I looked at Karmuth then. His face was a carefully controlled mask I could not penetrate, but he held no such rein on his emotions. They filtered through the bond between us, making tears flood my cheeks with renewed force. The stabbing in my chest was worse than anything Lord Terwyl could have done to me.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I am so sorry.”
Chapter 42
KARMUTH
IT DIDN’T MATTER. ISAY’S DECLARATION DID NOT CHANGE A THING. She could’ve been my sister for all the difference it made in how I felt about her. I would have not looked at her differently the first day she walked into the court.
It wouldn’t have kept me from touching her. Hell, a fear of a death sentence hadn’t succeeded in that. She was my mate. She was mine. Nothing else mattered… to me.
It did matter to her, however. I saw the conflict on her face as she breathed the words, We’re related. This knowledge clearly shattered her. She believed it would keep us apart, and her reaction told me she didn’t willingly give up on us.
If she wanted me with the fervency I wanted her, there was nothing that could separate us. Certainly not this.
“Nonsense.” King Grath swiped at the air in front of him as if Isay’s statement was ludicrous. “Karmuth is no blood relation of yours. Any connection there is, is superficial and irrelevant.”
The king had no idea about the force that awakened within me, however. He did not know of my extended access to ecos. The way I used it was so similar to Isay’s abilities. Her words did not sound preposterous to me. She had a life fae in her bloodline, so did I. Mine was not a close relative; it couldn’t be. My parents were a death fae and an emotion-feeder. The connection, as King Grath put it, had to be superficial. But how could the king know? He couldn’t. And Isay pointed that out in a fierce shout.
“You don’t know that! She felt it in my ecos. She told me about Heriot.”
I wish she’d look at me. I wanted her to see that none of it mattered to me. We could make our own rules. We could get past this. She did not look at me, however. Her gaze flipped between her mother next to her and the king on the throne. The name Heriot said nothing to me, but Grath seemed to know the man. Or know of him.
“Who did, my darling girl?” the king asked.
“Elia.” Isay’s voice hitched. “Karmuth’s mother.”
My heart stopped. The whole world stopped. I really needed Isay to look at me, but she stared at the throne, her throat bobbing and her lips quivering. My mother had been at the warehouse, and she’d talked to Isay. My mother was an emotion-feeder, then. My father would be a death fae.
Was she a bad person? Had she played a part in Isay’s torture? Is this why Isay looked this horrified? She couldn’t be… I wouldn’t accept it. My mother had not harmed Isay.
“You met her then? How is she?”
“Dead. Everyone who was with Lord Terwyl is dead.”
No.
The ray of hope that had ignited in my heart snuffed out. I would never know who my mother had been. Everyone who was with Lord Terwyl was dead. Everyone in the warehouse…
She’d been there. She had been right there.
My hands shook as I tried to remember every face I’d looked into before I sent them to oblivion. They all blurred together and were covered in a bright red hue of my wrath. None of them looked familiar, not that I believed I could’ve picked her out of the crowd. I’d never seen her before in my life.
But if Isay knew she was dead, that meant she’d seen—
No! No, it couldn’t have been. NO! The woman in her cell. I didn’t see her, didn’t really look at her at all. Isay had screamed, though. She’d begged me to stop.
I wasn’t able to breathe through the sharp spikes in my heart. My throat was so tight it felt like someone was choking me. I was choking on the pain coursing through my soul. Gritting my teeth, I forced myself not to react, not to fall my knees under the pressure collecting in my guts.
I was merely a warrior doing my duty. I was a soldier. The rest… was history. It was done, there was no going back. I couldn’t go back. Couldn’t go back to fix this.
“I’m sorry,” Isay whispered. “I am so sorry.”
My knees hit the ground then. My feet could not carry the weight settled on my chest any longer. There was no amount of strength that could have kept me standing.
I realised Isay hadn’t looked at me because she saw the monster in me. She saw all of my flaws and mistakes and was repulsed by it.
Our relations didn’t matter, my actions did. I was too mortified to keep our eye contact now that she’d sought my reaction. I brought my hands up, hiding my face.
I didn’t see what was happening, couldn’t care less. All I could focus on was the squeezing of my heart, the trampling of thousands of delthers in my veins. There was no coming back from killing your own mother. There was no redemption for that.
No matter my apologies, I could not justify my actions. The words ‘I didn’t know’ stood no ground in front of the jury; they were worthless.
I startled when a heavy hand rested on my shoulder. I hadn’t even heard the footsteps.
“My son, you hold no blame in this,” a sorrowful voice uttered quietly, the king’s voice. “I own the blame. All of it. Let go of your guilt, Karmuth.”
He didn’t know what he was asking of me. The guilt was my only redeeming attribute in front of Isay, who’d seen me kill the woman that had given me life.
If there was anything that could earn me her condonation, it was the blame shoving me to the ground.
“I cannot do that, Your Majesty.”
The hand on my shoulder squeezed. “Son, look at me.”
A command I couldn’t defy no matter how leniently it was issued. Dropping my palms, I raised my head to meet the king’s face.
He held no maliciousness, no fury. Two dark grey eyes filled with anguish met my own, and an understanding passed between us. He did believe he was at fault. Isay’s kidnapping, my mother’s death, all of it was his fault, and he openly admitted to it.
