches across the sheets for my hand. “I’m sorry, El. I shouldn’t…You were spectacular back there. I don’t know how you do it.”

“How I do what?”

“How you always know exactly what to do.”

I lean into him, tucking my cheek into his shoulder. The aftermath of his words still stings, but the sorrow in his eyes at hurting me is genuine. “The trick is looking like you know exactly what to do.”

“Well, you had me convinced.”

I tuck my face into his warmth. “It’s all in the shoulders.”

“El?”

“Yes?”